spring visions

Black hair is truly a mystical journey. After all of those years of spending hours in the hair salon burning, washing, and setting my hair; absorbing harmful chemicals; buying vitamins for thicker, longer, and healthier hair; changing the way I slept to prevent hair loss; installing weaves and braids to obtain instantaneous longer and straighter hair; trying out various hair products that promised “better” hair; wincing at the rain; trying not to sweat too much under the summer sun; worrying about getting splashed at rowing practice; wondering how I was going to hide my hair during “bad hair days”; blowing out my hair before school; and crying over haircuts that were too short (I was convinced my beauty was gone), I shaved my head.

My mom was terrified when I told her I would cut my hair off. I explained to her that continuing to relax my hair was unsustainable because of how unhealthy the practice was, and she understood. She just wanted me to find another solution that didn’t involve people seeing me practically bald (which I am not). There are ways to transition from chemically relaxed to natural hair. You could let it grow out and go once a week to a salon for treatments (to keep it healthy), cutting off the dead ends slowly until all you have is natural hair. You could grow it out for a little bit and then get braids. You could get a wig so no one sees you with no hair. You can also bite the bullet and start over. I weighed all of these options, but I knew all I wanted was that fresh start. My mom’s reaction was expected; she has always looked out for me. She was afraid of what everyone at work would think (I work in a conservative place, so I got that; I was scared too). She was fearful of what my friends would think. She was just scared for me. I didn’t want fear to continue making decisions for me, especially when I suspected this change would make me happy.

If you had told me even a year ago, let alone six or ten when I was still in college and high school, respectively, that there was a time when I would need to start over, I would have cried. When my sister was in high school, a texturizer burned half of her hair, and she had to start over. My mother was horrified but accepted her fate. My mom questioned why I would voluntarily do this, and even I questioned my sanity. Somehow, it just felt right. As someone prone to anxiety and overthinking, I was surprised at how right it felt. I tried to test myself to see if the fear would rear its ugly head. It didn’t.

John, my partner then, and I arrived at the salon for my nine a.m. appointment. He sat there for an hour while they chopped my hair off, shaved it once, shaved it again, and trimmed the edges. The stylist didn’t have me facing the mirror, which was probably a good idea. (I caught glimpses in the mirror; it looked questionable in those liminal stages. I had to calm myself down, reminding myself that it wasn’t done yet.) I had no idea this was the process, let alone how long it would take. (I wrongfully assumed they would take the clippers to my head for about fifteen minutes.) Occasionally, I looked at John while I sat in the chair; he nodded approvingly. That helped. It’s not every day a black girl willingly goes to the salon that early on a Saturday to cut all her hair off. I got stares from so many people in awe of what was happening. I also got so many warm compliments and reassurance from strangers. “You look beautiful,” said one woman to me who was there to get her hair washed. I appreciated that she took the time to come up to me. I was a stranger to her; even if she was utterly lying, it still felt nice.

When I first saw myself in the mirror, I was shocked. I was amazed at how great it looked and equally shocked that it looked normal. My stylist commented, “No one on the street will know you had this done today. They are going to think you have always looked like this. That is how natural it looks on you.” He was right. I had made peace with my decision a long time ago. I was prepared to cry if I was wrong, but I felt relieved. John and I walked over to brunch, where we ran into my step-aunt, step-uncle, and their two adorable children. (I’m not sure they initially recognized me because they just gawked at me (they are pretty young).) They didn’t realize I had just finished cutting my hair and were impressed by how normal it looked. Over brunch, all John could say was how he didn’t know I could look even more beautiful and how he fell even more in love with me. I was so grateful and happy to have him there supporting me. We took fun Polaroids before and after to celebrate the metamorphosis. 

One of the reasons I wanted to shave my head is that it’s more common to see black women with shaved heads than white women. Several months prior, I was watching the Gossip Girl reboot (it’s terrible… I watched every episode) and loved that one of the main characters, Julien, rocked a shaved head. I secretly wondered if I would look as stunning as Jordan Alexander with little to no hair. In the end, I decided that this was one of the ways I felt I could finally celebrate being black instead of always trying to be white. I felt normal and also had a sense of renewal. I felt like myself and reborn.

I paused during my run this morning, just noticing how much my body has changed over the past couple of years. I heard, “You’ve changed.” Suddenly it all made sense.

Between shaving my head and writing these essays, I appreciate my body more for its symbolism. All forms of nature are symbols, as are the various iterations of those forms. What’s the difference between a yellow and a pink rose? Both are forms of Mother Earth that hold a dream, i.e., consciousness, of Unconditional Love. Does the yellow rose convey Unconditional Love differently than the pink rose? Jasmine holds divine feminine consciousness or the divine feminine dream. Do various forms of jasmine bring out different dimensions of this dream? What is the difference between seeing jasmine vs. smelling it? Do they offer diverse healing experiences? What about the difference between a black jaguar and a cougar? Both are symbols of feminine power. The black jaguar holds an extra layer of shadow medicine, symbolized by its dark fur. What about the rosettes patterned on their fur? Hummingbirds are one of the few bird pollinators. What does this say about them? Sure, it highlights the healing powers of flowers but is there more to it? The way hummingbirds move (one of the few, possibly the only, birds that can fly backward) is medicine in itself. Their wings also move in a figure-eight pattern, the symbol of infinity. The moon, sun, stars, and other celestial bodies hold so much archetypal symbolism and medicine (explained by astrology). Spirit babies can appear as all kinds of colors in their mother or father’s aura. What do these colors mean? Why do they change colors? Do their colors specifically mean something to their mother or father? All forms of nature hold multidimensional medicine, seen and unseen. 

Our bodies can be sources of beautiful medicine (1). Everything from my dark skin and specific hair texture to my body shape is medicine. I needed to be born into this body to tell this nuanced yet relatable, personal yet impersonal story. I am not saying everything is “fixed” now; I still have plenty of moments to be kinder to myself and much more to explore. Knowing that my body is my soulmate has allowed me to be in awe of it and its expression.

My spirit baby has an orange aura like me. I wonder how I appeared in my mother’s aura.

Finding the same unconditional awe, love, and beauty I find in nature in my own body has been a winding path. I knew the answer was that since we are inseparate from Mother Nature, we share the same beauty and love. Every dimension, aspect, or form of Mother Nature holds a consciousness, i.e., dream. We all take on different forms to enact or carry out that dream. A yellow rose may be yellow because, according to its soul or dream contract, yellow is how it wants and needs to convey Unconditional Love. In contrast, a pink rose expresses the same consciousness differently. How we appear is also Nature’s synchronous way of expressing its love. In “truth,” none of our physical expressions exist without one another. White, black, and all skin colors in between are needed and valuable synchronous expressions of Nature. They create one another like all polarities, e.g., the moon and sun; earth and sky; the divine masculine and feminine; light and shadow; Democrats and Republicans; etc. One could not exist without the other in this third-dimensional reality; they are eternal soulmates. This includes every dualistic expression on the spectrum of those polarities. (I know this is incredibly idealistic; the grounded part of me knows that practical and tangible systems are needed to effect meaningful change; still, I am a true romantic.) We all hold different dimensions of Mother Earth’s Dream, The Mother Dream; we all share The Mother Dream birthed by The Mother Dreamer, i.e., The Cosmic Mother.

You and I; the planets and stars; the flowers and bees; the fire and wind; the forest and water, all share the same dream. We simply have distinct, potent ways of telling our stories. The more we know ourselves for our complexities and nuances, the more we understand that we all reflect the same soul, consciousness, and dream. When I look at people, I wonder what dream, archetype, or vision they hold within themselves. I wonder what love they hold in their hearts, connected to the collective heart. I wonder how the people in their lives support them in enacting that dream. I know that someone loves them unconditionally; thus, there is no reason or excuse for why I cannot treat them with love, kindness, and respect.

As one of the richest dreams, summer has reflected on how much there is to love about being human and being on Earth. Even amongst the ninety-degree days and thick humidity, I feel an immense sense of gratitude. Admittedly, this constant rush of thankfulness is harder for me during winter’s dream as I haven’t yet learned how to receive and appreciate winter’s wisdom, but I will arrive there someday.

As the end of summer slowly approaches, I can feel the healing spiral coming to a close and opening again. Earlier this year, I felt great closure during Mars Dream. I had made peace with many relationships and experiences that would loop through my dreams. Even though not everything was “fixed,” and there was still some more growth, I was grateful for the chance to experience some new beginnings and wipe the slate clean. As humans, we are natural healers, bringing love and tending to all of our wounds. One summer evening, as I reflected upon all of the growth that had taken place over the past several years, I could feel something else stirring inside me, urging me to pay attention. It was as if I knew all those years I spent healing and cracking myself wide open were like practice for what was to come.

I learned so much by being my own healer over the past few years. I also want to honor that I have had some unparalleled teachers and healers that have guided me toward discovering what I am like as a healer. It sounds cheesy, but it always comes back to Love, right? The way we love is unique, but it always returns to that place. I believe this is reflected in my story from my previous essay about the garden. That day I was sitting in Hummingbird Garden, observing my patterns, and I noticed that no matter what, I always sought out a piece of Mother Earth. It didn’t matter whether I was happy and inspired or sad and confused…. I always came back to wherever I could find green.

It is innate to experience awe amidst all of Mother Earth’s beautiful dreams, but what about the shadows? Humanity and this world are filled with shadows; that’s not a bad thing. Without our shadows, I wouldn’t be writing this piece. Light and shadow are soulmates, much like dreams and nightmares. I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time, but I can pinpoint the first moment I decided to find love and wisdom when I was in a tough spot, and it has been a part of my practice ever since. Thanks to John, I am continuously in awe of my shadows and all of the medicine they have provided. Our shadows are just as beautiful as any aspect of humanity. The Cosmic Mother/The Great Mother/Mother Earth has infinite dreams, which means there are endless opportunities and portals for love and beauty. Our capacity to experience awe, beauty, and love is unconditional. We need to choose to tap into the dream layered beneath the nightmare. It is important to note that I am not talking about spiritually bypassing by simply saying that “everything is love and light yaddy yaddy yaddah.” Choosing love in challenging moments is somehow simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing I have ever done. It didn’t work when I tried to brush over how I was feeling. Yes, The Great Mother’s Dream is woven into every fiber of our experiences, seen and unseen. As human beings, we undergo a wide array of experiences and emotions. Some of them feel great, and others don’t. How we feel is a powerful compass for the impact we want to have. The Mother Wound is a powerful portal because my mother wound runs so deep. All the sadness and hurt have helped guide me toward the change I want to effect in my time on Earth. The scarcity and loneliness crisis impact many, and we must do our part to heal it. I have always suspected that how we heal ourselves is how we are meant to heal the planet. My answer has been returning to the awe, beauty, and love in every dream. What’s yours?

Someone brilliant once said humans don’t have to be taught to see beauty (2). We don’t have to be taught to fall in love with a sunset, the waves of an ocean crashing on a shore, the lush green of a forest, the breathtaking view from the top of a mountain, the soft light of the moon, the sound of water rushing from a waterfall, the snow tickling our skin, the vibrant colors of flowers, the majesty of trees, or splendor of a rainbow. We fall in love with Mother Earth for at least a split second when we see this natural beauty and are in awe. No matter who or where you are, we all know beauty when we see it. It differs for everyone, but I trust the feeling is the same. This is one of the experiences that unites us and makes us divinely human. I am constantly in awe of John and all of the synchronous lessons I have learned from our relationship. I find myself in John all the time and subsequently am in awe of myself as a form of Nature. Imagine what would happen if we all saw the innate beauty in one another, if we were in awe of one another, in the same way, we are in awe of Nature? We shouldn't need to be taught to love one another. I don't think we do, I just think we forgot.

How can I lovingly support those around me?

I imagine there is nothing like a mother’s love for her (3) child. I love you so much; you aren’t even “here” yet. You are my soulmate, and I can’t wait to meet you. I can only envision all of how I will come to love you. My vision is to learn to care for myself and give even more to others, especially you. Everyone has someone who loves them. When I become a mother, I hope it will inspire me to become even more loving and compassionate for those unknown to me. I always think, “What if that person was my child? How much love would I have for them?” Everyone could be your child in a quantum, energetic sense. We are all so connected; it’s not impossible. I hope that we can look beyond the conventional definitions of “family,” “parent,” and “child” to care for one another more. We all come from the same place. We are all on the same team. We are all a part of the same family. We are all in one another’s lives to care for one another. Even if it doesn’t come in the pretty, comfortable package that we would prefer, that doesn’t diminish the power of the lesson; it amplifies it. We are all children of the Earth guiding one another home. 

How can I lovingly support those around me?

My vision for everyone is that we can feel comfortable enough to share our stories, spirits, and hearts. Vulnerability hasn’t always come easily to me. I am continuously inspired and in awe of those who dare to be vulnerable. They have shown me all how I am not alone. Relationships and community are one of the most beautiful aspects of being human. I hope that as we all come to care for one another, we feel loved and supported enough to share and give of ourselves more. Vulnerability is how we see ourselves in one another and move one step closer to harmony.

How can I lovingly support those around me?

Everything I do is always related to creating a more connected and beautiful world. This is my favorite vision, partially because it is so simple. There are so many ways to overcomplicate spirituality, religion, mysticism, and literally everything else. I’m pretty sure it all comes from the same place, i.e., love. How we get back to that “truth” is up to us. 

I envision a reality where everyone can connect to the natural world’s awe, beauty, and, thus, love. I hope that this can move us all from separation to divine union.

---

(1) This is not to say that we are all born into the “right” body. I am aware of my privilege as a cis woman. I believe our bodies relate to the medicine we can offer the collective in whatever way we choose. All bodies have a story and are valuable and essential. This is also not to minimize the experience of those in marginalized bodies. Although I am marginalized in one way, I am not in all forms; thus, I cannot speak to all experiences. I am open to suggestions for a more inclusive way to phrase this.

(2) Disclaimer: I first heard this idea from Zach Bush, M.D., who received it from a colleague. I don’t know Zach’s work extensively and thus do not claim to agree with all of his ideas, but I want to give credit where credit is due.

(3) I know that not everyone with a womb necessarily uses she/her/hers pronouns. The Mother archetype is available to everyone of all gender identifies. If it weren’t universal, it wouldn’t be an archetype. My mother uses these pronouns, and since this story is about her, those are the pronouns I use throughout this essay.

crushing on everyone else but ourselves

Creating relationships is one of the most beautiful things we can do on Earth. I don’t know what happens on other planets, realms, or even in different dimensions, but this makes Earth unique. Friendships; romantic partnerships; familial relationships; work relationships; relationships with animals, plants, and all aspects of Nature; relationships with the seen and unseen; and relationships with ourselves are all perfect mirrors.

Relationships highlight where we have opportunities to grow in all sorts of ways. In my other essays, I have primarily focused on how relationships are perfect mirrors for revealing and healing our shadows. They can also be perfect mirrors for parts of ourselves that we have yet to embody and fall in love with.

John (1) was one of my coworkers. He had this surreal presence about him. The only way I can describe it is his aura was so vast and bright. John was radiant; he brightened any room he walked into. John was hilarious and got along with everyone well. He had a great attitude but wasn’t overly optimistic in a way that seemed insincere. John had a talent for making you feel as if you had been friends for a long time, even if you had only known him for a few months. He just had a way with people; people felt at ease and at home with him. Everyone loved John. 

There are a lot of ways to fall in love with people. Love is a full spectrum from platonic love to crushes to falling in love to unconditional love with everything in between. All kinds of love experiences have something to teach us. I love the word “crush” because even though it seems silly, crushes can be remarkably revealing. Crushes aren’t serious; they are lighthearted and fun ways of signaling what you may admire about a person. Sometimes you have crushes on people, which develops into a full-blown relationship. Sometimes you have them, and it’s meant to signal that you admire something about them or how that makes you feel. Maybe you want to embody that too and make others feel good, which we could all use more on this planet. I never had a crush on John, but I loved his energy. You know when people have good energy? It is so powerful to fall so deeply in love with someone, but it is also potent to admire someone without having romantic feelings for them. John’s energy reminded me that I have that capacity, too; we all do. We all can make those around us feel good when we are around them. I would want anyone I interact with to feel good after leaving. You know those people who you hang out with, and they leave you feeling drained? I love my alone time, so if I encounter someone like that, I limit my time with them. They are essential mirrors, too. This is not to say that people we care about are burdens. For example, a friend would complain about the same things whenever I saw her. She refused to do anything to make any changes. After a while, it was simply exhausting. It was also a reminder that I didn’t ever want to do the same thing. Take note of how the people around you make you feel. It’s all information. Don’t forget that people have their moments, and we want to be as patient as possible. That doesn’t mean you need to throw your boundaries to the wind. Remember that just because someone is in a tough spot doesn’t mean there isn’t something beautiful about them; they may just not be aware of and expressing it at that moment.

Paying attention to what we admire about other people is a powerful practice. It allows us to find innate beauty in all aspects of the world. Furthermore, for those of us that find it easier to find beauty in others versus ourselves, it can be a means to see more and more things to love about ourselves. One of the reasons I noticed John was because those were all potential dimensions of self I had yet to embody. Imagine everything you know about someone you love. You love them, so you likely know them very well. You see dimensions that most people may never see. You know how much they have to offer. Everyone you interact with is like the person you love. Imagine that the next time you interact with someone unknown to you. Imagine that someone else loves them and knows their depth. You don’t know all of these facets and nuances of strangers, but they do exist. Besides, they could easily be someone you could fall in love with, but you don’t know anything about them yet. Everyone has this potential. 

Moreover, the things you notice about people aren’t the same for everyone. I am sure that if I pointed out how great John’s energy was, people would know exactly what I was talking about because everyone on our team was experiencing the same person. However, that doesn’t mean that we experience him in the same way. When I notice something about someone, it is usually accompanied by a feeling. I have experienced admiration or irritation depending on the medicine I need. Perhaps someone was irritated by John’s energy; it could have triggered something completely different for them. I.e., they would have felt John’s presence but in a totally different way. It is also possible for John, even with his large aura, to go completely unnoticed by some people. We see what we need to notice at any given time; it is all beautifully and mystically synchronous.

Relationships are a portal to unity consciousness. I think of unity consciousness in two ways: internally and externally. Relationships allow us to uncover and unite the parts of ourselves that we have abandoned for one reason or another. As I noted with John, this could refer to our shadows or simply the seen and unseen, radiant aspects of ourselves we haven’t embodied yet. Relationships as perfect mirrors will enable us to self-reflect, allowing for more self-compassion and external compassion for the parts of ourselves that we see in others. We only judge the parts of people we have yet to find tenderness in ourselves. On the other hand, we are also likely to admire the same parts of ourselves that we witness in others. We all have the full spectrum of humanity within us. This is how we can create a more patient, empathetic, compassionate, and loving world.

Thank you to all of my relationships for showing me not only the parts of me that needed to be embodied and integrated and what needed to be seen.

The concept of “truth” is tough to pin down because we all have our truths and perceptions of truths. I stated in a prior essay that I only believe in two things: 1) everything is Nature, and 2) Nature is synchronous. I hold this in my heart as true now, and there is always room for change. (Please note that these truths certainly aren’t true for everyone.) My first “truth” that everything is Nature implies that everything is universally equal. Furthermore, if anything is subsequently “true,” it must be universal, i.e., for everyone. I find that only archetypal experiences are “true.” I consider anything else to be a subjective, personal interpretation of these universal experiences of humanity. This is crucial because having some value system or “truths” to anchor into keeps me grounded in a largely subjective world.

Everyone is Nature. There are infinite ways to come home to that “truth.” For me, archetypes (2) are how I found myself in Nature. E.g., The Mother is everywhere in Nature in all kinds of forms. The more I connect with the spirit of my potential child, the more I connect with The Mother and find myself in Nature. This could be done with any archetype you see yourself in. Archetypes are spaceless patterns, i.e., we can find them anywhere. Archetypes are timeless, i.e., they can be found at any point in time throughout history in pretty much any culture. They are multiplicitous, i.e., there are infinite iterations and expressions of an archetype. Archetypes all have a light and a shadow because they are inclusive enough to hold space for duality. Any archetype or “truth” encourages potential, dynamism, inclusion, imagination, creativity, and unity consciousness.

