Being Aware

My time reentering academia took me a lot of places. Mainly, back out. It was not the students. It was not the work. It was not the bureaucracy (tho, it was problematic). Oh, yes, there was racism. Some of it was outright blatant and, when reported, it was ignored. How's that for hiring a black person that you don't actually want to bring up the way they feel about the situation they're in. Truly, it was the colleagues and lack of collegial behaviour that created the conditions for my departure. Oh and my family.

Living far away from people who love you, but don't respect you is fine. Living in close quarters with them is debilitating. And it seems that over the last few years, the concerted effort to ignore my concerns led to a series of disconnections from people I used to enjoy. But, I see now, their laundry list of my faults was created in order to barrage me with my failures to conform to their concepts of black respectability. Some major points:

1. I left a "good job" to return to school.
2. I didn't have children.
3. I smoke.
4. I was in a relationship with a much older artist.
5. I do not share the same spiritual beliefs and practices I was raised with.
6. I disagree with the police.
7. I play loud rap music, jazz, gospel, and showtunes while singing along. (The neighbor always tells my brother.)
8. I do yoga outside, where people can see me.
9. I still don't like chicken.
   10.-101. I don't do what they tell me to do.

And to this, I say. I was born free and I aims to stay that way.

In the meantime, the global pandemic outbreak put more on hold as I said farewell to my family member who passed. It was my mother who asked me to leave my life and help her look after her after her first, then second major surgery. I did and I am glad for the good times we were able to have together. But I cannot reconcile the stressors that continue to build up as I try to reset a new and different life back in my hometown, surrounded by a family I'd rather not spend time with. Ironic, since you're supposed to be energized by them after someone passes.

That is not my story.

I wonder what comes next...