ruminations, musings and thoughts

I haven’t watched the episode yet, and frankly, am a bit upset that tumblr ruined an obvious punchline to last night’s Scandal episode. Then again, nobody told me to be looking online when Scandal is on TV, spoilers are bound to happen, and I know I don’t have cable. From what I can tell from the memes, and the GIFS, and the rampant quotations is this: Olivia told Fitz that she is worth of being the only one, the real one, not some get-away-from-reality fuck-buddy, not a the-world-is-hard-on-me-right-now let me forget my sorrows in your thighs buddy, she has to be it. Now, after all the shit he has done to her, after all that she has laid on the line for him, after watching him turn his back on her for giving him her all, she’s had it. What Olivia Pope says with a few words is not revolutionary, what it is, is for me thought provoking and sad. She says to the man she loves, to the man who has mutilated her heart and her soul, to the man who has made her do and become someone she didn’t think she was capable of becoming, or doing, that he now has to earn her. She tells this man that her time, her love, her everything comes at a price since the pure love she offered was not enough.

Why is this so revolutionary ladies? It is revolutionary because every time we are in a similar situation, when we have given what we believe is our all, and we are wedged between the love in our hearts, and the logic in our minds, we know we are worthy, we should be their all, we should be the one, but we are afraid to say those very words to the men in our lives. We are afraid that unlike Fitz, the response won’t be “watch me” the response will be fuck you, I don’t have to do shit, you’re not worth it. The fear is that person we love, who we have spent so much time loving, and caring for, actually doesn’t value us, that we are once more a martyr to love and will see no redemption. Ms. Rimes used her ability as a writer to paint one of the most dramatic exchanges a woman can have with her lover. She did the same with Meredith and Sheppard, but Scandal is different. As a Black woman we are expected to take so much pain, and agony, silently support and nurture, but we are not expected to demand a love even remotely similar back. So when Olivia says that to her love, we hold our breath because we can’t believe what she just did. In that scene, Ms. Rimes has given every black woman who has ever loved an empty love, or a desperate love, or any complicated kind of love, a response to a demand we never dared utter.

We are all beautiful, uniquely talented, people more than worthy of love and our worst fear is that those who we bless with ourselves do not believe we are to be earned, instead they think they are entitled, and no one is entitled to your love, everyone must earn it. What those requirements are, are up to you. Trust, honesty, openness, humor, friendship, what is means to earn someone’s love will be as multi-varied as the people themselves. Even a love given selflessly deserves love in return.

7 months ago

6 notes

becomingchichi:

If you have the temerity to look a member of the LGBTQ community in the face and tell them that their love condemns them to your most wretched imaginings of hell, then you do not know love. You have not experienced the truly challenging emotional openness that love can cause and for those people I am not even angry, I am just sad.

(Source: th3evolutionofchichi)

9 months ago

being good

i’ve struggled with the concept of goodness since i was a child.

i remember sitting in a gray airport, with gray seats, gray carpet, gray lights, my little feet swinging several inches above the floor waiting for the smiling stewardess to escort me into the plane.

my Dad told me that i had to be good and do exactly what she said and i would see my Mom when the plan landed. this was my first lesson in goodness. to be good meant to listen and accept what other people with some kind of authority told me. i learned that lesson well, so well that even today i question my intelligence in the presence of those with more degrees, more years, more experience.

when that plane landed i learned more lessons about being good. i was around seven years old at the time and my Mom worked late at night and my sister was a temperamental baby and if i couldn’t keep her quiet, my mom would wake up and yell at met. so to be good, i also had to be a substitute caregiver, while my mother was busy providing for us. this is also a lesson i have learned well, so well, that when my siblings need money i give what i have, or have to move into their college dorm a four hour drive from where i live, in the middle of my semester, i do it. i can no longer see a line between responsibility, obligation, and love, they all blur together.

the guilt that i carry on a daily basis that pushes me to be smarter than i was yesterday, more creative than i was last year, and in better shape that a decade before is the same guilt that kills my characters before they can tell their stories, suffocates the brilliant thoughts that roam free at night, and dampens my heart’s thirst for true connection.

i learned that to be worthy of love i had to deserve it, i had to work hard for it to be given. even now, i worry that one wrong word, phrase, or move will have me thrown aside. my mother’s favorite line was that if i messed up she still four other children, so i never failed, i kept my rebellion in check and my desire for unconditional love nestled between the pages of my journal, page after page, year after year.

i realize now, having been home for some time, that i have equated being good with being worthy of love, and in my mind im never, and have never, been good enough. this sad truth is frustrating as it is terrifying. as open and generous as i am, i am also emotionally removed and have never allowed myself to rely on the feelings of others because i could not even trust how my parents felt about me. im thankful im conscious and aware of this emotional breakdown ive been working to change it, but the reality is that it is hard. given my naturally introspective nature it makes human connection exhausting as i try to calculate the emotional risks of my varying relationships, never wanting to tip the scale against myself. but one day i hope the practice now pays off.

one day i will have the freedom that comes from knowing love is not awarded to the best, the brightest, the good. i will know and feel that love is the recognition of our inherent human worth and the acceptance that humanness is about our struggle to come to terms with who we are and the gift we are to leave the world and we are all worthy of that. and i will also know that ‘we’ will always includes ‘me’.

10 months ago

1 note

Being loved is not about being consumed, because once the meal is over, what is left to nourish you? Being loved is about nurturing an appetite for yourself so that you can share the benefits of a healthy soul with others.

—ChiChi

10 months ago

when my mouth hasn’t the courage to fling my sorrow off a cliff, bellowing loudly to the shimmering silence, i bleed desperately onto crisp blank pages, pulsing with captured emotion, long enough for me to quietly walk away

—ChiChi

11 months ago

love > hate

growing up i thought i was special. i believed that if i stayed connected to that feeling in my gut i would do something that would help society in some way.

even thought i felt like i was special, i never thought my ideas, my thoughts, or beliefs were so superior that they should dictate another person’s life.

some might argue that if i tell them that they shouldn’t judge others, then that shows i believe my ideas, and thoughts are superior to theirs. i don’t think that’s accurate because im saying that while you may have a particular belief about how people should live, that belief should be examined, and challenged rigorously before it becomes a policy that then becomes a law that encroaches on another’s fundamental ability to live autonomous lives.

to say that people are autonomous, self-actualizing beings, i mean each individual has within them a natural and true sense of self, and should be able to express that self as they learn about it, and become familiar with it, in order to develop into full personhood.

to stifle another person’s growth because it makes you uncomfortable is to assume that your comfort is more important than the person they could become as a result of expressing themselves freely. by going further and enacting legislation that strips others of their rights in a society that claims certain beliefs are to be kept outside of the governing sphere, is pure hypocrisy and a violation of human decency and our collective humanity.

as a young woman, who thus far identifies as straight, loves men, whose primary struggles stem from my identity as a black woman, there are spaces where i will not be judged and spaces where i will. i recognize the experiential difference between stifling spaces and “freeing” spaces. i can’t imagine living a life where i have to juggle more parts of myself just to get through the day uninhibited, let alone safe.

so for those of us who would like to impose their beliefs, ideas, and thoughts on others, please take a moment, step back. who are you, why are you so special, so important that someone else must live within the box you created?

i implore you to empower, not tear down, love, not hate. we are blessed to share this world with other diverse peoples. is it too much to ask that we learn from one another and not dehumanize and destroy one another?

earn me…

being good

love > hate