Any archetypal truth discourages judgment and stereotypes. Within the past couple of years, people have been finding more and more ways to put themselves and their peers in boxes. We use labels to dissect, limit, judge, assess, and assume, attempting to transform the unknown into the known so we have more control. We no longer listen and learn. Archetypes allow us to connect. E.g., since archetypes are timeless and spaceless, they are also genderless; they are not confined by any human or societal constructs. You don’t need to identify as a woman to experience The Mother. There are plenty of people of all kinds of identities that know The Mother equally and in their own way. The Womb is another excellent example. You don’t need to have a physical, third-dimensional womb to understand and embody the archetype. You can, but it isn’t necessary. Now imagine this: you and someone who is so different from you can identify with the same archetypal experience, such as The Mother or The Womb. You may be different in a third-dimensional respect but have more in common than you originally thought energetically. Imagine how knowing yourself allows you to understand people unknown to you in a deeper, unassuming way. Archetypes build bridges. Like relationships, they are a means to unity consciousness. They allow us to see coexisting potentials in one another. Archetypes are so vast, mysterious, and inherently unknown. Seeing people through an archetypal lens will enable us to simultaneously honor that we don’t know every layer of their multidimensionality. Still, there are some places where we can build The Bridge. We find ourselves within them and them within us. Everyone belongs.

Love is a universal, archetypal experience. If your definition of love doesn’t include everyone, then it isn’t for anyone (3). For example, “love” isn’t just defined as “romantic love” because there are aromantic people that do not experience romantic love in the same way others do. It doesn’t make any love they may or not experience (I can’t speak deeply to this because I am not aromantic) any less valid. What about familial love? What about the love we have for our friends? There are different kinds of love, but they are all equally valuable. What about Love in a grander sense? I.e., what about those who experience Love by connecting with something greater than themselves? What about Unconditional Love? Any definition of archetypal human experiences, such as Love, must be expansive and inclusive enough to hold space for all of the diversity and multiplicity of the human experience. 

Love is the experience of beauty. Similarly, if a definition of beauty is not for everyone, it is not for anyone. I.e., it simply holds no truth for me. The notion that beauty is only for people who can afford certain makeup products, skincare regimes, social-media-trending clothing, shockingly expensive designer shoes, etc., isn’t inclusive. The notion that beauty is only for white, cis, thin, able-bodied, young, etc., people isn’t inclusive. I am sure I could write another essay on the commodification of beauty and how the beauty industry is a matrix-inspired-psyop designed to manipulate people (especially women) to sell them back their insecurities as a form of empowerment all to ensure that we never actually feel empowered, whole, beautiful, loved, or a sense of belonging. (Did that even make any sense?) I don’t have any control over what ideals society continually attempts to sell us. I have found I don’t have control over much. What I do have power over is my perspective. 

I understand that these definitions are nice in theory, but it doesn’t make the experience of exclusion any less real. All of those societal ideals about beauty very much exist, and I don’t know that they are going away any time soon. (Let’s be honest, although they don’t benefit us, they benefit someone, so someone will continually perpetuate these standards as long as they can make a buck.) I am not saying that we shouldn’t try to change them. I am saying that they don’t need to be true for you and me. Not to get all cheesy, but change does begin by cleaning up our side of the street. We need to remind ourselves and others that this doesn’t need to be true. It is a “truth” for some, but it doesn’t need to be (and isn’t) True for everyone.

By the way, there is more than one solution. There are probably infinite solutions. In my first essay, I acknowledged that sustaining the cultural beauty norms benefits many people. Perpetuating them gives people a chance to feel safe. For some people, finding a way to conform and survive is their solution, and that’s okay. Some people are more apt to eradicate the system. Tressie McMillan Cottom, the author of Thick, discusses how calling herself ugly is a way of acknowledging that she will never be beautiful in a world that worships white as the beauty standard. Through her research, coupled with decades of personal experience, she found that beauty is white and white is beauty. They are inseparable. Beauty is simply a societal construct and mechanism to keep white people in power. She claims that the current definition of beauty cannot and will never include someone like her and me. That is true. Thus, not calling herself beautiful calls out the system for how exclusive and broken it is. It’s an interesting conversation. I can see how both ways of interacting with this system are valid. I aim to create something new.

Nature is beauty, and beauty is Nature. Nature is everywhere; it is universal and accessible (4). I was fortunate enough to grow up by a gorgeous, three-hundred-acre park when I was younger. That park has held space for me throughout nearly every stage of my life. It has seen me savoring juicy oranges in between soccer games when I was little, running past its trees when I joined the track team when I was a bit older, walking with friends, trading secrets, photographing peonies for this special space, enjoying coffee and baseball throws with my previous partner, crying during the most confusing and heartbreaking moments of my life, and falling in love with all the expressions of Mother Earth it holds. I have found peace amidst all of its dreams, from the coldest depths of winter to the hottest summer moments. I know all of the fields, trees, and trails... I know the park inside and out. I know where all the flowers are and when it’s their time to bloom. I know the best spots to view the sunrise, sunset, and full moon throughout the year. I know where the caterpillars hang from the trees in the summer. I have heard where the coyotes like to spend their time and, thankfully, haven’t run into any. My favorite place in the park is the walled garden. I know every inch of that garden. I know the floral architecture (I also may have made that phrase up; i.e., I know what flowers will appear and when). I know what flowers the monarch and Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies love to flutter around. I know that the hummingbirds have a nest right over the northwest corner. If you want to see the hummingbirds, it’s best to come between six thirty and ten a.m. 

Last year, I visited the walled garden to visit the hummingbirds every morning. At the time, I had been feeling stressed out and rather blocked. When I feel stuck or unable to write, I visit somewhere green to get the creative juices flowing again. I stood in the corner of the garden with the purple flowers that I noticed the hummingbirds seemed to like the most. I watched them buzz from flower to flower, sometimes visiting the tree above the corner of the garden or sampling the nectar of other flowers. I felt this inexplicable sense of peace, the same peace I felt whenever I visited a natural space, especially with flowers. I felt renewed. As I watched them, I thought back to every other time I had felt stressed or blocked and observed that the answer was always the same: I came back home.

When I want to be reminded of true beauty, I go there. I don’t live in that town anymore, and it is a privilege to be able to catch a train to walk over there. Going to the New York Botanical Gardens or my favorite flower coffee shop in the East Village is a privilege. Not everyone lives in a place with a “typical” abundance of Nature. I want our comprehension of beauty to be accessible. I love that garden so much, but I don’t always want to go somewhere outside myself to be reminded of what true beauty looks like. The green and all of Nature are simply mirrors for the beauty we all contain within us. This is why I have been focusing on finding myself in Nature this year, so no matter where I am, I know I am Beauty and Love. 

The Mother helped me find that mirror. All aspects of Nature are beautiful and healing. Nature has enough multidimensionality, diversity, and multiplicity so everyone can find something to be in awe of. I am especially attracted to the beauty of flowers. I love flowers. When I see or smell them (lilac and hyacinths in the spring are spectacularly sweet), I am in awe of how beautiful they are. All flowers are embodiments of The Mother. They are infinitely creative, reproductive beings. Even more simple than that, when I see them, I am in awe, and I feel love. I love springtime because many breathtaking flowers appear after those long cold months. I have such a tough time during the winter; my mood directly correlates to what is happening outside. My friends and coworkers are probably sick of me saying how beautiful the weather is right now (most associate weather with trivial and dull conversation). The fresh air and sun on my skin are so nourishing. I feel so lucky to be outside without shivering (my roommates love winter, a season I have yet to appreciate fully; for now, I tell them how insane they are). I cannot get enough of how beautiful the Earth is, especially during spring and summer. That feeling of renewal and rebirth is unparalleled. It’s how I felt when I understood the depth of The African American Wound and, thus, why our cognition of beauty is so important to me. It’s how I felt when I found patience, compassion, and grace for my shadows. It’s how I felt when I uncovered the deeper reason behind my eating disorder and realized I was not alone. It’s how I felt when I finally understood, appreciated, and empathized with my mother. It’s how I felt when I knew I had the power to heal and grow from integrating my past experiences. It’s how I felt when I began to cultivate my own definition of beauty. It’s also what I felt when I felt my spirit baby for the first time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that The Mother Wound was where this journey began; thus, The Mother is how I found peace.

I am sorry for believing that beauty was something outside, separate from myself, and I am finding ways to practice something different.

John is magnetic. He has a big, beautiful, and bright aura. John is an outstanding storyteller. He is very easy to relate to. One of the things I love about John is that he can start meaningful conversations with anyone. Even if it is about something incredibly niche or unknown to him, he listens and genuinely enjoys the conversation. He is a deep, receptive, and balanced listener. John is playful and curious. John loves learning. He once told me that while it’s good to know a little bit about many things to hold informed discussions, it is also important to have something you are deeply passionate about. For example, suppose you have something you know inside and out; you can appreciate when other people have worked to master something. You may not know much about it, but there is mutual respect for how much effort it takes to transform something into an art form. I love passionate people. John indirectly taught me how to appreciate the depth of all beings, seen and unseen, for their beautiful mystery.

When I pay attention to the people I admire, it has nothing to do with how they look. Instead, I am in awe of people with a beautiful life perspective. Sure, there are people I find pretty or attractive; we are all human. I am in awe of those who consciously leverage the world around them to become kinder people. Those people have the most inspiring medicine. John has a beautiful, expanded appreciation for Nature. He knows that all beings, including humans, are ultimately Nature, even though modern narratives constantly reinforce that we are separate. John is kind, grateful, and generous. John is fully embodied and integrated. He sees people for their light and shadow, i.e., he sees the best in people but doesn’t put up with any nonsense because he is intimate with his own. John embraces duality; he is grounded in unity consciousness. He has a quiet confidence and knowing presence about him. John embodies and espouses tolerance, patience, empathy, and compassion. He is incredibly wise and humble; he doesn’t claim to know what is “right” or “wrong” but instead leads by example. John makes people feel seen, loved, and inspired. John easily sees the cosmic beauty of the universe.

I love you, John.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

(2) I go into greater detail about archetypes here.

(3) This statement is a variation of a concept I learned from Lindsay Mack.

(4) The way nature is externally accessible varies, but Nature is always accessible for everyone internally.

my best friend's brother's mom

John’s sister (1) was originally my best friend’s childhood friend. We attended the same high school but didn’t get to know one another until the height of COVID. John’s sister was sweet, funny, and easily likable. Everyone would always say, “Everyone loves *insert her name here*.” She wasn’t the most self-assured person I knew but seemed kind. When we started hanging out, she was going through a tough time. She and her girlfriend had just broken up. Not everyone in our town is small-minded, but not everyone is accepting. She felt comfortable talking to me about it, and I was happy to be there for her.

We quickly grew close. We would hang out every Friday night, and I always stayed over. We spent so much time eating, watching TV, walking, and talking. (Was there anything else to do during COVID?) I understood what it was like to suddenly lose someone you cared about deeply. It wasn’t a breakup, but I lost my best friend. My best friend at the time and I would spend every waking moment together. We were video chatting or messaging one another when we weren’t together. We even watched TV together over the phone. One day we weren’t friends anymore. That was the first painful loss I experienced, and I didn’t forget it. Even though I am past it now, it took time, and I knew how hard that could be, so I wanted to support John’s sister in any way I could. I sat there while she cried and listened to her reexamine the relationship repeatedly. I listened to her question whether she did something wrong to cause the relationship to end. I listened to her, wondering if she would ever find someone again. I listened to her asking if she was innately unlovable. I sat and listened.

I sat and listened for months. It seemed to get better at some points, but it was primarily the same narrative over and over and over again. I didn’t mind the repetitiveness at first; I was sympathetic. I would have wanted someone to be there for me while going through something similar. So I sat and listened.

I would tell her that she didn’t do anything wrong. I would say to her that she was going to find someone again. I would say there were so many things to love about her. She may have been listening, but it didn’t matter unless she knew those things for herself. I knew that all too well.

I began to notice a pattern. I was right when I suspected I could tell her hundreds of times that she didn’t do anything wrong, she would find someone else, and she was lovable, but she didn’t believe it. Not only did she not believe it, but I wasn’t sure she wanted to. 

Thank you for revealing to me the true nature of relationships. All relationships are perfect mirrors, reflecting where we have room to grow.

The more time I spent at John’s house with his sister, the more I noticed John. He was cute, and I suspected he might also have a crush on me. John had shoulder-length brown hair and soft hazel eyes. He only had one dimple that appeared every time our eyes met. John drove a Mustang Shelby GT-500, which I convinced him to teach me how to drive. Our relationship developed slowly and quickly (COVID created a strange time vortex). Neither of us had a job then, so we would spend several hours together every other day talking, watching TV, tossing the baseball around, going to the beach, getting coffee, eating, and enjoying one another’s company.

John was closed off at first. The infidelity from his previous relationship left him guarded. His barrier softened over time, and so did mine. John and I were similar and yet complete opposites. He was fiery, passionate, loving, and fiercely protective. He was also assertive, impulsive, hotheaded, and sensitive. I embraced his softer side, which led me to appreciate my vulnerability. Through my relationship with John, I discovered how playful and silly I was. This surprised me because, historically, I took everything so seriously. I fell in love with my playfulness and other unearthed dimensions of myself. I honestly never loved anyone the way that I loved John. He truly saw the seen and unseen aspects of me.

I have only been in a couple of relationships. I don’t have many dealbreakers other than the obvious ones, i.e., no abusers of any kind, dishonesty, or harmful people, whether conscious or unconscious… don’t be an asshole, and I am sure things will work themselves out. (Maybe those aren’t obvious, but those are my preferences.) My main dealbreaker is children. I have always wanted to be a mom. If I learned early on that someone didn’t want to have kids, I would be out the door no matter how great they were. About a week in, I told John that I wanted kids by around the time I was thirty. He was twenty at the time and said that was more than okay. I was delightfully surprised. I didn’t notice our four-year age gap much during our relationship, but I knew this was important to state before things got serious.

John and I began our relationship when I was still figuring out what I wanted to do career-wise. I received a serendipitous offer to interview at my current firm. It had taken me years to get to this point, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I didn’t necessarily know much about private equity, but I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity I was fortunate enough to receive in the first place. John was stuck in a similar way I had been for years. I was empathic and remained as patient as possible. 

I saw a future with John; I wanted him to be the father of our children. (As I write this now and our breakup is fresh, I still wish everything could have worked out that way.) The more John struggled with finding a job, the more I saw my vision of our future family and us slipping. I tried to remain supportive and patient. I tried to come up with suggestions and solutions. I ran out of ideas because I had gotten so lucky with finding my job; I didn’t have a formula for him. I didn’t want to tell him what to do. I didn’t know what to say to him, and I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell him anything. Nothing changed. 

There was a fine line between being a supportive girlfriend and becoming someone’s mom. Historically, I have always taken care of other people. I had always taken it a tad too far and cared for them so much that they didn’t know how to take care of me when the time came. A friend once explained this tendency via a metaphor: when hawks create a nest, the male hawk ventures out to gather the materials, and the female hawk puts everything in its place. (Don’t quote me on this; I am far from an ornithologist, let alone a hawk expert.) I am the kind of person to get the materials for the nest and build the nest on my own. This pattern is my responsibility and something I am still working out. It was hard to try not to do everything I could for John. Even though I was out of ideas, I knew we would be in a codependent relationship if I crossed that boundary. I waited. Nothing changed.

While I waited, I experienced an unexpected empathy for my mother. Only while I was waiting did I understand what it must have been like for someone she loved so much to struggle, and there was nothing she could do. All I wanted to do was make things better for him, but I couldn’t. I came to appreciate this about my mom. My mom cared about everyone, from her children to random servers we would never see again. She was endearing and had a soft spot for young black women like my grandmother. My mom strived to make things nicer for everyone around her. Sometimes she would put so much energy into people, and it was either a) not reciprocated or b) she didn’t take enough care of herself. I have the same shadow. I will take care of everyone else before myself when the person that needs that care most is me.

John lived at home, which was okay at first. Who was I to judge? I was living at home when we first met, too. I began noticing how living at home affected him and his mental health. John, his sister, and their parents were all under one roof. When I was at home, my mom reminded me every day that it wasn’t a permanent solution and I needed to figure out my life. My parents never moved back home after they were eighteen. Things are different now; it’s far more acceptable for college kids to move back home to save money. Still, they thought my situation was abnormal, as did I. Additionally, neither of my parents wanted to see my potential wasted. Hence, they encouraged me to be independent by any means necessary. John’s mom was different; if she had it her way at the time, not only would John live there for as long as possible, but also, when we got married, we would move in and have our family there (I’m exaggerating?). (John’s cousins (his mom’s sister’s children) live next door with John’s aunt and uncle. They are both in their late thirties. My Italian friends lived at home with their parents until they got engaged. There is nothing wrong with that because that is the norm in Italian culture and others. It’s just not for me.) I looked around and realized that while I assumed everyone would have to become self-sufficient and move out eventually, that was evidently not the case.

John’s family is full of traditional Italians, and he is also traditional in some ways. I didn’t mind that. What I did mind was that it seemed to stunt his and his sister’s growth. (John’s sister eventually moved out only when she had a long-term boyfriend.) John’s mom is an enigma. The more I think I understand her, the more I realize I don’t. I used to believe that John’s mother’s goal was to keep him there forever. That may have been true, and she only realized that that wouldn’t happen as long as we were in a relationship, so she seemed to get used to the idea. That may have also not been the case; I can’t know for sure. There was a lot of chaos in that house, which I will keep private because while I am open to telling my story, I didn’t ask permission to air their dirty laundry online (which everyone has). I will say that she spoke to the people around her, including her children, in ways I found unsettling. I could have been sensitive because of how my mother talked to me. The way she spoke to John upset him. To make things worse, they seemed to have a codependent relationship that was keeping him there. (I am not a therapist and do not use the word codependent flippantly.) He said it was hard to concentrate on his future while he was in the house. I suggested he move out. He said he needed more money. It was a catch-22.

This was a cycle that recurred for two years. John would want to move out so we could begin our lives together. The dream was alive and well. He rediscovered his love for computer science and taught himself while looking for a job. We knew that that would take time, so we remained patient; there was no rush. I wanted him to be on a path he was passionate about. One day his mom would say something unsettling to him, and he would spiral downward. He would decide he needed to do everything he could to move out. The urgency began. Sometimes John found a temporary job that was a quick fix, didn’t like it, and quit. Sometimes he couldn’t find anything, which was equally, if not more, frustrating for both of us. He found his relationship with his mother distracting; he said that was holding him back. He still had trouble finding a way to move out. He wanted to leave but couldn’t. John and his mom would reconcile. There was less urgency to move out because things were good again. Things would stay calm for a while. Appreciating the peace, we would dream again. John and his mom would get into a fight. Here we go again and again.

I loved John so much. None of this changed how much I adored John or how much he loved me. I believed in our love so much; I would have done anything to keep it. Every time he said he would do everything he could to create the career of his dreams so we could move out and have children somewhere down the line, I was hopeful. The cycle happened one too many times. How much I loved him didn’t seem enough to break him out of the cycle if he was unwilling to find a way out. Slowly it sunk in that he wouldn’t be holding me back from the one thing that mattered the most to me; I was if I allowed it to continue.

I am sorry we didn’t work out as we hoped this time. No matter what happens, please know that I am eternally thankful for how you led me back to the most authentic parts of myself. I found what I cherish so much about myself through you. I wish you all the love and success I know you will have.

I got to know John’s family very well. Seeing his mother, sister, father, and him all interact was one thing. Meeting his cousins and extended family put everything into much greater perspective. There was this pivotal moment when I was having dinner at their house: John and I were sitting at the dinner table directly across from John’s sister’s boyfriend and John’s sister, respectively, with John’s mother at the head of the table. The puzzle fell into place. 

