Now I Become Myself

“Now I become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, worn other people’s faces. Now to stand still, to be here, feel my own weight and density.” —May Sarton

 

The process of becoming is an arduous one. Twists, turns, loss—and many—many tears accompany you on the journey. The deeper your search into unearthing the truth of you, the deeper and more profound are the feelings of loss. You think you “know” yourself, until you realize, you do not.

 

The masks we wear are secure. Airtight. We ensure this by refining our process of illusion daily. We want people to see ease and togetherness within us; an effortless flow. We “want to be” what they “need us to be”, even if in being it disrupts the foundations of our being; we’re willing to assume the risk, if in return the illusion of our togetherness remains seamless.

 

Who—you may ask—is responsible for this? Who is responsible for our dislocated selves? 

 

In considering my own life, I could convincingly say my parents, who through their teachings encouraged me to be a good-boy. A boy who responds positively to instruction. A boy who whispers regret at correction. A boy who quiets and surrenders himself at the behest of authority.

 

My parents shaped and molded me into a version of themselves: meek, confused, frustrated, obedient servants of the system. “You have to go along, to get along.” You have to be anything other than what you want to be, because that being will never be enough. Go along, to get along. Go along, to get along. There’s an undeniable rhythm to it. A cadence; melodic enough to soothe the most wounded of souls.

 

I can still hear the hummed instruction: Fit in. Make me proud. Honor my name, my sacrifice, my gift of life to you.

 

The weight of my parents needs have never left me. I’ve never not felt responsible for their happiness. I’ve never not felt I could be free.

 

I could blame my teachers, who taught me how I sound, how I act, how I appear to the outside world —of my own volition— would never be right. There’s an order to things. There’s a right way and a wrong way. Our way—this precise way, according to extensive research confirming the generalizeability of all things—is correct. 

 

My teachers shaped and molded my mind and encouraged me to follow the rules. They encouraged me to raise my hand and to never speak out of turn; to become astute in absorbing information.

 

The truth is, they taught me to discriminate, to see life through a narrow scope. To see myself in others. To be like any of the rotating models of acceptable behavior from students who sat up straight and regurgitated facts and figures that aligned with predetermined ideals that did not ever truly consider me, the individual; the singular, who—if allowed time to breathe—may posses an opinion of his own.

 

I could blame the media, which taught me who—but more so—what was of the utmost importance. Through media I learned who was the threat, who deserved highlights and who should be ignored. Media heightened my presence and birthed in me a profound fear of me and anyone who looked like me. 

 

Media taught me to be afraid. 

To never let down my guard. 

To never wish for or upon the hope of better days.

 

I could blame my community, who taught me my self, once steeped in quiet individual resolve, could not—or rather should not—exist separate of the whole. That a collective front of hope and pressure and action is needed to bring about true sustainability. That the masks of blackness, the masks of manhood, the masks of street cred is far more important than any attempt to establish or resuscitate an “I”. “We” needed to band together. “We” needed to be forever united in the fight to prove our value to people who though not “directly” tied to my groups’ oppression benefitted from their great-great-great grandparents dedication to make America a nation where personhood is granted through the lineage of those who look, think, speak and act like them. A community who grew more and more sensitive to the whims of others. A community taught to apply for liberation as a collective rather than an individual. 

 

Crabs in a mother-fucking barrel. 

 

Angry, frustrated desperate grips; attempting to outwit each other without ever stopping to question, how did we get here?

 

How did we come to find ourselves in such dank spaces?

 

Displaced, in a barrel, where I can’t help you and you can’t help me?

 

I can’t be me and you can’t stand me? 

 

Our trauma, though shared, is not what unites us; the trauma only serves to keep us actively working against each other in a futile attempt to get through to each other.

 

But ultimately, the blame lies with me. I have chosen to ignore the signs; to take the road most traveled; to adapt to the pressures of a world determined to make itself realized. I decided to become other, to hide my brokenness, and, to be silenced by my fear. I picked up, adorned and affixed the mask. I championed distance from self and eventually others to sustain an illusion of power. I created the confusion, the loneliness and the sadness that has at times engulfed and lain waste to my life. I did it. I did it all, believing it would make me better—happier—when in reality all it did was intensify a life of suffering.

 

But now, I become myself. 

 

That’s it.

 

It’s not complicated or overly formulated. It’s deciding to live as one (in peace) with self and a continuous will to be realized.

 

It is remembering to follow James Baldwin’s guidance: “It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”

 

I am here. I deserve to be here. And so, I am choosing to become my most beautiful and authentic self.