#elus1ve8utterfly

All jokes aside, I’m sad for us. Life beats everyone down, but I think Black women have the unique experience of catching it from all sides in ways that many people, even other minorities, can sympathize with, but never fully understand.

Even still, we are resilient. We fight for every little glimmer we can find.

For me, one of the biggest glimmers this past year has been writing and connecting with other talented Black writers over a shared interest: Roman Reigns. I never expected to get so much fulfillment out of it, but wow, it was something I truly needed.

Not only did it give me a space to express myself unabashedly and explore the wild fantasies in my head (which was tew fun 😏), but reading, writing, and engaging with this community brought me a kind of joy I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. The support I’ve received has, at times, been enough to make me excited for tomorrow and the day after that. After struggling with depression on my own for a while, it felt like finding happiness and passion again.

Which is why I’m taking this so hard.

Seems like we find joy, community, and escapism in something, only to be reminded that the person/institution/whatever that sits at the center of it may hold values completely at odds with our humanity. And that’s devastating. It’s like, damn… we really can’t have sh!t!!

Even our smallest sources of comfort come with reminders of how unprotected we are and how little solidarity there often is for us.

Hate to be a philosophical, melancholic b!tch about it, but well… I’m going to be.

I won’t say I’m done writing for RR forever because I’m also dramatic, a Libra, self-aware enough to know my mood might change and inspiration could reemerge. But for now, I’m going to direct my energy toward finding other interests that I feel safe and guilt-free enough to fully indulge in.

And if you don’t react or engage in their games (why would you reward that behavior with your energy?), suddenly you’re labeled as “not a team player” and told you need to put more effort into making your coworkers feel comfortable - essentially, to shrink yourself.

It’s a strange place to exist; being both hypervisible and unseen at the same time. Everything you do is noticed, but rarely understood. It can feel debilitating at times.

I could write an entire dissertation on this based on my own experience alone, not to mention the countless other Black women who have studied it, lived it, and share the same perspective.

Lately, my solution has been to become even more beautiful, more intelligent, and more internally focused. I believe it’s paramount that women - especially Black women - develop their own internal wellspring of peace, clarity, and fulfillment, while also cultivating a community of like-minded women to both give and receive encouragement on this journey.

I so wanted to have this up before tonight but… yeahh. Idk how y’all be churning these stories out‼️ I just spent 40 minutes writing and rewriting the same paragraph 😭

I need to see how tonight ends anyway / might need to revise the ending. Fingers crossed our Tribal Daddy comes out on top ☝🏽