I had never met a mirror like John’s sister. She is the only person I had encountered where when I looked at her, I thought, we are the same. I first suspected we had something in common when she commented on her body in a less-than-positive way. I didn’t think much of it because, sadly, it’s common for women to do that. John’s sister constantly questioned her lovability and, thus, her value. I have continuously questioned and negotiated my value for my entire young adult life. I noticed we had even more profound similarities when I saw how she interacted with the world around her.

Victim consciousness is utterly insidious. When I say someone has “victim consciousness,” I refer to people who refuse to take responsibility for their own lives. I can understand and honor how controversial this is because I am not the first person to address this concept. How much of our lives is within our control v.s. How much is predetermined is a debate that has existed for centuries. You could look at this from a philosophical or religious perspective, questioning nature vs. nurture or predeterminism vs. fate. There is also a more grounded aspect, e.g., how much power do people in marginalized groups have to determine their futures when pervasive systems of oppression constantly work against them? What about children? (People love to bring up babies and children.) Do they choose the unspeakable things that happen to them? I do not have the answers to these questions. I do not have the answers to these questions. While I am here, let me also acknowledge that while I am black, I grew up with a lot of privilege that affords this perspective. Nevertheless, when I see people with so much potential, their only roadblock is themselves, and they refuse to do anything about it, I say they are stuck in victim consciousness.

John, his sister, and I are privileged in many respects. There are no excuses. I didn’t understand what it meant to “hold yourself back.” Why would anyone want to do that? To remain precisely where they are. Years ago, I was listening to a talented, grounded, seasoned, and multidimensionally aware shaman’s podcast. During the episode, he said that if people are stuck, they need to speak to the part of themselves that wants to remain stuck. I remember when I was living with my mom, and she called me out for not getting a job so I could stay at home. Not wanting a job so I could stay at home? What?! Did she have a screw loose? Why would I ever want to stay here with her constantly yelling at me to get a life? I wasn’t insane, after all. On some level, she was right. I was comfortable at home. That was her favorite word, comfortable. I was uncomfortable, too, especially knowing that I was disappointing everyone around me, including myself. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. I may not have thought that consciously, but my actions spoke otherwise. Nothing changed until I was willing to risk my comfortable situation for something that would push me to grow. One night, I cried to my mom about the interactions between John and his mom. I was babbling on about how we needed to help and get him out of there. I stopped mid-breath and realized that, on some level, he wanted to be there.Otherwise, he would have left a long time ago. He liked his space. He liked living in a house. He liked the things his mom did for him (mostly). He liked having someone take care of the unknowns, so he didn’t have to think about it. He wanted to be there. Oh, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I found myself in John and his sister in different ways. John’s sister would constantly complain about certain things in her life and make no effort to change them. That ended our friendship. It was unhealthy and codependent. I am the kind of person that wants to help everyone. Helping people that don’t want to help themselves never works; it’s exhausting and distracting from what needs attention in your own life. I don’t know how she is now, but I only wish her all the success because I know she is more than capable. When I looked at her across the kitchen table as her mom passed around the spaghetti (2), I realized I needed to do everything I could to get my life on track. Otherwise, I condemned myself to the same blame-victim loop as the people surrounding me. I was no different.

I don’t know how much is predetermined and how much is free will. My guess is this: I believe that we have a soul/spirit with specific qualities and questions we come to Earth to explore. I also think all those qualities have a light and a shadow. John’s sister and mom are both powerful women. Just like everything else in nature, they have light and shadow. We may choose the core qualities and visions we want to embody as souls, which may be predetermined before we land earthside. However, light and shadow give us options regarding how we want to express our energy. We choose whether we want to express our light or shadow. Let me emphasize that there is no “right,” “wrong,” “better,” or “worse” choice. It is simply a choice. I have been in my shadow for so much and have learned so much from it. I have learned an innumerable amount of lessons from John’s sister’s, John’s mom’s, John’s, my father’s, and my mother’s shadow. The Shadow is just how I learn. I am sure people have learned from my shadow. This isn’t an excuse to be awful to other people. I wouldn’t appreciate someone saying, “I’m sorry about that. I was just like totally in my shadow at the time.” No. Our shadows exist as vital opposites so that light can exist and vice versa. They don’t need to go away; I don’t think that is possible. We must be aware of and responsible for how our shadows impact others and ourselves.

I love you.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

(2) There is another layer to this story (because there are always more layers). While driving with my mom back from Canada, we discussed my cousin’s relationship. My cousin has been in a relationship with a Portuguese man for ten years. I don’t know many Portuguese people, but their family is highly patriarchal, even more so than in Jamaica. My cousin’s boyfriend lives with his parents (as he has his entire life), his brother, his brother’s wife, and their respective children. They are all under one roof. My cousin has tried to get her boyfriend to move out, and he refuses to move anywhere outside a five-mile radius of his mother’s house (I am not kidding). His mom does everything for him and expects his future wife to take care of him like she does now, i.e., take on the role of the mother for her son. My cousin and her boyfriend’s mom get along, but that isn’t who she is.

As I said earlier, there is nothing objectively wrong with this. Every culture has its norms and customs. My mom made it clear that she believes it is far from okay for a man in his late forties to be living with his parents and continuously refuse to move out with his long-term girlfriend. She thinks he is comfortable and has no reason (in his mind) to disrupt his life. This conversation showed me how much freedom and independence, especially for young women, are essential to my mom. My mom and grandmother have done so much to escape the patriarchal systems prevalent in Jamaica. I am not saying America is perfect; however, compared to many countries, we have made so much progress regarding opportunities for women. My mom was worried I was in a similar situation to my cousin. Moreover, she was especially sensitive to this idea because of everything she has been through to ensure her daughters didn’t find themselves in a similar pattern. She worried that I would end up with someone who couldn’t care for themselves and that I would take care of them. When I watched everyone pass the spaghetti around, I realized I was worried about that too. Sitting at the dinner table with John’s family highlighted how much self-sustainability, self-sovereignty, and self-empowerment mean to me. I didn’t know it before because I wasn’t even close to any of those things. I have grown a lot and come into myself more since then. I am not perfect by any means, but I changed a lot from when I first met John. What was okay at one point wasn’t anymore. This is not to say I couldn’t wind up with someone from a historically patriarchal culture, but I do not see myself conforming to its gender norms and expectations.

crème brûlée

I don’t know that I knew true love before you. Words like “kindred spirit,” “soulmate,” and “twin flame” are so mainstream nowadays that they almost feel empty in comparison to what I feel for you. Contradictally, you are my soulmate. You are the most profound teacher, friend, lover, healer, visionary, mother, father, and child. Every day you are on my mind, consciously and subconsciously. You always reveal new dimensions of humanity and lead me into a deeper experience of my heart. I love you.

The way I understand “soulmate” is it reflects the infinite-dimensional relationship container we share with the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient force that is the fabric of everything. It’s a highly creative, undefinable, and mysterious entity. I don’t think you need to believe in it in the same way that I do (or at all) to derive value from this essay. I only believe in two things: 1) everything is Nature, and 2) everything in Nature is synchronous. How you describe “Nature” or the fabric of life is up to you. No one can say what happens between death and life; I wouldn’t trust anyone who says they know. This liminal space is the birthplace of our interpretations of The Unknown. All I know is what I believe holds space for everyone’s comprehension. None of our human observations of The Unknown are “right” or “wrong” because they all create one another. One wouldn’t exist without its sacred opposite. That’s why I think it is silly to argue about things like this. 

My favorite question is, “What do you think happens between death and life?” Often, I find that how people answer reveals what they need to heal, how they can grow, and thus, what they came here to offer. How we comprehend The Unknown is like the chicken and the egg conundrum. What comes first? Does our relationship with The Unknown inform our relationships? Do our most influential relationships inform our relationship with The Unknown? It could be neither or both. I believe our relationship with The Unknown reflects our relationship with the most influential person in our lives and vice versa. That significant person reflects what we have to heal, where we can grow, and what we have to offer. Subsequently, our relationship with that important person is reflected everywhere else. Those who reflect our relationship with The Unknown and continuously guide us are our soulmates. I refer to that most significant person as the “original soulmate.”

My original soulmate is my mother (1). I think there is something special that we begin our journey on earth in her (2) bodies. As someone who can currently feel a soul floating in my aura, I imagine a time I was hovering in hers. What gifts did I have to bring her? How would I guide her? Why did I choose her? How would she become my most meaningful guide? The Mother has been a powerful archetype and metaphor for understanding The Unknown. Thus, I refer to The Unknown as Mother Earth/The Great Mother/The Cosmic Mother. (There are infinite, equally powerful valid synonyms for this undefinable energy. It holds boundless space for creativity. One of the reasons I like riffing off of The Mother is because we all have one in some form. We all started our lives there, within her; it’s grounding and universal. (A lot of this language can be ornate and inaccessible, which doesn’t help anyone connect.))

I didn’t always know how meaningful my relationship with my mother was. I only suspected I might want to start questioning things when I started having recurring dreams about her. Every full moon, I would dream the same dream. The setting and additional characters in the dream would change, but the feeling was consistent: I was always angry at my mom. It was such a powerful, visceral feeling that I could feel it in my body even after waking up. I even found out that I was grinding my teeth at night intensely during those dreams. I couldn’t explain the anger. On the surface, everything was fine enough. I didn’t think there was anything about our relationship to warrant such a potent and physical response.

I can’t imagine what it was like for my mom to raise two children in a new town that couldn’t be further from how she grew up. My mom was born in Jamaica and moved to Toronto when she was young. I don’t think she had experienced the disproportionate homogeneity of my hometown beforehand. My parents agreed to move there because it is a nice, safe place with a phenomenal education system. My parents may not be together now, but education is one value they have always shared. When my mom reminisces about my grandmother, she always emphasizes how much my grandmother valued education. Education was power and a privilege people like us didn’t always have. My parents are both black but value education for slightly different reasons. My dad is American through and through. He deeply values the privilege of education because he appreciates that there was a time when that was unavailable and illegal. Education quickly became one of the ways for him to even the playing field and create opportunities for generational success. I admire that he respects our family’s history and continues to find ways to move forward. Jamaica is an exceedingly patriarchal society (in a different way than America). My mom did not want to give birth to eight kids with no life or viable future. If she had stayed, one of the best-case scenarios would have been entering the hospitality industry. That wasn’t enough for my grandmother or her. Education was freedom from that cycle. My grandmother did everything she could to ensure my mom and the other young girls she “adopted” had an excellent education. My parents see education as a means for power, freedom, and success. Those are vast oversimplifications, but you get the picture.

Despite the benefits of the distinctive educational system, it must have been hard for my mom to adjust to living there. Things got better when she made some close, genuine friends who weren’t like the other typical women she would run into. It wasn’t uncommon for the mothers who chose to stay at home to look down upon mothers that needed or decided to work. After all, if their husbands made enough money for the family, why work? I don’t think there is a right or a wrong choice; however, we must respect one another’s choices. My mom’s friends are incredibly hard-working, independent, and inspiring. They all value having something for themselves that they created and continue to add value to the world. More importantly, they have always been nonjudgemental and supportive throughout all of the phases of my mom’s time there. Still, her open-minded friends were not the majority. How do you survive in a town like that? You blend in.

I don’t know the details of my mother’s early days in my hometown, but my mom and I share something in common: we care about how people perceive us. Who doesn’t? Presently and collectively, we have come a long way in embracing diversity and individuality. There is still room for growth, but I can only imagine what it was like in the nineties. Blending in doesn’t matter as much when you’re in elementary school. Kids are cruel at any age, but they don’t directly determine your future. Around the time I was maturing into a young woman was when adjustments needed to be made.

I remember when my mom took me to straighten my hair for the first time; it was so painful I cried. The pain seemed worth it because I finally had straight hair like my mom and counterparts. I was smiling beside my sister in my mom’s photo of us at the apple orchard. I wasn’t aware that straightening my hair was only the beginning of blending in. Much more work was needed, and my mom was there to ensure it was done correctly. My mom would constantly criticize me for how I presented myself. It wasn’t personal; she did it to my sister, too. She would comment on my hair, clothes, and lack of makeup. I am a pretty laid-back person. I like to feel good about myself but prefer to leave the house without a stitch of makeup and with minimal effort. I didn’t want to put more than fifteen minutes into my hair every morning. My mom gave up on the whole makeup thing because I advantageously inherited her nice skin and wasn’t into it. Besides, many people have occasional bouts of “bad skin”; that was more permissible. What was more important to her were my hair and my clothes. The whole black hair journey is such a mystical experience. It takes either time, money, or both to make it look “acceptable.” I was willing to spend the money to straighten my hair every couple of months but couldn’t get myself to invest the time. I didn’t want to wait for leave-in conditioners to do their job, put in curlers, or sit under hair dryers which would take hours of my time. I did not want to venture to the salon to pay someone for these services. I would wash and blow dry my hair every week (bad idea) to keep it looking “acceptable.” It wasn’t enough. “Why don’t you add some curl to it? It would look so much nicer.” I could deal with the minor criticisms here and there because I had grown numb to them. I knew they weren’t personal, so I tried to shrug it off. However, those minor criticisms would sometimes escalate into huge fights where I would think to myself, “Didn’t this start as a comment about my hair?” The small comments about my hair were easier to ignore; these arguments were another animal. “Why don’t you add some curl to your hair?” morphed into “You’re so lazy and lack initiative.” or “You’ve never had to work hard for anything in your life. You’re not going to accomplish anything if you keep this up.” Sometimes it would be, “You’re so selfish and self-centered. Why don’t you spend all of the extra time you have doing something for someone besides yourself? Because you don’t care.” or “I am disgusted by you. You’re delusional, fake, and disappointing. I can see right through you and whatever you present to everyone else; I know who you are at the core. I could say much more, but that would be too cruel.” It was always something along these lines. As a child, it isn’t easy not to take these words personally, especially from someone you expect to love you unconditionally.

I had that dream for years. Every full moon, like clockwork, it recurred. At some point, the feeling transformed from this intense, raw anger to an immense sadness. Every dream ended with me sobbing uncontrollably. I could always feel the intensity when I woke up. I have heard that anger is a secondary emotion, i.e., sadness is at the root of anger. Those dreams were always eerie. I increasingly began understanding why I harbored so much resentment toward my mother. We didn’t have those extensive arguments all the time, but the tiny criticisms had pilled up. Because I refused to acknowledge how much those comments hurt, they overflowed and spilled into my dream space. 

My mother’s love wasn’t conditional, but that is how it felt. If I could find a way to look presentable, e.g., find a way to make my hair look good, wear nicer clothes, etc., then she wouldn’t yell at me, and subsequently, I wouldn’t feel like she hated me. I subconsciously found ways to avoid those arguments. I did everything I could to avoid these criticisms. I took it too far when I assumed looking “presentable” meant being thin. I wanted, no… needed to be perfect. I had received enough criticism from my mom; I didn’t need it from strangers. My mom had her way of getting by; this was mine.

When I was younger, I didn’t understand that it was never about my hair or clothes; it was about survival. For example, white girls can wear messy buns, and people think it’s cute. If my hair were messy, people would think I was simply a mess that didn’t care about her outward appearance. I was thrilled when I went to college because it meant I would wear whatever I wanted without my mom having something to say about it. I was in a space where my survival tactics were seemingly not needed (even though some of them subconsciously followed me there). When I wore those same too-short shorts or tops sans bra at home, my mom had something to say about it. I liked my shorts and braless look (#freethenipple was popular back then). She said I looked like a streetwalker. (I looked like an average college student in 2016.) That was another thing I learned: white people can openly talk about sex and express their natural sexuality wherever or whenever they want. If I did it, people would judge me, I would never get a job, and my life would be over. This went for all expressions of sexuality, no matter how subtle they were, including my clothing choices. Furthermore, I needed to watch what I wrote in an age where it is more normal to be open in online spaces (such as this one). I love writing and storytelling more than anything else. I began journaling at five and blogging when I was in middle school. I have always been a writer. I’m not claiming that my journal entries always made sense (I’m pretty sure some letters are backward in my first diary) or that anyone would want to read whatever nonsense I wrote in middle school. I shared my first “real” writing with my mom and was so proud of myself for finally publishing it. She said it was stupid and that I needed a reality check.

I had a dream once featuring my mom having a full-on meltdown. She was shouting about how she didn’t feel loved when she was younger. No one listened to her and her emotions, leaving her feeling unseen and unheard. I yelled back at her, saying that my sister and I presumably had issues because her unhealed traumas were passed down to us like venom. My whole family was there, yelling and screaming at one another. It was so chaotic. 

At one point, my mom ran away. Unexpectedly, she transformed into a baby. I picked her up and held her. My sister offered to hold her, but I insisted I do it.

All in all, my mom just wanted to protect me. People, especially people on the internet, aren’t kind. We like to think we know people on the internet because we have become accustomed to liberally sharing so much, but we don’t know one another. She didn’t want all of these people that don’t even know me to make assumptions about me. After all, the world is often crueler and more presumptuous regarding black women. My mom protected her vulnerability. A friend once compared her to crème brûlée: a shiny and polished thin layer of sugar protects a much softer, sweet substance underneath. That’s how we are. I have always wanted people to see the thin layer of curated perfection. I rarely reveal the smooth, sweet layer underneath.

What I initially seemed to take away from my mom (whether she intended to convey this) was that it was essential to do everything in your power to control how people perceive you. I wanted to avoid judgment and criticism at every cost. Does this work? Yes and no. Sure, you can curate the dimensions of self you allow people to see. How they perceive you is a combination of conscious and subconscious biases that other people themselves don’t even have control over. Nevertheless, I tried. I tried with my hair. I tried with my clothes. I tried with my body. I tried with what I revealed to certain people at certain times. I tried with what I kept hidden. It half worked in that I always felt close to belonging, but “close” was never enough.

Thank you for continually guiding me toward the most profound vision I hold within my heart.

I spent my sophomore summer in Northern California for an internship. I was lucky to stay with some family friends while learning the area. It was my first time there, and I had the best time exploring the mountains, forests, hills, beaches, etc. A couple of hours before dinner, I decided to go to a beach close to the house to enjoy the sunset. I took a book I had purchased earlier from a small, independent bookstore and began reading. As I thumbed through the pages, I stumbled across a passage that genuinely changed how I saw people from that point forward. Essentially, the passage communicated that whenever we are triggered by another person, e.g., upset, angered, jealous, saddened, etc., it is never about them. That person is always our teacher; they are there to reflect how we are meant to heal and grow. If you refuse to learn from them and continue to blame anyone outside of yourself, you will only be met with more people who reflect the same lesson. I have said something along these lines several times throughout each essay (my apologies for the repetition). It is woven into my consciousness because I have made it a practice to focus on myself. Focusing on ourselves and how we carry ourselves in relationships doesn’t have to be egocentric in a “negative” way. Instead, concentrating on ourselves allows us to see where and how to grow to become more loving, gracious, compassionate, patient, and accepting. If we are open to the invitation, other people are our guides to that place. Those people are our soulmates.

In the first dream, my mom was cooking a pan full of bacon. I could see how much grease she put in the pan and got the impression that she would hurt herself. Before I could decide whether to say something, the oil got all over her and burned her. She cried out loud in a way that was painful to hear. I felt sadness, perhaps guilt, a sense of protectiveness, and love when I saw and heard my mother in pain. I knew I should have warned her to be careful, but I didn’t speak up for some reason. I cried out to her. I rushed to her, wondering if she was okay. She insisted she was fine and continued cooking.

In the second dream, I felt uncontrollable sadness that overwhelmed my entire face. I saw my mother for who she was. I saw a resounding piece of myself in her. I could feel it in my heart. The music was astounding and from another realm; it perfectly matched the scenes running in parallel. I wanted to hug her and tell her I finally understood. I felt a deep sense of understanding and perhaps forgiveness.

I felt at peace.

Reflecting on our relationship, I find similarities between my mom and me. Last year my mom and I visited my sister in Canada. It is always interesting to return to Canada because even though I haven’t lived there, it is where my mom grew up and where most of my maternal family lives. My mom, sister and I have few opportunities to spend extended periods together. My mom and I live close to one another in the States, but my sister wanted to experience living abroad for university and grad school. (I always thought it was interesting that she moved to a place with so much history for my mom.) Every time I am with them, I notice things about myself and them that I have never seen before. It is like looking into a three-way mirror. Being with my sister will highlight specific attributes from our parents versus things that are more personal to me. If we share them, they come from somewhere, right?

