This is Life

One thing I’ve figured out in the last 36 years is, “This is Life.”  Today.  Right now.  There’s no waiting for a family, a promotion, a bigger house, another move.  My life started 36 years ago and it continues on every day… for as long as it lasts.

I took some time away from Facebook recently.  I was actually in a relationship.  Long-term.  Like I had plans on Valentine’s Day that actually included getting whisked off to the Caribbean.  No such plans lay in the horizon for me.  Minus a few tears early on, I actually feel alright about it.   

It was good to get away for a bit.  Seeing pictures of soccer moms with their perfect kids and in-unit (which means “in-really-big-house with outdoor space”) washer-dryers sometimes leaves a pit in my stomach.  Seeing pictures of soccer dads with their kids on their shoulders or a baby bjorn strapped to their chests sometimes makes my heart hurt.  After a while, the freedoms I enjoy (not needing a baby sitter on a Friday night while living my fabulous New-York-City-Life) don’t mean much when I prefer to stay in and watch a movie.   The opportunity to catch up on sleep feels less luxurious when I can’t stay in bed past 6:36 A.M. on Saturdays.  My response:

              

  Well, at least I’m pretty.  Like, really, really pretty.

My syntax is as lazy as my solace is weak.  

Still, I have really good stories to tell.  Just last week I had a promising first date.  Tall, handsome and successful, I fantasized about what it would feel like to have another first kiss.  The fantasy, it turns out, will have to wait. 

I left my keys at work, which happened to be in the same vicinity as his apartment.  He ordered an Uber and chivalrously offered to leave me with the car after his stop home.   He opened the door, let me in and hopped in behind me.  As soon as he closed the door, he shook a fist-sized can and squirted one, two, three times into his mouth.  He leaned in for a kiss and I recoiled. 

Confused, he offered me the canister for a quick spray, (as if that was the only thing keeping us from locking lips).

                Me:  No, thanks.  I’m good.

Him:  You sure?  It’s organic?  It doesn’t have any alcohol and it’s all natural, (as if the contents of the canister are what caused me to throw up in my mouth a little bit).

                Me:  Sorry, I don’t kiss on first dates.  (As if that is even remotely true.)

Thinking the ride couldn’t possibly get any longer, I say:

                Oh, I love this song, alluding to what was playing on the radio.  What kind of music do you like?

He spent the remainder of the trip serenading me (as in singing along) with the songs on his iPhone playlist and the air guitar he pulled out of his pocket.  The driver turned off my song.  The bonus round of the date was a Garage Band Concert.  I had front row seats. 

Is it just me, or does every man in New York have a severe emotional problem?

In all, life is good.  It continues.  I go to work and I actually love my job.  It’s not without its hiccups, but my company is legit and work-life is unbelievable.

I’m running again, but in moderation.  Bum knees.  I swim as much as I like except when I get my hair blow-dried.  Then it’s Shower Cap City for a week.  The mayor is black.

I started saving for retirement. 

I’m looking forward to visiting my family this summer in Michigan.  There is nothing more beautiful or serene than when my childhood memories of fresh cut grass and blooming flowers coincide with my reality of a cool evening breeze and dusk that lasts until 10 O’clock at night.  It’s perfect.  

This is my life. 

So, now you’re all caught up…

So… now you’re almost all caught up.

Except for what happened this weekend.

It’s part of why I have been avoiding Facebook.  I saw the post and refused to watch.  Then another.  Then it got to the point when I couldn’t continue to look the other way.

Then I wept. 

I cried tears that burned my eyes.  I held my stomach through the pain in my gut.  I struggled to breathe through the lump in my throat.  The emotional release I didn’t have for the end of my relationship came for a young girl in Texas.

A fourteen year old kid was violently assaulted by the police.  It was only one cop, but eight others stood by and watched.  They were complicit.  I watched the YouTube video like I would have watched a movie.  Disbelieving, I held my breath waiting for help that would never arrive.  When civilians tried to step in, the officer drew his loaded weapon in a threat to kill, an act that is routine against unarmed people of color.

I think about the humiliation, the fear, the physical pain this young woman must have felt.  I have trouble breathing because this girl is me.  She cried for her mother the same way I would have; perhaps the same way your own daughters might have cried for you.

I started this entry with recent anecdotes to remind you, my readers, of the woman you know.  Quirky, emotional, resilient, confident, forgetful, funny, American, proud, hopeful, ridiculous, normal, weird.  So weird.  Guilty of run-on-sentences and sentence fragments.  Multidimensional.  Me.  This is who I am.  But as much as I am all of these things, I am that black girl thrown on the ground in a bikini, held down by the knees of a grown man with thirty extra pounds pressed into my back, carrying a loaded weapon.  My brothers, smart and handsome with a kindness that is disarming, are the black boys handcuffed in front of their friends, spoken to like savages, treated like less than animals.    

I am saddened by how many friends and acquaintances I have that are at best apathetic about what’s happening in our country, at worst advocates of the injustice. 

I was called a nigger on the streets of Boston and my friends felt empathy.  I was showered with affirmation and love.  A social message on what happened felt trite to me then.  It feels even more so now.  This is life.  Today.  Right now.  I have to keep living.  But when you see me laughing, working, dating, running in Central Park and getting passed by moms with strollers, being silly, drinking wine, breathing, know that my heart is breaking.  It’s breaking for those kids in Texas.  They will never believe that the police will protect them.  It’s breaking for Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Kalief Browder.  And it’s breaking because if it’s not, your hearts should be breaking too.