Sans Titre

There’s a massive difference between getting to do something and having to do something.

If you choose to spend the day in bed because you feel like it, because you want to chillax, spend some time with your SO or reading or bingeing your favourite shows, that’s one thing.

If you have to stay in bed all day because you can’t keep your eyes open, because you’re weak, because you’re in pain, because your body just point blank refuses to let you be upright without punishing you for it, that is 1) a very different scenario and 2) not fun. Being horizontal because you literally can’t be vertical is not the same animal. Being in bed and bored out of your mind because you can’t sleep but neither do you have the ability to read or even watch TV is not even in the same ballpark.

I don’t “get to” stay in bed or at home.

I don’t “get to” have way too much free time.

I don’t “get to” be on benefit.

Seriously, the next time someone says they’re jealous of how I “get to” not have to work or to stay at home all day or to have so much free time, I may just punch someone in the face.*

Just. Stop.

not answering texts/chats

getting my hopes up 

daydreaming

being awkward

pissing people off

In response to #MeToo, “listening and learning” emerges as the “thoughts and prayers” of social justice movements

We stumbled into a reckoning. It had been a regular staff meeting — standard announcements, small talk, and project updates— until we began discussing the results of the 2016 presidential election. My fellow white coworkers and I bemoaned the state of the nation. What went wrong? How did we get here? And why didn’t we see it coming?

After many long minutes of shock from a chorus of white voices, a colleague of color chimed in. “We did see it coming,” she said. “We saw it coming in our work. We saw it coming in our country. We told you. You just didn’t listen.”

There was a long silence. I felt my stomach collapse in on itself, the telltale sign I was hearing a terrible truth about myself. She was right.

“Black women don’t get to be surprised. We don’t get to be exhausted or ‘woe is me’ or any of it. We’ve been here a long time. So, I guess, welcome, but what took you so long?”