One day when we were returning from a place across the water that held so many childhood memories for my mom, we were all particularly exhausted. My mom and I had begun traveling early; it was oppressively hot out, and we were hungry... it was great to be with everyone, but the smallest thing could have set anyone off. My sister had lived independently for over a year and developed her routine. You know how it is when your parents visit your apartment; they begin inserting themselves to ensure you are okay. My mom was trying to help my sister with something regarding her space, and my sister was not having it. (The washing machine was broken. Could my sister have handled it on her own? Probably and she might have. My mom just wanted to make sure it was handled correctly.) They got into a huge argument that rippled throughout the rest of our time together. My sister was frustrated with my mom for the way she was trying to handle everything (better words could have been chosen). My mom was upset with my sister for her response when trying to help (better words could have been chosen). I wasn’t surprised. There was usually one disagreement every time we visited, at minimum. My mom couldn’t help but try to make things better for my sister, and my sister was seemingly unappreciative. I don’t know what it is about that moment in the sun’s heat, but I just knew that this whole time, even though I thought my mom and I were so different, we were exactly the same.

I can’t quite explain exactly how I came to this conclusion at that exact moment. I felt this incredible rush of knowing; everything seemed to connect. Before this trip, I spent over a year living with just my mom (which is a totally different dynamic than living with her and my sister). It had never been just the two of us. My mom was one of the first to show me everything is Nature. She challenged me to wonder what would happen if I put the love I know within everyone within my center focus. What love was beneath her words? It wasn’t easy at first, but I practiced it every day. I practiced it when things were calm and less calm (there were plenty of opportunities). I was committed to change because I didn’t want our relationship to suffer indefinitely. Seeing how her actions came from a place of love helped me understand her at that moment. I began to see my mother for her empathy, compassion, and patience. (This was during COVID, so I had plenty of time to reflect.) It could be that the more I accessed my empathy and sensitivity, the more I could see it within her. Without spending all that time with just her, I don’t think I would have seen her side. Mind you, I understood why my sister reacted the way she did. My mom’s words, tone, and overall delivery on the surface did not imply that she was trying to be helpful. Years ago, I reacted like my sister did when I didn’t know my mom either. When we were all there under the stifling heat of the sun, I got it. I would have been so frustrated if I was trying to do something nice for someone, and they showed me anything but gratitude. How interesting is it to ponder that we look at one another and think we are so different, and the more we get to know ourselves, we realize we are all the same?

That’s always how it works, isn’t it? The people that frustrate us the most are the ones we have the most in common. That is because they are our most powerful mirrors, our soulmates. Our soulmates are meant to challenge us and help us grow. My mom, sister and I have different personalities, of course. Still, the core parts of us are more similar than not. We all love making things easier and nicer for the people we care about; we also get frustrated when they don’t listen to us. Everything has a light and a shadow. The Shadow allowed me to find what was beautiful about my mom and myself. My mother has been a mirror of my most significant power this whole time. How we perceive the opportunities for love and growth is all around us. I see everything as a portal for love and growth. Others may see everyone as an opportunity to heal their shadows (I am also a fan of this one) and transform their darkness into something that will help humanity. Some see life as an opportunity to return to oneness, echoing unity consciousness rhetoric. It doesn’t matter which lens you choose. Learning to see, love, and appreciate my mother was a lesson in seeing, loving, and appreciating myself. I am in awe of how we are all connected.

In a dream, my mom and I were arguing in what seemed like a parking garage by my old neighbor’s house. She was yelling all of the usual obscenities at me with some unrealistic comments sprinkled in. At one point, I said, “Why would you say those things to me? Why? I am your daughter. I would think from these things that you do not love or respect me. Or do you not love and respect yourself?” I wasn’t angry, but I was firm. The dream didn’t feel emotionally overwhelming. It was the first time I ever confronted my mother in a dream. So I moved from the familiar feeling of frustration that trademarked my other dreams to something more open.

My mom may rebuke me, but it isn’t because she doesn’t love me. She says all of these things because she does care about me. She loves me so much more than I could envision. How she conveys that love may seem questionable at times, but she does protect everyone she cares about. It took me a long time to see past her apparent brutal words. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the tools or compassion to understand their history and intention. However, that doesn’t take away from how much her words hurt.

My mom and I revisited my sister in Canada about a year later. She wanted to be around family for her sixtieth birthday, and I hadn’t seen my sister in a couple of months. After the fiasco that was the previous visit, my sister asked us never to surprise her again. The washing machine incident from a year prior was only the beginning. My mom is immaculate; my sister could be tidier. Her apartment is hers, so if she wants to clean it, she will; if not, that’s her choice, too. However, my mom always has something to say regarding the cleanliness of a space. My sister wanted to know in advance if we were coming so she would have time to clean up and avoid the criticisms. We surprised her; thus, she didn’t have time to clean and could sense what would come next. My sister preemptively told my mom that if she were to go inside, she wasn’t allowed to say anything concerning the state of her apartment. She didn’t say this in the warmest tone. Additionally, since her statement was more of a reaction to what happened a year ago, it presumably came out of nowhere. My mom seemed genuinely confused as to why she was being spoken to that way after our nine-hour drive for her birthday weekend. When we were alone in the parking garage, she was upset. She didn’t know what she did to warrant such a venomous response. No one deserves to be spoken to with anything less than the utmost respect, especially if it is a loved one. I felt terrible because it was the first time I saw that my mom had no idea why my sister seemed to harbor some underlying resentment toward her. From her perspective, she was only ever trying to help, and I saw that. The miscommunication was hurting their relationship in the same way it damaged ours.

Seeing my mom and sister interact during both stints in Canada cemented my beliefs regarding how vital delivery is. Is it constructive if you want to support someone but can’t communicate effectively? My sister is also incredibly empathetic, kind, and sensitive. She has taught me how much delivery matters. My mom has a habit of saying something that most people would consider rude and saying, “Well, it’s just the truth. You’re the one that can’t handle hearing it.” When I suggest to my mom that she is a bit softer with her words when she speaks to my sister, she claims that she already is and she shouldn’t have to tiptoe around her. To some extent, I agree. I don’t think we should sugarcoat everything, but conscious communication is essential. There is a fine line between watching and curating what you say. I am more susceptible to the latter. 

In truth, my mom, sister, and I are all sensitive and don’t admit it very often when someone does something that hurts us. That is why sometimes the way my mom says things is even more perplexing to me. I could see how hurt she was in the parking garage by my sister’s words, and all I could think was, “Where do you think she got this from?”. We are sensitive in different ways, but anyone can tap into times when they were hurt to empathize with someone else. This goes for my sister as well. I am not a confrontational person. (That’s one of the reasons this dream was so surprising to me.) My sister, however, has less of an issue confronting my mother. Her confrontation is more reactionary and tends to provoke the situation rather than resolve it. (Her delivery could use some work, too.) My gut reaction is to keep my responses to myself and bottle them up for later. I wouldn’t say it is healthier; I am always working on it. I wanted to shake them both so that they realized they were essentially the same person, so the arguing wasn’t necessary. During our first visit to Canada, my sister told me how upset she was (regarding the argument over the washing machine) when we went to brunch later that morning. My mom expressed how hurt she was when we were in Jamaica, days after everything happened. I don’t know that either one of them communicated that clearly to one another.

This dream reflected a lot about me concerning external and internal confrontation. Examining the interpersonal dynamics between family members is incredibly helpful. You also don’t want to be that person in their twenties running around blaming their parents for everything. Our parents, like us, do their best with the tools they are given. I don’t know that we are meant to try and change our parents to conform to the ideal parent-child relationship we create in our heads. My mom is the way she is. My sister’s preemptive reaction was her erroneous attempt to communicate a boundary. Boundaries are important. I wouldn’t advise anyone to let people talk to them in a less-than-kind manner. Still, you can’t control people. However, it is always within your power to heal your relationship to your relationship with that person. What hurt the most for years was feeling so unseen by my mother. She didn’t see how much her criticism hurt, and I wanted her to know. Every time I tried to make her understand, I felt more heartbreak. Grasping her perspective helped me release that need; how could she ever see my pain if she didn’t see her actions through my lens? Changing my relationship to our relationship via empathy and compassion helped me to let it go.

Furthermore, the criticism may have started with my mother, but I internalized it and took it to another level. How I speak to myself is horrific; I would never talk to anyone this way. Blaming my mom for the origins of my inner critic doesn’t create any change. Taking responsibility, however, puts the power back in my hands and allows me to create something new. Confronting myself and initiating an internal dialogue when I say these things to myself could be more beneficial than just staying silent.

I am sorry for ever blaming you for any part of our relationship. I now know that everything you have ever done is because you love me unconditionally.

Everything is Nature, and Nature is synchronous.

I began that practice with my mother and let it expand to everyone else. I don’t believe anything is an accident. Every single person in your life plays a critical role in your development, as do you in theirs. It’s easier to see how the people closest to us are guiding us versus someone we pass on the street, but I am sure they have something to offer too. There are no coincidences.

My mom taught me to “get curious” about everything. What is this person doing here? Why are they here at this time? What are we doing together in this setting? What about the people around them? What do they all have to add to the conversation? What am I doing in their life? Getting curious allows me to connect all the dots and see the world in its auspicious beauty.

Our third-dimensional practices hold a certain consciousness. Namely, they are teaching us something on both physical and nonphysical levels. One of my favorite practices has been analyzing my dreams. Tracking my dreams has taught me about the moon cycle, storytelling, nonlinear stories, waves of interpretation, timing, patterns, and how to view life through an objective/symbolic/archetypal lens. When looking at dreams, I pay attention to the third-dimensional story (no matter how discombobulated that may seem) and the emotional data underneath. Ultimately, dreams have taught me how to be my healer via perceiving synchronicity and beauty in everything. Dream analysis has required me to step back and view the seemingly disjointed aspects of my life from a wider lens. How I interact with my dreams influences how I interpret circumstances, people, etc., in my waking life. The aura allows me to look at the multidimensional relationship story underneath the third-dimensional story. Synchronicity and beauty are my antidotes to feeling the need to control everything around me. Viewing people and experiences objectively as lessons, gifts, and portals for love and beauty has radically shifted my perspective. With time and patience, I can quickly see how everything is connected. Everything happens the way it is meant to.

Since this perspective is derived from my dream analysis practice, I call it “dream consciousness.” Dream consciousness goes hand in hand with unity consciousness. Unity consciousness is the understanding that when we find unity and harmony within ourselves, i.e., accept every dimension of our quantum being, we can find peace within the collective. Namely, when we accept every part of ourselves, we can accept all parts of everyone within our universal family. When we reject aspects of ourselves, we reject aspects of the collective. We can genuinely accept all other beings when we meet all layers of The Self with Unconditional Love. Perception of synchronicity and beauty is the pathway to unity and acceptance on all levels.

Here’s a different type of example: I work at a private equity firm (3). Private equity itself is traditionally a white and male-dominated industry. This wasn’t a problem for me as I grew up in a small, white, affluent town. What stood out to me about this particular firm after I started working there was that most people belong to a specific church (4). (When I say majority, it’s around eighty percent if I had to guesstimate (let me emphasize that that is not an accurate statistic).) No, it’s not an exceedingly widespread religion like Protestantism or Catholicism (which may be more believable). Every owner and employee knows that this religion dominates the company. I don’t have much in common with everyone since I am not white, a man, and don’t belong to that church. Yet, everyone there is so nice and supportive, making it an incredible workplace— I have no complaints. 

I am used to being a minority race-wise. I am used to being a minority gender-wise. I have never been a minority in a religious capacity. (I’m not religious anyway.) It’s new, and it’s not. Sure, there are times when I wish I could easily bond with my peers in the way they all bond with one another. I don’t, and I’m not meant to. When I think about my deepest wound, “belonging,” I don’t think I am meant to fit in anywhere. There is nothing wrong with feeling like you don’t belong somewhere. What was “wrong” was my attitude towards it; I was always fighting against it. My workplace, including my co-workers and the web of interpersonal dynamics, continues to reveal its medicine, and I still have much to learn from it. Seriously, what are the odds of me winding up at such a specific company? What are the odds of someone who has been a minority in such an obvious way working in a place where I would be the minority again in such an unexpected way? And it continues to run deeper, and I name the dimensions of my story. Getting curious has taken me out of my head and made me more observant and open to what opportunities for learning and healing are present in all situations. So many core parts of my life, including relationships, places, situations, etc., reflect that core wound. Anything and everything can reflect our core wounds, clues as to what we are here to offer. Soulmates are everywhere; soulmates reflect synchronicity.

There is synchronicity everywhere. I don’t think synchronicity is when things just so happen to work out in the way that you wish them to. Synchronicity is another way of finding love and beauty everywhere. Everything from where I grew up, how I grew up, my friends, their friends, my partners, their parents, their partners, my work, my place of work, my parents, their work, the butterfly I saw last week, my family, and back to my mother is synchronous. Synchronicity is what makes life meaningful and beautiful.

I love you endlessly.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

(2) Not everyone with a womb necessarily uses she/her/hers pronouns. The Mother archetype is available to everyone of all gender identifies. If it weren’t universal, it wouldn’t be an archetype. My mother uses these pronouns, and since this story is about her, those are the pronouns I use throughout this essay.

(3) I am keeping the details vague on purpose.

(4) See the above footnote.

southern peach

John (1) was a true Southern gentleman. On rare occasions, he wore cowboy boots around campus, reminding us of his origins. Fresh off any home visit, he would bring back frozen peaches, foie gras, and duck confit. It was a bit strange, but everything was always delicious. John was in our university’s journalism school, which was a perfect fit for him. He was really into politics and a great conversationalist. He had blonde hair, brown eyes, and a great smile that would be assets when he inevitably became an on-air personality. All of the girls in our dorm loved his subtle southern accent. I’m sure that worked in his favor, too.

Like most girls on our floor (and probably anyone who knew of him in the dorm), I liked John. He was charming and alluring but in a relationship with his high school girlfriend when we first met (college tested their relationship, and it didn’t last long). I had a crush on someone else, so I didn’t focus my energy on John. The main thing John and I had in common were our home circumstances. We were both privileged enough not to worry about money growing up (which, due to our school's (relatively limited) economic diversity, wasn’t the case for everyone). We shared a cultivated taste in food (I’m not sure I ever saw John eating Dominoes at two a.m.). We also both loved hiking and being outdoors. We were sarcastic in the same way and had a similar sense of humor. Other than that, we may not have had everything in common, but he became one of my best friends for a few years.

One of my friends suspected John and I liked each other and wondered if we were secretly dating. I was flattered at the thought that someone from the outside thought that John could be into me. After all, he was one of the most desirable freshmen in our dorm. I reevaluated and dissected every interaction. Maybe there had been some light flirting? Definitely not enough for me to confront him about it.

Soon after, John started dating another girl on my floor. John’s girlfriend and I didn’t exactly click. She was a cute, petite, and bubbly blonde. She had this unique, fervent, wild, childlike energy. John’s girlfriend was very eccentric. What I didn’t appreciate about her back then was that she owned how strange she was, which was strange because many kids are just trying to minimize how much they stand out in their first year of college. Not John’s girlfriend; she leaned into her eccentricities, and people either loved her or couldn’t get far away fast enough. (That’s an exaggeration, but it did annoy some people (primarily girls that may have been upset at how many boys liked her)). Even though she had her shadows, e.g., anxiety, intensity, etc., like everyone else, people thought it was endearing. To top it all off, she was so sweet, unlike me, who was incredibly dark inside. I did like that she loved cats because I also love cats. That’s about as close as we got.

I tried being friends with John’s girlfriend long before she was John’s girlfriend. During my first year, I vowed to be open to anything because I had spent the past eighteen years living in a bubble. She was just too herself, and I subconsciously found that intimidating. If anything, I was jealous that someone as weird as her (it’s a compliment, I promise) was not only comfortable being themselves but also loved. Meanwhile, I was stuck, always trying to be someone else to scrape by. It also didn’t help that not only did everyone think she was interested in my boyfriend (before he was my boyfriend), but also they thought he was interested in her. My jealousy compounded. Even though my boyfriend didn’t like her, the feeling of the possibility that someone would have chosen her over me never left. It grew more when I found out that she and John were dating because I liked John. How did she effortlessly capture the attention of everyone I wanted?

I can’t remember how long John and his girlfriend dated. It was long enough. Even while they were in a relationship, I got a nagging feeling that John could have still liked me. This feeling remained a speculation and was never confirmed. We were still close friends who didn’t seem to bother his girlfriend (of course, she was never insecure). John was very loyal. Not only was he in a committed relationship, but also my boyfriend was his other best friend; he would have never crossed that line. When she couldn’t go with his family on vacation, he took me instead. Nothing weird happened, and the break was a lot of fun. Even though I wasn’t his first choice, going on the trip made me feel special.

John would compliment me in ways that I still only felt “pretty for a black girl.” He never said those words because if he did, I hope I would have known better to run for the hills. Still, I couldn’t compete with his cute, sweet blonde girlfriend. The only thing I had going for me was that I was thin. I noticed a pattern when John described the girls he found attractive: they were all thin, smaller, and white.

I don’t know that I ever really liked John. Don’t get me wrong; I liked him because he was a good friend and, sure, he was objectively attractive. Still, I couldn’t imagine myself with him. It was always awkward in my head. So what was going on?

I wanted John to want me. It’s not even personal to him. If someone like John, someone traditional, wealthy, and white, wanted me, then it meant that I had succeeded. It would mean all those years I spent bending over backward to attain the unattainable weren’t in vain. It would mean that I was good enough. It would mean that I was beautiful. It would mean that I was desirable. I wanted to be wanted by him.

In the back of my mind, I knew that someone like John wouldn’t end up with someone like me. He told me once that his parents thought his college girlfriend was too eccentric. I imagined what it would be like if he introduced me as his girlfriend to his parents. They probably would have said I was too black. My relationship with John reflected the pain of feeling undesirable.

Wanting to be wanted by someone like John motivated most of my actions throughout college. I was always on a quest to prove that even though I was black, I could be as beautiful as someone like John’s girlfriend or become “someone like John’s” girlfriend. I did whatever I could to receive external validation; it was never enough. Maybe I would have the same freedom as John’s girlfriend to be me. I thought once I felt lovable enough, I could exhale.

Thank you for reflecting one of the more complex aspects of my core wound. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to trace it back to its origins and begin healing.

When I was younger, I would always get compliments on how tall and thin I was. Nothing else. Consciously, I realized that the standard of beauty was based on being white and thin. I couldn’t control that. Subconsciously, I knew that there was nothing I could do about being black. I couldn’t control that either. Consciously, I did everything I could to remain thin.

My efforts to remain thin resulted in a full-blown eating disorder. It wasn’t as bad in college. I had rowing practice six days a week, so washing down my Trix cereal with grape soda wasn’t a problem (thankfully, I didn’t develop diabetes). I was aware of my body but didn’t feel the need to change it since it was pretty much “perfect.” (At least that’s what other people told me.)

Eating disorders (from my unprofessional perspective) rarely had anything to do with food. It’s always something else masking itself. My eating disorder was a manifestation of my inner critic. I can’t pinpoint when my inner critic showed up; it’s not something we are born with. I suspect it began to show its face in high school. I didn’t have the strictest parents, but they did expect highly of me. My inner critic made sure that I was always in check so that my parents wouldn’t have to instead. After that, it lingered around.

I began to notice how loud the inner critic depended on how much of my life felt manageable. College was mainly fine; I knew my path: do well and graduate on time. It was much worse after graduation because everything was spiraling out of control. I went to stay with some family friends just outside of San Fransico to find a job. I discovered too late that I didn’t want to do anything related to computer science; it simply wasn’t my calling. I enjoyed my time in Northern California because it felt like home. Nevertheless, it was incredibly stressful to be under someone else’s roof while they waited for me to get myself together. When I returned home, I stayed with my dad until he was frustrated and didn’t know what to do with me. Knowing that I was disappointing him was hard, and he assumably felt helpless. I chose to stay with my dad because my mom and I didn’t get along. I felt closer and safer with my dad. When that situation came to a halt, I had no choice but to show up at my mom’s doorstep.

My dad was quieter in his disappointment, whereas my mom had no issues expressing how furious she was with me. The things she would say to me were awful. I experienced a long-term sadness that I had never felt before. (Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Now I know she was trying to help because she loved me. It didn’t feel like that at the time.) I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. With no clarity or direction, I felt paralyzed. It felt like my mom loved me less and less every time we spoke about my job search. She called me sad and pathetic, which stood out amongst her cruel words. I felt unwanted and worthless.

The only quick fix I had to feel somewhat lovable and valuable was to remain as small as possible. The only reason I had access to a scale was I was staying with my mom, who had one. (I don’t know anyone under thirty who owns a scale, but I could be wrong.) Every morning I would run in the park, follow it up with a hot bath, and, while completely dehydrated, step on the scale. The routine helped me feel like I was maintaining order within my chaotic inner world. I wasn’t merciless; if the number deviated by a pound or two, that was okay. Anything outside of that, however, was a problem that could be remedied with what I chose for lunch.

The routine only ended when I eventually found a job and moved out. Moving out meant no more scale or way of knowing what that number was. I sure wasn’t going out of my way to buy one. (Somehow, in my mind, that would have been absurd.) I naively thought this issue would follow suit once my problems were solved. It didn’t. I engaged in that ritual for over a year. That kind of constant internal criticism doesn’t just disappear. Not having a scale didn’t stop me from nitpicking. Having a job didn’t stop me from relentlessly criticizing my body. To make matters worse, my mom and I began having dinner weekly on Tuesdays after I moved out. When I came over for the first time, I located the scale.

I am so sorry for everything I put you through. I am sorry for constantly comparing, judging, and criticizing you even though you have done nothing but support, nourish, and hold space with me from the day I was born.

Patterns that start small are virtually untraceable. It took me years to notice how bad my disorder was and to begin healing it. I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions in that you need to make a list of thirty things to accomplish by year-end. Maybe you can, but I am not the kind of person that can focus on thirty goals over a long period. I don’t know where this tradition originated, making it inauthentic. I do like the idea of reexamining the visions we have for ourselves to make sure we are in alignment with what we want to offer in our lives. I usually begin thinking about this around my birthday. This year, I decided that the one thing I wanted to do was heal my eating disorder. That’s it. (It is a lofty goal since I have had it for so long. That doesn’t make it impossible.) Also, “heal” doesn’t mean go away. I don’t know if they completely go away or remain to ebb and flow. I wanted to understand it better, know its origin and open a conversation. Truthfully, that was the impetus for this collection of essays.

People dream about a wide variety of things. Some people have lucid, fun dreams featuring them flying through Costa Rica; others have prophetic dreams about someone they know being pregnant or the impending death of a family member. My dreams are not that cool. My dreams have always pointed to things in my subconscious that I need to pay attention to consciously. The things I need to heal and integrate within myself without fail show up in my dreams.

I had a dream about a year ago that I was in a family friend’s childhood home. My sister and friend were in my energetic periphery; I could feel them around. I went to a bedroom in the house and found a scale in the corner. It looked old and gross like it hadn’t been touched in years. I began fiddling with it, not knowing how it worked. The unit of measurement was set to kilograms, so I tried to find a way to convert it to pounds. (I am always bad with numbers in my dreams; kilograms would have looked like ancient Greek to me). I remember standing on the scale but couldn’t tell what the number said. So I got off the scale and saw my friend’s stepmother vacuuming in the hallway. I was ashamed; I didn’t want her to see me on the scale. I tried closing the door but couldn’t get it to shut. She was about to enter the room.

This dream is pretty cut and dry. I only had this specific dream once; some shared some similarities, but they were more vague bits and pieces. Dreams don’t exist in a vacuum. When I analyze my dreams, I look to other dreams I have had to see if they relate. It took about a year to realize that this dream was connected to John’s dream.

Once a year, around John’s birthday, I would dream about him. I have had many recurring dreams, but none that have only popped by for a visit every year. I was accustomed to urgent dreams occurring at least once every twenty-nine days. I don’t feel a wide range of emotions in my dreams. When something desperately needs my attention, I feel angry or sad. I never fail to notice those dreams. 

Every dream with John was happy. That caught my attention. It was an odd stray from my typical array of emotions. I wasn’t complaining. I loved those dreams.

I felt loved in those dreams.

This dream has been a subtle hint all along. What are the odds that it was with John in the one dream where I felt loved? It says nothing about us, specifically on the physical plane; we haven’t talked in years. (The most interesting dream characters are ones that I haven’t spoken to in a while. I’ve noticed that this means that it is less about them as a person and more about what they symbolize. John has transformed into a very powerful symbol of “desirability.”) I don’t know what this dream means entirely. Dreams are like slow-blooming flowers; they are multilayered and reveal their beauty one petal at a time. However, it reflects a narrative in my head that a part of me feels accepted when someone like John wants me. Desirability is a complex wound that I look forward to exploring further.

Whenever I acknowledge a dream’s message, they disappear. I will only know in several months whether I have honored the core message of this dream sequence. I appreciate the dream for showing me the more complex sides of myself. I don’t know that I would have been able to write about the nuances of this wound, let alone begin the healing process without it.

I love you.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

lovebirds, swans, and unwanted threesomes

College was the first time I began receiving more external validation that I was beautiful. My braces were off; I grew into my body; my hair was a bit longer and fuller; I traded my glasses for contacts; and what I wore was entirely up to me (finally!) (I know, super cliché). Oh, and I was in a more diverse setting, i.e., I wasn’t only being compared to the same picturesque white girl I was used to seeing everywhere. (I’m unsure how much this had to do with it, but something tells me that everyone in my hometown was only used to seeing one type of beauty while the people I was meeting in college came from at least slightly more diverse backgrounds, i.e., they were a tad more open to what a “beautiful” person could look like. I.e., it probably helped.) I reveled in all the compliments I wasn’t used to receiving. I was beginning to blossom. 

Even though I was blossoming on the outside, I was utterly hollow on the inside. I soaked up all the foreign adoration like a sponge because I didn’t know I was beautiful (like everyone else). At that point, I still needed other people to tell me. I didn’t understand that regardless of what our cultural consciousness reinforces, no one person is more or less anything than someone else. I had no sense of value; I had no intention or sense of self. I think that’s okay for where I was. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but it was okay. College is an opportunity for many people to begin exploring themselves and figuring that out. This exploration of self leaves room for people to reflect to you what you need to know about yourself. Although, depending on how you learn about your shadows, these lessons can feel brutal and unending.

John (1) and I were on the same rowing team at university. John was charismatic, energetic, and hilarious. He was extremely likable and got along with pretty much everyone. He had an infectious energy that lit up every space he entered. He could make any situation fun (even fifteen-hour bus rides to regattas) and transform anything into a punchline in an effortlessly clever way. John was also attractive and flirtatious (a dangerous combination). I can’t recall anyone that disliked John. John’s persona was seemingly magnetic.

John was in a relationship for two years with a woman, a teammate, that I admired. Confident, savvy, and outspoken; she was who I wanted to be. She called out everyone on their b.s. and was the opposite of a people-pleaser. They broke up around my junior year due to negligible reasons. I don’t know if anyone thought of John “in that way” because he was in this devoted relationship for half his college career. She had just graduated that year but still lived in the area; I would see her infrequently. When they were no longer together, I am sure some were curious about what kind of girl John would wind up with next.

John started showing interest in me later that year. I can’t quite remember if it was “too soon” for him to begin looking around (whatever that means since everyone’s timing is different). It came to me as a surprise. I considered us friends because we were on the same team, and everyone on the team was a friend of mine. However, we weren’t the kind of people to hang out one-on-one or in smaller groups since we didn’t have much in common. The more and more I flirted with John, the more I realized that I didn’t know much about him. In college, I found that people ranged from telling you their deepest darkest secrets when they first meet you, e.g., “I have XYZ unresolved trauma from my childhood,” to completely clamming up when asked a more personal question. John was closer to the latter. He maintained an air of mystique. He revealed enough to bond because most friendships require some depth but not too much, you know? John somehow made everyone feel like he was his friend, but I’m not sure how many people knew him besides his ex-girlfriend. All I knew was that personality-wise, we didn’t share many similarities. Although, I’m not sure that’s how people find each other anyway.

(The more I reflect upon relationships of all kinds, e.g., friendships, romantic partnerships, work relationships, roommates, etc., the more I find that we find people based on what we need to learn about ourselves at any given time. There is a beautiful synchronicity to everything; nothing is a coincidence. It’s so fascinating to me. Regarding romantic relationships, sure, there is an element of physical attraction at play. Not everyone is attracted to everyone. The world would be a mess if everyone wanted to “get with” everyone. We have discernment; we have free will. How we choose people or how people come into our lives is multilayered. It has little to do with physical attraction and more with how we need to grow. It’s just a theory.)

When John and I began flirting with each other, it was fun. It seemed harmless because, if I had to guess, neither of us genuinely liked one other at the time. I didn’t even know enough about him to like him. Besides, he had just exited what seemed like a serious relationship, and I was freshly in a new one. (I know, I know.) Admittedly, there were so many problems with this. To keep it brief, my ex-current-boyfriend and I were giving our relationship another try while he was long-distance for a study abroad program. We kept it a secret until he got back. It may have been because we wanted to see if it would work out before we told anyone else to alleviate some pressure. It may have also been because I was an immature asshole that didn’t want anyone to know, so I could do what I wanted when I wanted without consequence. It was probably both.

Dating has become more and more nuanced since I was in college. I love listening to dating podcasts for that exact reason. What is “right” or “wrong” is wholly up to the people within the relationship container. I knew we had crossed the line well before most people would have said things got out of hand. I tried keeping myself in the moral grey area by saying that everything was okay because we hadn’t done anything yet. I had done this before. I had a habit of getting into relationships and, soon after, ending the relationship to get back into a vague situation-ship where we weren’t “officially” together but would keep it a secret. Make sense? It shouldn’t because it is a crazy, thoughtless, and yet calculated thing to do. It was all fine in my mind because I didn’t owe anyone anything as long as we weren’t in an “actual” relationship. I lived and died by the word “technically” even though I was a total hypocrite because I always knew that if you had to use the word “technically,” you were probably doing something wrong. I’m pretty sure I even said that out loud to other people. Even worse, I was in a relationship this time instead of some purposefully-undefined situation-ship I concocted. I was unempathetic and inconsiderate, no matter how I wanted to lie to myself and interpret my actions. I was simply in the wrong. If I had thought about my partner’s feelings for over thirty seconds, I would have understood how much this would have hurt him and stopped immediately. I was selfish and kept going until everything crashed my senior year.

Thank you for being one of the first people to highlight my intricate yet simple shadows. You showed me that even though we all have a shadow, that is no excuse to hurt others.

I first came clean to my partner during my junior year. (I lied and said that the person was random and didn’t tell him about John. I didn’t want anyone to know about him a) because I didn’t want to ruin the group dynamic; and b) deep down, I was ashamed even though I could barely admit that to myself.) We tried to work things out. By my senior year, we weren’t together anymore. We still liked each other enough, but too much had happened for us to be in a healthy relationship. I knew I was in the wrong for what I did but didn’t comprehend how much what I did hurt until much later. I continued exploring things with John (despite everything) because I was having fun and didn’t see the point in getting into a serious relationship my senior year. We weren’t anything close to a couple. It was amazing that even though we spent all those nights together, I didn’t know much about him, and he didn’t know much about me. I liked it that way because I knew deep down I couldn’t trust him. (That should have been a red flag, but what can you do? We all have to learn at some point.) Bottom line: I knew he probably didn’t care about me, so the less we knew about each other, the better. We kept it a secret. I didn’t want anyone to know, and neither did he. Everyone on the team was pretty close by the time we entered our final year of university. Even though I was relatively private compared to others on the team, they had witnessed enough of my relationships, so I just wanted to keep something that didn’t mean much to me to myself. Maintaining the guise that we were just friends like he was with everyone else on the team was easy. I didn’t spend extra time with him while the sun was up, so there was likely nothing to be suspicious of. I also try not to underestimate people, so I am sure someone at some point figured it out. However, in my mind, everything was fine.

I lived with two women during my senior year. One was my junior-year roommate; we got along well and decided to live together for our final year. My junior-year roommate’s inner and external beauty radiated. Her implicit kind, beautiful, secure, and graceful energy reminded me of a swan’s (2); she glowed in my eyes. She grew up outside the States, which allowed her to have all these life experiences, leaving her more self-assured and mature than anyone I knew. She was dynamic and unassuming. Her perspective on life wasn’t anything unusual, but she was embodied, which was rare at our age. She was a natural and genuine humanitarian. (For someone like me who rarely thought about someone or anything larger than themselves, this left me in sheer awe. I had yet to discover this dimension of myself then, but she always inspired me by caring about the Earth and those who needed help. I knew that someday I wanted something I was passionate about that served something other than my self-interests. This was one of the most beautiful things about her, and I knew I wanted to be beautiful in that way, too). She was open but didn’t overshare. I also admired the way she treated other people. Everyone on the team was close, but that didn’t stop people from gossiping. She didn’t partake in that. She stayed above the fray and even brought a more calming presence to the group. My junior-year roommate was genuinely a lovely and confident free spirit. Everyone loved her, and I understood why. 

My other roommate was… unplanned. It’s common for housing situations to fall through when you are that age because so many things change frequently. What classes are you taking? Do you want an apartment closer to the majority of your classes? Do you have a bike? Do you want to live with this or a different group of friends? Would you rather avoid the drama and live by yourself? Do you want to live by your favorite cantina, a chicken shack, or Whole Foods? Living closer to your favorite banh-mi shop could be nice… I don’t know what series of events led her to live with my junior-year roommate and me, but we were all on the same rowing team, i.e., we were friendly enough, and we were all on the same sleeping schedule, which was the more important requirement to me for a roommate.

The main issue was: I didn’t like her. When she asked to live with us, I messaged my other friend immediately, dramatically stating that my senior year was over. “Justifiably,” the girl that wanted to live with us had a demeanor that rubbed some girls on the team the wrong way. I didn’t have the wherewithal to tell my junior-year roommate, the one I admired and was thrilled to live with, that I didn’t want to live with this other girl. I admired her because she was so loving and accepting; she instantly offered to start looking for three-bedroom apartments. Damn. The dream was over.

Let’s be honest; even though our personalities didn’t mesh, I didn’t like the unplanned roommate for two reasons: 1) I was jealous of her, and 2) I didn’t understand her. I knew I didn’t understand John fully either, but he was light and fun, so that was okay. I didn’t know anything about her, so I couldn’t begin to appreciate her for the beautiful woman she was. She just irritated me, which leads me back to reason number one: I was probably just jealous. Even though, beneath the surface, many girls were annoyed with her, all the guys wanted her. She was beautiful in a way that represented everything I wasn’t and couldn’t be. She vaguely reminded me of every picturesque girl I knew from high school (why does everything seem to go back to some stage of primary school?). She reminded me that no matter how I reinvented myself in college or how confident I seemed, that shadow followed me like a ghost.

More importantly: my other roommate, the girl I originally wanted to find a two-bedroom with, seemed to like her better. Writing this seems so juvenile because now I know friendships aren’t the same, which is good. Diversity in all kinds of relationships is beautiful and necessary. For example, not everyone can be your “best friend” (if that still exists). That would be so much energy to devote to your friends, which would be exhausting depending on how many you have. We all have friends for a reason, season, or lifetime. We don’t know which category they will fall into until we can look back further down the line. Nevertheless, at the time, this was hurtful. I don’t know how it happened, but they got significantly close to one another, which left me feeling like the third wheel. I felt unwanted but in a different way. This isn’t their fault; we don’t choose who we click with. It especially wasn’t their fault that I was so insecure. It was just hard to have that insecurity reflected upon me in a place that was supposed to be safe. Another reason why this hurt was because I had this massive girl crush on my junior-year roommate. She was incredible. I wanted to get to know her better and wanted her to like me, too. What did it say about me if she liked our other roommate better? Being left out sucked but feeling left out by someone I admired really stung.

During our time together, the unplanned roommate ended a long-term relationship that lasted about three years. She was self-proclaimed as lost for a while which was understandable. When it was time, she wanted to have fun before the year ended. Amidst all her exploration, she found herself in a love triangle with a different guy and a girl on the team. It isn’t necessary to get into all of the gory details (also, it would be difficult for me to remember them accurately anyway). It’s just so fascinating how multidimensional mirrors are. I vaguely remember that none were in a relationship, so no one “owed” anyone anything. Everyone knew what was happening (to some extent), but that didn’t stop people from getting hurt.

I continued to hang out with John. We only had about a month of school left, so I told my roommates about him. They were both surprised. The unplanned roommate warned me he could be a player (or whatever the modern equivalent of that word is). I assumed he was probably hanging out with other girls, which was fine. We weren’t in a relationship, so who was I to dictate who he could and couldn’t be with?

John drank a lot. In college, it is hard to distinguish who is just enjoying their time away from parental supervision and who may have a real issue with alcohol. I began to suspect that John may have been the latter2. The more we hung out other between the hours of one and four a.m., the more often alcohol was involved. I would take a shot here and there (probably because our situation was becoming uncomfortable in a way I wasn’t ready to admit to myself). We didn’t get super drunk when it was just us. When we were at parties with the rest of the team, I noticed John seemed to want to blackout. When we were alone, I tried probing a bit deeper to see if there was anything I could do. I wanted to see if there was something else going on. Ironically, we just weren’t close enough to open up to one another. I wanted to make sure he was okay, but I wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy with him (what?!). He opened up a bit sometimes but mostly shook it off. John’s drinking was my first glimpse into an unseen side of him; it was my reminder that I didn’t know him well at all.

It was no surprise to me that sometimes you can develop feelings when you give yourself to someone for several months. One night when we were together, he told me he loved me. His dark skin shone, almost glowing under the moonlight when he said it. I didn’t believe him. We still didn’t know much about each other, so he was either trying to mess with me or he felt something, but it certainly wasn’t love. The statement was disingenuous. I said it back, which was also dishonest. I did have feelings for him, but they weren’t love. I was likely feeling attached. Nevertheless, months after John told me he loved me, I told John that I liked him and wanted more. (I don’t know what I could have wanted from him then. As I wrote earlier, I was probably more attached than anything. My unplanned roommate was also right; he was with other people. I wasn’t delusional and wanted to protect myself from potential pain. I thought us being together would protect my misguided feelings.) He said that he wasn’t in that headspace. I was hurt, but I understood. 

Soon after, I discovered that my unplanned roommate spent a night with John. I confronted her because she knew about John and me. She explained the (strange) circumstances to me, and we had a good conversation. It bothered (3) me, but I wasn’t mad at her. A few nights later, I discovered that John had been with another girl on my team about a month prior. That bothered me. I didn’t blame her; she was my friend, just as hurt and in the dark as I was. I don’t know what they talked about but she didn’t know about me. A couple of days later, we discovered he was with approximately seven other girls. They were all from different groups, so he likely thought that we would never know since we had never met, and our chances of meeting, let alone talking to one another about him, were slim. (Have you ever seen John Tucker Must Die?) Or maybe he didn’t think anything of it because no matter what, it wouldn’t be cheating. That was the last straw. None of us knew about one another because we all presumably kept it a secret in some capacity. None of us were in a relationship, so we didn’t “owe” each other anything… but why was it still painful? Everything was unraveling.

John came over to talk to my friend and me one morning. We all sat at my small, circular kitchen table. It was awkward, and the thick tension filled the room. I was emotionally exhausted; my demeanor was cold. John apologized when we confronted him (the second time’s the charm). He admitted that he was working through some personal issues that were the source of his behavior. I wasn’t buying it. I was too hurt and embarrassed. Now I understand that even if he wasn’t telling the truth at the time, in a way, he was because no one does that unless they are somehow wounded. I would know. When I looked at him, the charismatic person I once knew vanished. He seemed tired. He looked as hollow as I felt; his eyes were empty. What John did wasn’t cheating because, as far as I knew, he wasn’t in a relationship with anyone. “Technically,” he didn’t do anything wrong. All of the dating rules that I had heard disappeared from my mind. From that moment forward, I knew that what was more important than any rule that could draw the boundary between “right” and “wrong” was how the person you care about feels. In this instance, John and I didn’t care about one another; we (or I’ll speak for myself) just needed people to make us feel less empty.

As I examined the mess I was in senior year, I began to understand how my past actions hurt so many people. Unfortunately, I was the kind of person that needed to experience my behavior firsthand to know that it was hurtful. I was John in previous scenarios. I didn’t realize how bad that pattern was until I was a part of someone else’s. The first time I got an inkling of how wrong I was was when I cheated on my ex-boyfriend with John (a classic example of what goes around comes around). It wasn’t until I got “got” that I fully understood how I could never do anything like that again.

Months before this moment, when I was traveling in Australia, I was thinking about John and what our relationship would be like our senior year. We didn’t talk much that summer except when he wished me a happy birthday (I was ecstatic when I received that message). (I wasn’t delusional thinking we would be like lovebirds (4) senior year. Nonetheless, I assure you that I didn’t imagine all of this.) I knew then from his excessive drinking that John wasn’t the carefree, jovial character he portrayed himself as. I had seen a darkness in him that hadn’t impacted me yet. But subconsciously, I knew that it would come for me eventually. So I sat in the botanical gardens, pondering John’s puzzling nature while focusing on the lush green grass. 

“Everyone has a mother. Everyone out there is someone’s child. Imagine if the person you are thinking about was your child. What love and grace would you show them?”

The thought formed in my mind, and it calmed me.

John’s darkness was no different than mine. It wasn’t his darkness that I was waiting to catch up with me; it was my own. When I looked into John’s eyes across the kitchen table, I found myself in them.

It has always been easier for me to give grace to others than myself. Forgiving John was easy because there was nothing to forgive (6). Everyone fucks up, but he wasn’t even in the wrong. I was hurt by John, and I honor that painful experience. I don’t believe he intended to harm me. With time, having empathy for John was easy. If I were a mother, I imagine would tell my child the same thing. I imagine that I wouldn’t judge them or love them any less.

So why was it so hard for me to apply the same consciousness to myself?

I am deeply sorry for projecting everything onto you. None of this was ever about you; I was judging what I didn’t like about myself and take full responsibility for the part I played in our relationship. I am sorry for all of how I hurt my loved ones. I am my harshest critic; I carried a lot of guilt, regret, and shame from my past actions. From our time together, I have learned to have patience, compassion, and love for the darkest parts of myself. I can honor where I was coming from and that I was doing the best I could with what I knew at the time. You have challenged me to learn how to empathize deeper and hold space for the inherent multidimensionality of perspective.

Weirdly enough, even though the situation with John was an absolute nightmare, my unplanned roommate seemed to haunt me even more. I didn’t think about John much after we all graduated and moved on; that situation was cut and dry. Curiously, my roommates remained in my dream space for several years.

The dream always felt the same. It didn’t matter where we were or who else was there. They were always together in some capacity, and I was left out. Even though John was involved in the sticky web of relationships, he was never in the dream. It was always my two roommates, happily together with me on the outside.

Dreams are raw, honest, puzzling, challenging, revealing, unpredictable, uncontrollable, wild, and free. They are the candid, innate, kaleidoscopic compasses to navigate the complex emotions and dimensions of the human experience. Dreams are a gateway to our inner oracle. We are filled with infinite symbols and inner knowings that activate our endless, loving medicine. Dreams are the compassionate, wise, discerning, multidimensional mirrors and portals that allow us to be our own healers. As we interface and cultivate a relationship with our dreams, we interdimensionally develop deeper, richer relationships with ourselves, something greater than ourselves and the collective. Aligning with our inner oracles allows us to embody responsibility, integrity, and sovereignty as we continuously see ourselves for our radiant, dynamic spirits. Dreamscapes dismantle everything familiar. They transport us past duality into the unknown.

All of this being said, to this day, I don’t know what this dream means. That’s not entirely true. I have some ideas due to what I felt in the dream. Dreams are interesting because the most unexpected characters (7) and symbols can float throughout your subconscious for years while revealing endless wisdom. Every time I feel like I nail down a dream, it continuously reveals itself and reminds me how endlessly mysterious they are.

One of the main takeaways from the dream featuring my two roommates was that I needed to let go of any need for external validation. I was and am imperfect. Being imperfect doesn’t mean you deserve less love than the next person. I have always hated and criticized myself mercilessly for my imperfections (more on this in the following essay). 

I have always had a wound surrounding never being someone’s number one priority. This was primarily reflected in friendships. Even though John was with many other women, which I always suspected, I secretly liked when he told me he loved me because he made me feel special. I never felt special. 

But it wasn’t him in the dream. Something is compelling about those two women being the characters in that dream. Sure, it reflected a real-life situation because they were so much closer, but the feeling in the dream was so exaggerated in a difficult way to ignore. Imagine if John was in the dream. If he had been there in any capacity, I might have just chalked everything up to being upset that some guy I wanted didn’t want me in the way I wanted, which was far from the point. Moreover, my unplanned roommate was with John at one point, which was probably enough regarding symbolism. But somehow, he felt more like a supporting character to highlight her significance. The fact that she was somehow the most powerful symbol of this entire situation was captivating.

I primarily felt this feeling in friendships. My mom used to say never to hang out in threes because someone always felt left out. Naturally, I was always in a group of three girls. I never felt “chosen” or prioritized until my best friend from middle school. We were inseparable until one day, everything burned to the ground (perhaps another story for another time). Our roommate situation from years prior opened the wound, which was being reflected in my dreams. It was the same feeling dressed up as different characters in various settings. Issues with lovability and desirability aren’t just confined to romantic relationships; they can be found in all kinds of containers.

The wound of belonging (and, resultingly, desirability) is so profound for me. My unplanned roommate is one of the few people, if not the only person, that accurately captures this wound’s depth, nuance, and multidimensionality as a symbol. This is only the beginning of how she has been integral in my healing process (I am so thankful for you). You can only hold onto a wound for so long before it swallows you whole. I had hurt many of my ex-partners, been hurt by John, and probably self-sabotaged my way out of the incredible friendships I desired because I had done nothing to heal what was truly eating me up inside. One of the many things this dream has taught me is that if I want to create meaningful, healthy relationships, this part of me needs to die.

These metaphorical deaths can point to something beautiful. Sure, it feels safe to fit in and to be wanted by everyone. What if I was never meant to? What if that was okay? What if that was the most beautiful thing about me?

I love you.

College was the first time I began receiving more external validation that I was beautiful. My braces were off; I grew into my body; my hair was a bit longer and fuller; I traded my glasses for contacts; and what I wore was entirely up to me (finally!) (I know, super cliché). Oh, and I was in a more diverse setting, i.e., I wasn’t only being compared to the same picturesque white girl I was used to seeing everywhere. (I’m unsure how much this had to do with it, but something tells me that everyone in my hometown was only used to seeing one type of beauty while the people I was meeting in college came from at least slightly more diverse backgrounds, i.e., they were a tad more open to what a “beautiful” person could look like. I.e., it probably helped.) I reveled in all the compliments I wasn’t used to receiving. I was beginning to blossom. 

Even though I was blossoming on the outside, I was utterly hollow on the inside. I soaked up all the foreign adoration like a sponge because I didn’t know I was beautiful (like everyone else). At that point, I still needed other people to tell me. I didn’t understand that regardless of what our cultural consciousness reinforces, no one person is more or less anything than someone else. I had no sense of value; I had no intention or sense of self. I think that’s okay for where I was. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but it was okay. College is an opportunity for many people to begin exploring themselves and figuring that out. This exploration of self leaves room for people to reflect to you what you need to know about yourself. Although, depending on how you learn about your shadows, these lessons can feel brutal and unending.

John1 and I were on the same rowing team at university. John was charismatic, energetic, and hilarious. He was extremely likable and got along with pretty much everyone. He had an infectious energy that lit up every space he entered. He could make any situation fun (even fifteen-hour bus rides to regattas) and transform anything into a punchline in an effortlessly clever way. John was also attractive and flirtatious (a dangerous combination). I can’t recall anyone that disliked John. John’s persona was seemingly magnetic.

John was in a relationship for two years with a woman, a teammate, that I admired. Confident, savvy, and outspoken; she was who I wanted to be. She called out everyone on their b.s. and was the opposite of a people-pleaser. They broke up around my junior year due to negligible reasons. I don’t know if anyone thought of John “in that way” because he was in this devoted relationship for half his college career. She had just graduated that year but still lived in the area; I would see her infrequently. When they were no longer together, I am sure some were curious about what kind of girl John would wind up with next.

John started showing interest in me later that year. I can’t quite remember if it was “too soon” for him to begin looking around (whatever that means since everyone’s timing is different). It came to me as a surprise. I considered us friends because we were on the same team, and everyone on the team was a friend of mine. However, we weren’t the kind of people to hang out one-on-one or in smaller groups since we didn’t have much in common. The more and more I flirted with John, the more I realized that I didn’t know much about him. In college, I found that people ranged from telling you their deepest darkest secrets when they first meet you, e.g., “I have XYZ unresolved trauma from my childhood,” to completely clamming up when asked a more personal question. John was closer to the latter. He maintained an air of mystique. He revealed enough to bond because most friendships require some depth but not too much, you know? John somehow made everyone feel like he was his friend, but I’m not sure how many people knew him besides his ex-girlfriend. All I knew was that personality-wise, we didn’t share many similarities. Although, I’m not sure that’s how people find each other anyway.

(The more I reflect upon relationships of all kinds, e.g., friendships, romantic partnerships, work relationships, roommates, etc., the more I find that we find people based on what we need to learn about ourselves at any given time. There is a beautiful synchronicity to everything; nothing is a coincidence. It’s so fascinating to me. Regarding romantic relationships, sure, there is an element of physical attraction at play. Not everyone is attracted to everyone. The world would be a mess if everyone wanted to “get with” everyone. We have discernment; we have free will. How we choose people or how people come into our lives is multilayered. It has little to do with physical attraction and more with how we need to grow. It’s just a theory.)

When John and I began flirting with each other, it was fun. It seemed harmless because, if I had to guess, neither of us genuinely liked one other at the time. I didn’t even know enough about him to like him. Besides, he had just exited what seemed like a serious relationship, and I was freshly in a new one. (I know, I know.) Admittedly, there were so many problems with this. To keep it brief, my ex-current-boyfriend and I were giving our relationship another try while he was long-distance for a study abroad program. We kept it a secret until he got back. It may have been because we wanted to see if it would work out before we told anyone else to alleviate some pressure. It may have also been because I was an immature asshole that didn’t want anyone to know, so I could do what I wanted when I wanted without consequence. It was probably both.

Dating has become more and more nuanced since I was in college. I love listening to dating podcasts for that exact reason. What is “right” or “wrong” is wholly up to the people within the relationship container. I knew we had crossed the line well before most people would have said things got out of hand. I tried keeping myself in the moral grey area by saying that everything was okay because we hadn’t done anything yet. I had done this before. I had a habit of getting into relationships and, soon after, ending the relationship to get back into a vague situation-ship where we weren’t “officially” together but would keep it a secret. Make sense? It shouldn’t because it is a crazy, thoughtless, and yet calculated thing to do. It was all fine in my mind because I didn’t owe anyone anything as long as we weren’t in an “actual” relationship. I lived and died by the word “technically” even though I was a total hypocrite because I always knew that if you had to use the word “technically,” you were probably doing something wrong. I’m pretty sure I even said that out loud to other people. Even worse, I was in a relationship this time instead of some purposefully-undefined situation-ship I concocted. I was unempathetic and inconsiderate, no matter how I wanted to lie to myself and interpret my actions. I was simply in the wrong. If I had thought about my partner’s feelings for over thirty seconds, I would have understood how much this would have hurt him and stopped immediately. I was selfish and kept going until everything crashed my senior year.

Thank you for being one of the first people to highlight my intricate yet simple shadows. You showed me that even though we all have a shadow, that is no excuse to hurt others.

I first came clean to my partner during my junior year. (I lied and said that the person was random and didn’t tell him about John. I didn’t want anyone to know about him a) because I didn’t want to ruin the group dynamic; and b) deep down, I was ashamed even though I could barely admit that to myself.) We tried to work things out. By my senior year, we weren’t together anymore. We still liked each other enough, but too much had happened for us to be in a healthy relationship. I knew I was in the wrong for what I did but didn’t comprehend how much what I did hurt until much later. I continued exploring things with John (despite everything) because I was having fun and didn’t see the point in getting into a serious relationship my senior year. We weren’t anything close to a couple. It was amazing that even though we spent all those nights together, I didn’t know much about him, and he didn’t know much about me. I liked it that way because I knew deep down I couldn’t trust him. (That should have been a red flag, but what can you do? We all have to learn at some point.) Bottom line: I knew he probably didn’t care about me, so the less we knew about each other, the better. We kept it a secret. I didn’t want anyone to know, and neither did he. Everyone on the team was pretty close by the time we entered our final year of university. Even though I was relatively private compared to others on the team, they had witnessed enough of my relationships, so I just wanted to keep something that didn’t mean much to me to myself. Maintaining the guise that we were just friends like he was with everyone else on the team was easy. I didn’t spend extra time with him while the sun was up, so there was likely nothing to be suspicious of. I also try not to underestimate people, so I am sure someone at some point figured it out. However, in my mind, everything was fine.

I lived with two women during my senior year. One was my junior-year roommate; we got along well and decided to live together for our final year. My junior-year roommate’s inner and external beauty radiated. Her implicit kind, beautiful, secure, and graceful energy reminded me of a swan’s2; she glowed in my eyes. She grew up outside the States, which allowed her to have all these life experiences, leaving her more self-assured and mature than anyone I knew. She was dynamic and unassuming. Her perspective on life wasn’t anything unusual, but she was embodied, which was rare at our age. She was a natural and genuine humanitarian. (For someone like me who rarely thought about someone or anything larger than themselves, this left me in sheer awe. I had yet to discover this dimension of myself then, but she always inspired me by caring about the Earth and those who needed help. I knew that someday I wanted something I was passionate about that served something other than my self-interests. This was one of the most beautiful things about her, and I knew I wanted to be beautiful in that way, too). She was open but didn’t overshare. I also admired the way she treated other people. Everyone on the team was close, but that didn’t stop people from gossiping. She didn’t partake in that. She stayed above the fray and even brought a more calming presence to the group. My junior-year roommate was genuinely a lovely and confident free spirit. Everyone loved her, and I understood why. 

My other roommate was… unplanned. It’s common for housing situations to fall through when you are that age because so many things change frequently. What classes are you taking? Do you want an apartment closer to the majority of your classes? Do you have a bike? Do you want to live with this or a different group of friends? Would you rather avoid the drama and live by yourself? Do you want to live by your favorite cantina, a chicken shack, or Whole Foods? Living closer to your favorite banh-mi shop could be nice… I don’t know what series of events led her to live with my junior-year roommate and me, but we were all on the same rowing team, i.e., we were friendly enough, and we were all on the same sleeping schedule, which was the more important requirement to me for a roommate.

The main issue was: I didn’t like her. When she asked to live with us, I messaged my other friend immediately, dramatically stating that my senior year was over. “Justifiably,” the girl that wanted to live with us had a demeanor that rubbed some girls on the team the wrong way. I didn’t have the wherewithal to tell my junior-year roommate, the one I admired and was thrilled to live with, that I didn’t want to live with this other girl. I admired her because she was so loving and accepting; she instantly offered to start looking for three-bedroom apartments. Damn. The dream was over.

Let’s be honest; even though our personalities didn’t mesh, I didn’t like the unplanned roommate for two reasons: 1) I was jealous of her, and 2) I didn’t understand her. I knew I didn’t understand John fully either, but he was light and fun, so that was okay. I didn’t know anything about her, so I couldn’t begin to appreciate her for the beautiful woman she was. She just irritated me, which leads me back to reason number one: I was probably just jealous. Even though, beneath the surface, many girls were annoyed with her, all the guys wanted her. She was beautiful in a way that represented everything I wasn’t and couldn’t be. She vaguely reminded me of every picturesque girl I knew from high school (why does everything seem to go back to some stage of primary school?). She reminded me that no matter how I reinvented myself in college or how confident I seemed, that shadow followed me like a ghost.

More importantly: my other roommate, the girl I originally wanted to find a two-bedroom with, seemed to like her better. Writing this seems so juvenile because now I know friendships aren’t the same, which is good. Diversity in all kinds of relationships is beautiful and necessary. For example, not everyone can be your “best friend” (if that still exists). That would be so much energy to devote to your friends, which would be exhausting depending on how many you have. We all have friends for a reason, season, or lifetime. We don’t know which category they will fall into until we can look back further down the line. Nevertheless, at the time, this was hurtful. I don’t know how it happened, but they got significantly close to one another, which left me feeling like the third wheel. I felt unwanted but in a different way. This isn’t their fault; we don’t choose who we click with. It especially wasn’t their fault that I was so insecure. It was just hard to have that insecurity reflected upon me in a place that was supposed to be safe. Another reason why this hurt was because I had this massive girl crush on my junior-year roommate. She was incredible. I wanted to get to know her better and wanted her to like me, too. What did it say about me if she liked our other roommate better? Being left out sucked but feeling left out by someone I admired really stung.

During our time together, the unplanned roommate ended a long-term relationship that lasted about three years. She was self-proclaimed as lost for a while which was understandable. When it was time, she wanted to have fun before the year ended. Amidst all her exploration, she found herself in a love triangle with a different guy and a girl on the team. It isn’t necessary to get into all of the gory details (also, it would be difficult for me to remember them accurately anyway). It’s just so fascinating how multidimensional mirrors are. I vaguely remember that none were in a relationship, so no one “owed” anyone anything. Everyone knew what was happening (to some extent), but that didn’t stop people from getting hurt.

I continued to hang out with John. We only had about a month of school left, so I told my roommates about him. They were both surprised. The unplanned roommate warned me he could be a player (or whatever the modern equivalent of that word is). I assumed he was probably hanging out with other girls, which was fine. We weren’t in a relationship, so who was I to dictate who he could and couldn’t be with?

John drank a lot. In college, it is hard to distinguish who is just enjoying their time away from parental supervision and who may have a real issue with alcohol. I began to suspect that John may have been the latter3. The more we hung out other between the hours of one and four a.m., the more often alcohol was involved. I would take a shot here and there (probably because our situation was becoming uncomfortable in a way I wasn’t ready to admit to myself). We didn’t get super drunk when it was just us. When we were at parties with the rest of the team, I noticed John seemed to want to blackout. When we were alone, I tried probing a bit deeper to see if there was anything I could do. I wanted to see if there was something else going on. Ironically, we just weren’t close enough to open up to one another. I wanted to make sure he was okay, but I wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy with him (what?!). He opened up a bit sometimes but mostly shook it off. John’s drinking was my first glimpse into an unseen side of him; it was my reminder that I didn’t know him well at all.

It was no surprise to me that sometimes you can develop feelings when you give yourself to someone for several months. One night when we were together, he told me he loved me. His dark skin shone, almost glowing under the moonlight when he said it. I didn’t believe him. We still didn’t know much about each other, so he was either trying to mess with me or he felt something, but it certainly wasn’t love. The statement was disingenuous. I said it back, which was also dishonest. I did have feelings for him, but they weren’t love. I was likely feeling attached. Nevertheless, months after John told me he loved me, I told John that I liked him and wanted more. (I don’t know what I could have wanted from him then. As I wrote earlier, I was probably more attached than anything. My unplanned roommate was also right; he was with other people. I wasn’t delusional and wanted to protect myself from potential pain. I thought us being together would protect my misguided feelings.) He said that he wasn’t in that headspace. I was hurt, but I understood. 

Soon after, I discovered that my unplanned roommate spent a night with John. I confronted her because she knew about John and me. She explained the (strange) circumstances to me, and we had a good conversation. It bothered4 me, but I wasn’t mad at her. A few nights later, I discovered that John had been with another girl on my team about a month prior. That bothered me. I didn’t blame her; she was my friend, just as hurt and in the dark as I was. I don’t know what they talked about but she didn’t know about me. A couple of days later, we discovered he was with approximately seven other girls. They were all from different groups, so he likely thought that we would never know since we had never met, and our chances of meeting, let alone talking to one another about him, were slim. (Have you ever seen John Tucker Must Die?) Or maybe he didn’t think anything of it because no matter what, it wouldn’t be cheating. That was the last straw. None of us knew about one another because we all presumably kept it a secret in some capacity. None of us were in a relationship, so we didn’t “owe” each other anything… but why was it still painful? Everything was unraveling.

John came over to talk to my friend and me one morning. We all sat at my small, circular kitchen table. It was awkward, and the thick tension filled the room. I was emotionally exhausted; my demeanor was cold. John apologized when we confronted him (the second time’s the charm). He admitted that he was working through some personal issues that were the source of his behavior. I wasn’t buying it. I was too hurt and embarrassed. Now I understand that even if he wasn’t telling the truth at the time, in a way, he was because no one does that unless they are somehow wounded. I would know. When I looked at him, the charismatic person I once knew vanished. He seemed tired. He looked as hollow as I felt; his eyes were empty. What John did wasn’t cheating because, as far as I knew, he wasn’t in a relationship with anyone. “Technically,” he didn’t do anything wrong. All of the dating rules that I had heard disappeared from my mind. From that moment forward, I knew that what was more important than any rule that could draw the boundary between “right” and “wrong” was how the person you care about feels. In this instance, John and I didn’t care about one another; we (or I’ll speak for myself) just needed people to make us feel less empty.

As I examined the mess I was in senior year, I began to understand how my past actions hurt so many people. Unfortunately, I was the kind of person that needed to experience my behavior firsthand to know that it was hurtful. I was John in previous scenarios. I didn’t realize how bad that pattern was until I was a part of someone else’s. The first time I got an inkling of how wrong I was was when I cheated on my ex-boyfriend with John (a classic example of what goes around comes around). It wasn’t until I got “got” that I fully understood how I could never do anything like that again.

Months before this moment, when I was traveling in Australia, I was thinking about John and what our relationship would be like our senior year. We didn’t talk much that summer except when he wished me a happy birthday (I was ecstatic when I received that message). (I wasn’t delusional thinking we would be like lovebirds5 senior year. Nonetheless, I assure you that I didn’t imagine all of this.) I knew then from his excessive drinking that John wasn’t the carefree, jovial character he portrayed himself as. I had seen a darkness in him that hadn’t impacted me yet. But subconsciously, I knew that it would come for me eventually. So I sat in the botanical gardens, pondering John’s puzzling nature while focusing on the lush green grass. 

“Everyone has a mother. Everyone out there is someone’s child. Imagine if the person you are thinking about was your child. What love and grace would you show them?”

The thought formed in my mind, and it calmed me.

John’s darkness was no different than mine. It wasn’t his darkness that I was waiting to catch up with me; it was my own. When I looked into John’s eyes across the kitchen table, I found myself in them.

It has always been easier for me to give grace to others than myself. Forgiving John was easy because there was nothing to forgive6. Everyone fucks up, but he wasn’t even in the wrong. I was hurt by John, and I honor that painful experience. I don’t believe he intended to harm me. With time, having empathy for John was easy. If I were a mother, I imagine would tell my child the same thing. I imagine that I wouldn’t judge them or love them any less.

So why was it so hard for me to apply the same consciousness to myself?

I am deeply sorry for projecting everything onto you. None of this was ever about you; I was judging what I didn’t like about myself and take full responsibility for the part I played in our relationship. I am sorry for all of how I hurt my loved ones. I am my harshest critic; I carried a lot of guilt, regret, and shame from my past actions. From our time together, I have learned to have patience, compassion, and love for the darkest parts of myself. I can honor where I was coming from and that I was doing the best I could with what I knew at the time. You have challenged me to learn how to empathize deeper and hold space for the inherent multidimensionality of perspective.

Weirdly enough, even though the situation with John was an absolute nightmare, my unplanned roommate seemed to haunt me even more. I didn’t think about John much after we all graduated and moved on; that situation was cut and dry. Curiously, my roommates remained in my dream space for several years.

The dream always felt the same. It didn’t matter where we were or who else was there. They were always together in some capacity, and I was left out. Even though John was involved in the sticky web of relationships, he was never in the dream. It was always my two roommates, happily together with me on the outside.

Dreams are raw, honest, puzzling, challenging, revealing, unpredictable, uncontrollable, wild, and free. They are the candid, innate, kaleidoscopic compasses to navigate the complex emotions and dimensions of the human experience. Dreams are a gateway to our inner oracle. We are filled with infinite symbols and inner knowings that activate our endless, loving medicine. Dreams are the compassionate, wise, discerning, multidimensional mirrors and portals that allow us to be our own healers. As we interface and cultivate a relationship with our dreams, we interdimensionally develop deeper, richer relationships with ourselves, something greater than ourselves and the collective. Aligning with our inner oracles allows us to embody responsibility, integrity, and sovereignty as we continuously see ourselves for our radiant, dynamic spirits. Dreamscapes dismantle everything familiar. They transport us past duality into the unknown.

All of this being said, to this day, I don’t know what this dream means. That’s not entirely true. I have some ideas due to what I felt in the dream. Dreams are interesting because the most unexpected characters7 and symbols can float throughout your subconscious for years while revealing endless wisdom. Every time I feel like I nail down a dream, it continuously reveals itself and reminds me how endlessly mysterious they are.

One of the main takeaways from the dream featuring my two roommates was that I needed to let go of any need for external validation. I was and am imperfect. Being imperfect doesn’t mean you deserve less love than the next person. I have always hated and criticized myself mercilessly for my imperfections (more on this in the following essay). 

I have always had a wound surrounding never being someone’s number one priority. This was primarily reflected in friendships. Even though John was with many other women, which I always suspected, I secretly liked when he told me he loved me because he made me feel special. I never felt special. 

But it wasn’t him in the dream. Something is compelling about those two women being the characters in that dream. Sure, it reflected a real-life situation because they were so much closer, but the feeling in the dream was so exaggerated in a difficult way to ignore. Imagine if John was in the dream. If he had been there in any capacity, I might have just chalked everything up to being upset that some guy I wanted didn’t want me in the way I wanted, which was far from the point. Moreover, my unplanned roommate was with John at one point, which was probably enough regarding symbolism. But somehow, he felt more like a supporting character to highlight her significance. The fact that she was somehow the most powerful symbol of this entire situation was captivating.

I primarily felt this feeling in friendships. My mom used to say never to hang out in threes because someone always felt left out. Naturally, I was always in a group of three girls. I never felt “chosen” or prioritized until my best friend from middle school. We were inseparable until one day, everything burned to the ground (perhaps another story for another time). Our roommate situation from years prior opened the wound, which was being reflected in my dreams. It was the same feeling dressed up as different characters in various settings. Issues with lovability and desirability aren’t just confined to romantic relationships; they can be found in all kinds of containers.

The wound of belonging (and, resultingly, desirability) is so profound for me. My unplanned roommate is one of the few people, if not the only person, that accurately captures this wound’s depth, nuance, and multidimensionality as a symbol. This is only the beginning of how she has been integral in my healing process (I am so thankful for you). You can only hold onto a wound for so long before it swallows you whole. I had hurt many of my ex-partners, been hurt by John, and probably self-sabotaged my way out of the incredible friendships I desired because I had done nothing to heal what was truly eating me up inside. One of the many things this dream has taught me is that if I want to create meaningful, healthy relationships, this part of me needs to die.

These metaphorical deaths can point to something beautiful. Sure, it feels safe to fit in and to be wanted by everyone. What if I was never meant to? What if that was okay? What if that was the most beautiful thing about me?

I love you.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

(2) Lovebirds and swans mate for life.

(3) Disclaimer: I am not an expert on alcohol use, nor am I attempting to diagnose anyone. That would be wrong and misleading. These are purely my own observations and perspectives on a past situation. This says nothing about who he is now, as I have not had any contact with him for several years.

(4) This essay is long enough, but I would be remiss if I didn’t address the underlying impersonal dynamic of this interaction between John and my unplanned roommate. In this collection of essays, I discuss what it is like being a black woman in America who continuously attempts to fit into an impenetrable beauty norm perpetuated by the white male gaze. That in itself is complex enough. When you bring the black male gaze into the conversation, there is even more complexity to navigate. 

Cultural beauty standards aren’t universal; they evolve and change throughout time and in various spaces. For example, there are time periods and countries where a fuller figure is celebrated. Black Culture has its host of rules that define what is desirable. Some of those rules diametrically oppose what is considered desirable according to the white beauty standard. For instance, to keep it simple, Black Culture is more apt to celebrate fuller, curvier figures than White Culture which considers thinness the beauty standard. So as a black woman, what standard do you want to appeal to? How does one reflect the duality of beauty?

There is another conversation regarding black men “choosing white women over black women.” Look, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to a) individually decide what they authentically desire and b) pursue those authentic desires without all of these complications, and that would be the end of the story. We don’t live in an ideal world. It was subconsciously damaging to see the black man I was with choose a white woman in less-than-ideal circumstances. I wish that that wasn’t a thing, but it is. Not only that, but my unplanned roommate somehow managed to be desirable within both gazes (from my admittedly immature perspective, I subconsciously wondered how this was possible). It wasn’t personal, and neither of them intentionally tried to hurt me that way (that would be unfathomable considering the numerous, nuanced intricacies), but it still had an impact. I am grateful for that experience because if I hadn’t lived through it, I don’t know that I would have had the glimpse that I do into these complex cultural dynamics. (Please note that I am not a cultural expert; the following observations and oversimplifications are my speculations.) There is probably some unspoken thing where if a black man has a white woman as a partner, that says something positive about him. Furthermore, for black men to benefit from the white beauty standard, black women must do their part by internalizing it so that if they do have a black female partner, it will reflect positively on them.

Tressie McMillan Cottom, the author of Thick, describes phenomenally how black women must try to achieve the paradox of white beauty while simultaneously cultivating its counter-paradox for black men to reap the benefits of choice between different potential racial partners. For a more professional perspective, check out her book.

(5) Refer to the second footnote.

(6) I don’t use the word “forgiveness” often because it usually implies that someone was in the “right” and the other person was in the “wrong” when perspective and truth are fluid. That is not an excuse to run around wreaking havoc on unsuspecting people. This word can lock people into polarity if not used carefully, possibly preventing movement and growth. There is nothing to “forgive” because we all do our best with what we know and the tools we are given. It doesn’t mean we didn’t cause pain, and it should not be used as an excuse. Most of the time, we miss that people act with what they believe are the best intentions, further separating us from understanding one another. That is something I want to change.

(7) The term “characters” refers to different people that appear in the dream. You may or may not recognize these people from your waking life. Instead, they act as powerful symbols and mirrors for hidden aspects of ourselves.

girl-on-girl crime

A month ago, I was out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with John (1), John’s fiancé, and my partner at the time. What do any twenty-somethings do for St. Patrick’s Day? We went to a bar. We spent the night watching the local Irish step-dancers, eating fried chicken wings, and drinking. The bar was exceedingly loud and absurdly busy, but we had been there so many times that we didn’t mind being patient for service. Besides, there was plenty to drink while we waited.

John is one of my roommates. Finding my roommates was serendipitous. When I was moving, I had a week to figure out my entire living situation. One day, I was showing my mom how to use FaceBook Marketplace since she was downsizing (we agreed we would save a lot of time and headaches by just showing her how to use mine), and I stumbled upon a roommate ad posted by one of my high school classmates. (Mind you, if I wasn’t showing my mom how to use FaceBook, there is no way I would have seen the ad because I hadn’t been online in about a year.) I didn’t know her well in high school, but I remembered she was always kind to everyone. She met John in college, and they were living together. They needed another roommate because their previous one wanted to try living independently for the first time. I trusted her enough to know that she probably wasn’t hiding any bodies in the freezer, and John probably wasn’t hiding any in the freezer by association. That was good enough for me to request a tour. We spent a couple of hours talking since this was the first time I would live with someone I didn’t know. They seemed kind, caring, and respectful when I first met them (that remains true). I had a week to move, so I was ready to move in if they decided I was a good fit. Everything worked out; I couldn’t have asked for better roommates.

What stood out to me the most amidst that three-hour conversation was John. I thought I should have been nervous about living with someone I didn’t know. I wasn’t nervous about John. At the end of the conversation, I asked if they wanted to talk about anything else. John said something along the lines of, “We just want you to feel at home.” When I heard that, I felt peaceful about the situation. They weren’t empty words. On the first day I moved in, they cleaned everything, gave me a ride to go grocery shopping, and took me out to dinner. They gave me a tour of our city and introduced me to my favorite London fog. Both of my roommates are very attentive and generous. They made sure I had everything I needed to feel comfortable and continue to do so. I could write an entire essay on how thankful I am for them. We may not have the same personalities or living habits, but we all genuinely care about one another, so we have made everything work. I appreciated it when it came from John because he didn’t even know me. John is very caring. It is rare to find people genuinely kind to people they don’t know. 

John has a huge heart and is genuinely one of the more thoughtful men I know. He adores his fiancé, and they are a really sweet couple. John is a bit hotheaded but also wise and prophetic. When I met him, I suspected there was much more to him than I could see on the surface. For a thirty-year-old, he has been through quite a bit. Whenever I talk to him, it feels like he has lived many lifetimes already. For privacy reasons, I won’t detail his entire life story here, but he has lived a less privileged life than me or his fiancé in specific ways (and more privileged in others, I’m sure). Nevertheless, he is incredibly kind and filled with gratitude. He never complains and is very intentional. I admire how he integrated the wisdom from his tough past experiences; he is appreciative and humble. 

I don’t know quite how to describe John when he drinks other than he is relatively unfiltered. It’s great; so am I. He may be “fussy” (as his best friend and fiancé would put it) but always means well. We have always had a great time when we all get together. Amidst the live music, dancing, and drunken cheering, John asked me loudly, “Who’s hotter? You or that girl?”. I whipped around to check out the girl he was referring to. Three margaritas, one tequila soda, and one tequila shot deep I quickly answered, “Me obviously.” My partner asked what was going on since he couldn’t hear our conversation over the loud music, and John shouted, “Nothing! You’re girlfriend is just really confident!” My partner looked at me and smiled saying, “I know.”

I was photographing orchids at the New York Botanical Gardens a week ago when that memory popped back up. “What a disgusting thing to say,” I thought to myself as I reflected upon my thoughtless reaction and snapped another photo. I was disappointed in myself. The dissatisfaction I felt wasn’t for answering the way I did at the time or because of John’s comment because we had both been drinking a lot (although that is never an excuse for inappropriate behavior on my part). I was disappointed that that was my gut reaction when I didn’t have the wherewithal to create a conscious response.

John didn’t just ask me to compare myself to any girl in the bar… he pointed out the only other black girl in the bar (2). It wasn’t until I was away from that setting that I realized how many comparisons I had run through my head in what seemed like a nano-second. I examined her hair, facial features, body, and clothes, all to prove to myself that I was somehow more beautiful or “better” than her. I’m pretty sure that’s not what confident people do.

What did I measure against? It’s probably no surprise to you that whoever has the greater proximity to whiteness or what a white man like John would want would win that competition. Who’s hair texture was finer? Who’s body was slimmer? Who had nicer clothes? (I lost that battle when I decided to wear sweatpants to a bar. Still, I wanted to win the war.) You could go on and on. I would hazard a guess and say John didn’t know that he was pitting us against each other in a way we have likely experienced our whole lives. Was it even his fault? Certainly not. I took the bait. I didn’t notice it because I was also used to constantly pitting myself against other women to compare and evaluate who was more beautiful. It made me feel safe.

I don’t know that I ever felt consistent safety. I was privileged enough to grow up in an affluent town that, from a third-dimensional perspective, was incredibly safe. I was “safe” because I could walk around town as a child and never have to worry about my security. The chances of someone plucking me off the street to kidnap me were extremely low. The chances of hearing gunshots in the distance were unfathomable. I could hang out with my friends without worry just about anywhere, and that alone is something to be grateful for. 

Although, in this seeming oasis, almost no one looked like me. I only had my sister and one friend to compare myself to, which I am sure was harmful to our relationship in unseen ways. I always thought this was okay because it was all I knew. I never considered while living there how this could be detrimental. I was lucky not to have been bullied (although, let’s face it, I would have been an easy target). I did well in school, was captain of my golf team, and had an easily likable demeanor. I experienced rough patches here and there (high school can get messy, which isn’t a big deal), but overall, I had a pretty good time. I wasn’t extraordinarily loved or hated. I was pretty quiet and had a good group of friends, so everything was normal outside. Over a year ago, when I was moving and sorting through my childhood belongings, I uncovered a journal from middle school. I rarely reread my journal unless I am looking for something specific. I flipped to a random page and found an entry about an encounter on the school bus. My best friend, a boy I thought was cute at the time, and I rode this bus together daily. (I don’t know how crushes work when you’re that young. It’s funny to think about who you thought was attractive at that age. I’m sure we were all cute kids.) I wrote in my journal that one day he said something like, “You should only date within your own race.” It would be silly to hold a child accountable to those words because he presumably didn’t develop those ideas on his own. My best friend jumped in immediately and said, “That’s stupid.” (She never tolerated any b.s. at any age.) I could tell from the journal entry that I felt hurt, embarrassed, and othered. I don’t know if it was for the first time, but it’s one of my clearer memories. You may forget what people say but not how they make you feel. I didn’t think about it then (we were at most eleven years old), but I carried that consciousness throughout high school, college, and now. Even though my experience in school was fine on the surface, I continuously felt I was less beautiful, desirable, and valuable than everyone else.

Why do we constantly compare ourselves to one another? I’m not sure I can fully explain this phenomenon because consciously, we all know that we are infinitely-varying-dimensional beings, i.e., none of us are or are even meant to be the same. I don’t know if it’s because it feels comfortable to know where you stand compared to everyone else, so you can’t be surprised if someone is rude to you. You feel safe from unexpected and unwarranted comments by running through all of the potential judgments someone could project onto you in your head. It could also be that constant comparison allows us to evaluate where we stand concerning cultural norms. I.e., it enables us to determine whether we “fit in” or feel at home. Furthermore, it allows us to identify how we can feel at home if we are willing to compromise certain aspects of ourselves to find this safety.

I will be the first to admit I have lived an incredibly privileged life. I have never faced housing, food, health, or true financial insecurities. Even when I was most financially insecure, I was fortunate enough to know that my family had the resources to help me if I was in serious trouble. This isn’t a luxury that everyone has. I was safe in all of those tangible ways. So why didn’t I feel safe?

Recently, I was having coffee with one of my friends whom I have known since middle school. We were talking about how places, like people, can be soulmates. All places are aligned with us; however, sometimes, it can take time for them to reveal their medicine. We are aligned with some places because they fit our personalities. I fell in love with Northern California during my first visit. The clear sun and moon; mountains, forests, beaches, and other diverse landscapes; the unparalleled taste of fresh fruit and vegetables; the sound of the crisp air; breathtaking flowers; delicious food… it was pure magic. My friend feels this way about Europe, whereas I don’t. Similar to soulmates, not every place is meant for everyone during particular seasons in life. Other places are aligned with us to reveal our shadows. We both grew up in this same small homogenous town. She is white but didn’t feel “at home” either. There is a lot to feeling as if you fit in somewhere. I never felt at home there for obvious and unseen reasons. I spent so much time trying to fit in. The closer to white I thought my peers saw me as, the safer I felt. I chemically straightened (burned) my hair for just over a decade. I begged my parents for the “right” clothes (they didn’t comply, so I had to wait until I was out of high school for that). I did all the “right” things to ensure I didn’t stick out in ways I could control. I thought I could breathe in relief if I checked all these boxes. None of it mattered because I couldn’t compensate enough for feeling out of place. I may not have felt at home there when I was younger, but it was a critical mirror of everything about myself that I needed to pay more attention to. My hometown was precisely where I needed to grow up.

The collective standard of beauty was my safety guide. I constantly compared myself to it to determine whether I was safe. If I strayed, I would feel anxious. This intangible safety was one I only felt when I felt as if I belonged. Is how we perceive beauty as a collective a “luxury” issue? Sure. I would agree with that. The answer to that is wholly dependent on who you ask. It could always be “worse,” especially considering all the tangible ways people encounter daily insecurity. No, I have never worried about where I would sleep at night, and I am lucky for that. My mom always says that the only difference between myself and anyone else is the circumstances in which we were born. I am forever grateful for my circumstances and can admit that how I am constantly devalued by others (and myself) is heartbreaking. Just because it “could be worse” doesn’t make anything I am experiencing less real. I have had to find my way of balancing honoring what has hurt me and having some perspective regarding the issues other people in entirely different circumstances may face.

Thank you for challenging me to redefine my definition of “belonging” and “home.” (Also, thank you for being a wonderful roommate and making me feel at home from day one.)

I love pondering how we can redefine our concept of beauty because it’s not really about beauty. What we consider “beautiful” reflects how we understand “value.” It’s just a metaphor, and plenty of other metaphors help convey the same message: some people are more valued than others in the culture we have all created together. I am not saying that we are all directly or consciously responsible for the society that we live in. None of us were even alive at the very beginning, especially if you’re reading this essay. However, consciously and subconsciously, we reinforce ideals of what makes certain people more or less valuable, whether with our thoughts, actions, etc. John and I were doing just that when we were in the bar. No one is perfect. 

Recently, I have been thinking about the value of perspective. I have felt so blocked lately, unable to write because I didn’t think my story was “unique” or “special” enough. There is nothing about my life that is especially distressing. That was before I thought: what about the daily toll of constantly being reminded that, from a collective cultural perspective, I have always been valued less than everyone else for simply existing? What about how I was constantly comparing and devaluing myself, consciously and subconsciously perpetuating these unattainable standards? Was that not distressing enough? Is all of this not enough to warrant a deeper conversation? Even though I haven’t experienced anything truly deplorable, simply existing with these reminders that no form of external validation could fix, e.g., more money, a particular job, etc., was harrowing enough. It is painful enough to look in the mirror or have other people serve as mirrors, constant reminders of where you fall on the lovable scale. We all have infinitely unique perspectives because no one is out there like us. Even though my circumstances aren’t particularly extreme, I found that even sadder because hundreds of thousands, if not millions, share this experience by simply existing.

This is one of the reasons I love writing this story; it is a shared experience. I enjoy writing about how we perceive beauty because I know I am not alone. Do you have that recurring dream where you are back in high school and you forgot your homework? What about the one where you didn’t know there was a test and are completely unprepared? Or that heinous dream where you have been absent from school for months, no one noticed, and then you have to turn in homework, take an exam, etc.? I have, and so have many others. You know the fear, panic, anxiety, etc., I feel during that dream because you have probably had it too. It’s a collective dream. The feeling of not belonging is a collective nightmare. You probably know this feeling even if you haven’t had the dream. You don’t need to be me or black to know exactly what I mean. There are so many other ways to experience discrimination, whether it is ageism, ableism, colorism, classism, elitism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. You get it. Even if you are not marginalized, I am sure you know what it is like to be compared (by someone else or yourself) in some way. It is such a commonplace wound, but everyone knows to some degree what it is like to feel unsafe or like they didn’t fit in somewhere at some point in time. You know what it’s like to have your lovability, your value, negotiated. It is a universal, pervasive wound that needs to be healed.

I am sorry for internally negotiating my value and constantly comparing myself to others because, in truth, we are all equally loved.

We all share dreams and nightmares collectively; it is everyone’s job to heal the collective culture. I am so aggravated when people blame things on “society” as if “society” is some distant, unrelated monster that will stay under our beds while we remain protected simply because our bedsheets cover our eyes. Um hello? We are “society.” Collectively, wedecide what we value. Value runs deep. There are so many systems at play that influence what we value. Getting to the root of our true values isn’t easy and takes some reevaluation. We all share the power to pay attention, learn, and heal the collective culture. There don’t seem to be any shortcuts that I am aware of. It may take consistent and constant reevaluation and integration to heal core, shared wounds. However, I don’t see why this cannot be done.

It is also essential to consider why these systems and standards are alive and well. I have internalized these narrow cultural beauty ideals even though they don’t benefit me at all. Or do they? One of my favorite shaman-podcast-hosts (I am sure I will mention Shaman Durek again throughout these essays because he is truly brilliant) used to say something along the lines of, “When we want something to change, and it remains the same, we need to begin questioning the parts of us that want things to stay the same.” (3) Why would we want these paradigms to continue to exist? Why do I continue to internalize them? Why do I continue to measure myself against a standard that is literally impossible for me to attain? Because it benefits me in some way.

No one would ever mistake me for white. Even though I am not the darkest person (due to the white people in my ancestral history), I would never pass. I am, however, the darkest person in my immediate and close extended family. When we were much younger, my cousins and I would joke about one another’s complexions. We noticed who would tan heavily in the summer (me) and wondered why some people in our family looked “white” in their birth photos. Did anyone mean anything by it? No. We were kids, and none of us were malicious. We were more confused than anything concerning our family’s vast spectrum of skin complexions. Attempting to pass could be a key to safety for those with a lighter complexion. (This was especially true at certain points in history.) Is there some internalized colorism in my family? Probably. I’ve always wondered about that. It’s hard to escape when that seems like your way of attaining the unattainable. For some people in my family, that could be their ticket; that could be how this system benefits them. This is only one example. For every marginalization, there always seems to be a way for the marginalized to counter-correct. Is it ever enough?

The collective beauty paradigm runs so much deeper than I could ever describe in this essay. It exists because right now, we want it to. Whether it’s family members who could try to pass or me who can try to stay thin, those who have some aspect of themselves that allows them to come close to what is “beautiful” have more to gain from abiding by the rules rather than saying “fuck it.” People love boxes and rules. People love hearing that if they do X, then Y and Z follow. Rules keep us safe. The rules make this system seem beneficial to me; if I can follow them, I have a chance. We may hate the rules, but they give people like me hope that we will someday win the impossible game if we follow them closely.

There are always more layers. Value is decided collectively. I would speculate that white women want, consciously and/or subconsciously, non-white women to aspire to fit into the beauty mold because then that would mean that they are intrinsically more valuable. I.e., they benefit more from this system when there are people who will do anything to “earn” the beauty they already have. I’m sure men love this because it puts them in a power position to have nearly half the population doing whatever they can to attain desirability and approval within the white-male gaze (4). One layer above is all companies and industries that prey on women’s insecurities to market “beauty” and “empowerment” while keeping everyone small. They flourish. There are all kinds of stakeholders in the exploitative beauty industrial complex. They all benefit from those oppressed by this system internalizing their oppression. I am sure there are more stakeholders than I have listed here. Acknowledging and identifying how we are one of them is the first step to creating change.

I love you.

---

(1) Disclaimer: Anything I write about anyone in my essays results from my subjective, human, and imperfect perspective. None of my essays aim to portray anyone negatively; that would be unfair, as this is my side of the story. I do not claim 100% accuracy of anything but my perspective, mainly because I have not had contact with some mentioned people in several years. We all grow and change.

(2) Let me make this abundantly clear: knowing John’s character, he didn’t mean anything by the comment and definitely did not say it to make me uncomfortable. None of this is a critique of his character (the same goes for all of the people I mention in my essays). To anyone at the bar, it probably seemed like an insignificant comment. Even I didn’t know it meant something to me until later.

This is important because I wholeheartedly believe we need to do a better job of not assuming the worst in people. I know John well, and he has a good heart. That is one of the reasons I wanted to write about him. He has so many people who love and admire him. His relationships and community speak volumes about his character. I may not know everything about John, but I know enough to know for sure he wasn’t being malicious. John is an excellent example of someone who said something that did mean something to me, but that doesn’t mean he is a bad person. I was never upset with him. I was only upset with myself for my response. He highlighted my unseen internalized biases that needed to come to light. Thank you, John.

This does not mean that people shouldn’t be accountable for their words. However, I don’t think we should wait for people to be responsible for their words to make ourselves feel better. First and foremost, we need to take responsibility for our feelings and heal whatever needs to be healed within ourselves. Imagine if we all cleaned up our sides of the street instead of constantly telling people how to clean up theirs. We don’t control anyone. What do we do when we encounter hateful people? Can you make them un-hateful by trying to shove your dogmas and ideologies down their throats? No. Change and reflection only occur if that person wants to create it for themselves. We can, however, engage in conscious conversation.

If I thought John was hateful, I would have confronted him like I always do if that is what I suspect. It’s important to me. Not everyone who says something they don’t realize is hurtful is hateful. You, your neighbor’s cousin, and I have probably all said at least one harmful thing before. It happens. We don’t know everyone’s triggers. Being unaware or unintentional is not an excuse either. We can consciously confront them if appropriate, but that doesn’t mean we need to write them off. There is a balance. I know that we know where that balance is. Use your judgment. If confrontation will bring more peace somehow, say something. We don’t need more chaos. I am very tired of this behavior and cancel culture. How we show grace and compassion to others often reflects how we show it to ourselves and vice versa. 

This is a common theme throughout my essays. I will never blame anyone for my feelings because it is disempowering. As I said earlier, I cannot control anyone. I certainly cannot make anyone apologize for any pain I have experienced, and I wouldn’t want them to anyway. It doesn’t help me. The pain I experienced, as a result, was already within me in the first place. An apology doesn’t magically make it go away. This was not the case with John, but there are many people out there that do want to hurt other people. I will never wait for someone else to bring me resolution or peace.

(3) Disclaimer: I am heavily paraphrasing; that is not a direct quote.

(4) The following essay will address the white and black male gaze.

an introduction to the "dear john" project and its following seven essays

Our relationships with our bodies vary in meaning depending on the body we are born into and how that body is perceived by the collective culture. Some people don’t have any complex awarenesses surrounding their bodies; for others, their relationship with the body is mythic and metaphorical. This collection was initially intended to heal my relationship with my body. I have carried this wound with me for several years; I finally made it a point to question it and open up a conversation. When something stays with you for that long and has such a potent impact on your life, chances are the source of the wound isn’t what you think it is. Instead, it is something much more profound.

Practicing healing ourselves is one of the most powerful things we can do. Let me be clear: I am not invalidating the benefits of therapy or seeking professional help. I have been fortunate to have very proficient, seasoned, and caring teachers. How else do we learn and grow if not by observing and interacting with one another? Healing ourselves does not mean that we do it alone. We all leverage diverse relationships, whether a therapist, teachers, or loved ones, to heal.

It can be challenging to see the shadows or unintegrated parts of ourselves, let alone objectively. One of the most beautiful parts of being human is that we aren’t alone in our experiences. More often than not, the people around us have experienced, are experiencing, or will experience many of the same archetypal dimensions of humanity as us in our lifetimes. We all reflect one another. If we are open, everyone around us is our teacher. We may learn from people by observing them, engaging in conversations, etc.; there are infinite ways to learn. As humans, we are more interconnected than we can perceive. Everyone has their way of coming home to the idea that we are all connected; my way is through The Mirror.

Relationships are some of the most powerful mirrors we have. When I want to see, heal, and integrate unseen parts of myself, I often look to the people closest to me. Seeing parts of ourselves that we often overlook, i.e., our blindspots isn’t always easy. Relationships, especially our closest ones, offer an objective mirror into those disregarded and disowned parts of ourselves. How many times have we told a friend to do XYZ but needed that advice for ourselves? How many times have we looked at our loved ones and seen more parts of ourselves in them than we care to admit? The more we know ourselves, the more we see ourselves in others and vice versa. Relationships are not only mirrors for discrete qualities but also for how we interact with the world. I.e., someone may not be an exact mirror for our personality traits, but how they upset or inspire us is an informational compass for how we can grow.

Each of the following seven essays focuses on a relationship that had an extraordinary impact on me at some point in time. Every relationship revealed the depth and intricacy of this wound in its own unexpected and remarkable way. If I had a major “character flaw,” it would be that I easily show grace and compassion to everyone else before myself, which is one of the reasons healing my relationship with my body and my relationship with that relationship has been so convoluted. Examining these relationships has allowed me to trace the wound to its origins. They revealed unknown aspects of the story to create a clearer, fuller picture, ultimately allowing for closure and renewal.

This project began to explore the deeper nuances between my relationships with my body and our collective cognition of beauty. Every personal wound is simultaneously impersonal and vice versa; this is one of the most beautiful parts of humanity. You may not identify as a black woman, but I am confident you will be able to find yourself somewhere in one of these essays. As I mentioned, our deepest wounds are never what they seem to be on the surface. Unearthing the unseen dimensions of my relationship with my body revealed an archetypal sentiment we can all relate to.

with love, katie

preface: on redefining beauty

As a twenty-something who is constantly pondering and questioning the meaning behind my experience of Earth, there aren’t too many things that I am sure about in my life. This is no surprise as I have heard self-assurance and embodied direction generally come in your thirties. The only thing I have ever known for sure is that I want to be a mother. I can’t explain why, but this desire has always been within me. I have struggled in the past with what I want to do career-wise and accomplish in this lifetime, but I have always been sure about you.

I can feel you hovering around me. You have a very powerful presence that will manifest in a special way whenever you land earthside. I don’t imagine what you will look like or how you will present yourself because those aspects of The Self are fluid. However, I do imagine all of the beautiful things you will teach me and the love you will bring into my life. You have already brought me so much clarity surrounding my visions for myself and what I want to give. I can’t wait to see how we continuously guide one another.

I know I will not be the “perfect” mom because that doesn’t exist. Nonetheless, in a way, I will be your perfect mom because all mothers are perfectly imperfect. Still, a part of me feels it is important to be aware of my shadows because they will impact you. We all have shadows, and trying to control them or make them disappear is futile and a shadow within itself. Shadows can easily highlight where we feel inspired to bring more change or peace to ourselves, our loved ones, and the collective.

My relationship with my body is the one shadow I have had such a challenging time healing. Sometimes it isn’t easy to put into words because consciously, we all know that the beauty standards imposed upon us aren’t real; we are all equally beautiful in our own way, and so on. I mean, yes, that is all true, but hearing other people say that didn’t help me, especially when our culture says something else entirely. It also didn’t help that in my mind that I always felt that it was ridiculous for me to have an eating disorder in the first place. I know, I know… it’s the opposite of self-affirming and made it worse. Seriously, it didn’t make any sense to me. I am tall and have always been relatively thin (although the standard of thin has tightened so much, I guess that is subjective). I am an active and relatively healthy person (we all have our forms of kryptonite). Thus in my mind, there was no “real” reason for me to have this issue. My body changed after college, which makes sense. I’m twenty-six now as I write this, so it doesn’t make sense for my body to look the same as it did when I started college at eighteen or even when I graduated at twenty-two—even knowing that I continued to beat myself up, not only for how my body looked but also for my relationship with my body. It was only within the past year I understood that if I was experiencing this when I was at my smallest and now post-change, it didn’t matter what my body looked like and never would; this was a much deeper issue.

No matter who I have you with, you will be black. It’s just not easy being a black person in this country (this is an immense oversimplification, but I can only focus on one thing at a time). I was privileged enough to grow up in an affluent town, although there was almost no one who looked like me. I only had my sister and one friend to compare myself to, which I am sure was harmful somehow. I always thought this was okay because it was all I knew. I never considered while living there how this could be detrimental. I was lucky not to have been bullied (although, let’s face it, I would have been an easy target). I did well in school, was a captain of one of my sports teams, and had an easily likable demeanor. I experienced some rough patches here and there (high school can get a bit messy, which isn’t a big deal), but overall I had a pretty good time. I wasn’t extraordinarily loved or hated. I was pretty quiet and had a good group of friends, so everything was pretty normal on the outside. Over a year ago, when I was moving and sorting through my childhood belongings, I uncovered a journal from middle school. I seldom reread my journal unless I am looking for something specific. I flipped to a random page and found an entry about an encounter on the school bus. My best friend, a boy I thought was cute at the time, and I rode this bus together daily. (I don’t know how crushes work when you’re that young. It’s funny to think about who you thought was attractive at that age. I’m sure we were all cute kids.) I wrote in my journal that one day he said something like, “You should only date within your own race.” It would be silly to hold a child accountable to those words because he presumably didn’t develop those ideas on his own. My best friend then jumped in immediately and said, “That’s stupid.” (She never tolerated any b.s. at any point in her life.) I could tell from the journal entry that I felt hurt, embarrassed, and othered. I don’t know if it was for the first time, but it’s one of my clearer memories. You may forget what people say but not how they make you feel. I didn’t think about it then (we were at most eleven years old), but I carried that consciousness with me throughout high school, college, and now. Even though my experience in school was fine on the surface, I continuously felt I was less beautiful, desirable, and valuable than everyone else.

Despite this, I would always get compliments on how tall and thin I was. Nothing else. Consciously, I realized that the standard of beauty was based on being white and thin. I couldn’t control that. Subconsciously, I knew that there was nothing I could do about being black. I couldn’t control that either. Consciously, I did everything I could to remain thin. Now that was something I could actually do something about. I don’t want this for you.

As I write this at one of my favorite flower coffee shops in the East Village, I am reminded of what I naturally find beautiful. In front of me is a large array of flowers, precisely what I come here for. I see vibrant yellow sunflowers; soft white roses with a hint of green; magical light pink hydrangeas; bold orange and yellow ranunculus; rich green hydrangeas; pretty pink gerbera daisies; mystical-looking blue hydrangeas, and so on. When I see flowers, hummingbirds, or a spectacular moonrise, I am in awe; I fall in love. It’s so simple and yet somehow underrated. Every aspect of nature is a portal or gateway for someone to fall in love. I am in love with The Forest, while some find more solace in The Ocean. Not everyone falls in love with the same things, but nature has enough multidimensionality, diversity, and multiplicity that there is something for everyone. I heard once that no one needs to be taught how to be in awe and thus how to see (1) beauty (2). When we experience awe, we witness beauty and fall in love.

Beauty is far more multidimensional and profound than what the mainstream media and collective cultural ideals present to us. Like many, I have internalized the third-dimensional standards of beauty that we have all been subject to for decades, if not centuries. It is embedded deeply in the ancestral collective consciousness. Still, so is the capacity to be in awe. You don’t need to teach anyone to experience awe or true, natural beauty. This experience unites everyone, no matter who you are, how you identify, or what circumstances you were born into. Our comprehension of beauty is so important because it is the fabric of everything. Beauty is universal; it is within all things. Love is the experience of seeing everything for its beauty (3).

I don’t know for sure that this notion is an invulnerable way of healing the way we understand beauty for everyone. I’m still experimenting with the theory and putting it into practice. I think it has strong potential because it is rooted in the truth that we are all a part of nature and everything in nature is effortlessly beautiful. I know that it couldn’t hurt to have a more grounded, inclusive, and universal definition of beauty. My vision for myself (and anyone else that finds truth in it) is to someday see and feel the same awe, the same beauty, and thus the same love whenever I gaze at a flower or anything in nature when I look at myself in the mirror. I want this for you, too.

with love, your original soulmate

---

(1) When I write “see beauty,” it is not to exclude anyone who does not experience vision in the same way I do. I also experience beauty via cycles and synchronicity, e.g., the moon, sun, and seasonal cycles that we all have access to. That’s just one example of a felt experience. Beauty and awe can be experienced via any of the five plus senses.

(2) Disclaimer: I first heard this idea from Zach Bush, M.D., who received it from a colleague. I don’t know Zach’s work extensively and thus do not claim to agree with all of his ideas, but I want to give credit where credit is due.

(3) See the above footnote.