White Becoming Woke

You can say that my journey to becoming woke was forced on me. Forced on me from not any outside influence, but what I had created while sleeping behind the wheel of my life. It happened slowly with each decision accumulating into a life I could not sustain and did not recognize. 

It’s hard to describe the exhaustion I felt. I tried everything I could find to help. I began working out, getting sun, resting, creating the perfect sleep conditions. No amount of sleep helped; no amount of caffeine kept it at bay. Everything I tried never helped. I was tired to the bone all day with insomnia at night.

It was a tiredness of the soul that could only be fought with a complete life change. I innately understood what my body was telling me. It was the thoughts it left me with in the stillness of the night. I had to finish this life I had created once and for all either by ending my life entirely or committing myself to lasting and fundamental changes in the way I was living. No matter how much I fought it, it became more and more clear that this was the case. It was a decision I didn’t take lightly. When you are typing certain keywords into google that you never thought you would only emphasizes the severity of the situation. 

There have been moments in my life that have stuck to me like glue. They are simple moments that without context should not be remembered, but still, they stay with me. I have started to see these as cracks in my sleep-walked life. They could have been key moments at that time - maybe that’s what they were meant to be. Instead they just stayed with me, waiting for the lesson to be extracted from them.

One such lesson came at the age of 13. I had moved thousands of miles from my childhood home just one year before. I was fortunate, though, and had made friends literally the moment I walked in the door. My dad had moved into the house a little before the rest of the family. An outgoing, curious girl had been asking him about his family the first moment she could. She was excited to have someone her age right across the street. She was waiting outside the whole day for my arrival. This curious girl became my best friend, and her friends became mine. She always had her eyes wide open to the world, taking it all in. And always had ten questions to go with every observation. She was the ying to my “nice” yang.

The moment came on the first birthday that I was celebrating in my new home, and I was excited and nervous to celebrate it with my new friends. Would they like me enough to care? Was I as important to them as they were to me? I was at the age where presents weren’t the be-all-end-all of a birthday. But I still knew that the thoughtfulness of a gift, not the expense, showed how much people knew you or not. 

My curious friend had brought a big box, wrapped very well. When it came time to open it, I was getting ready to have my “thanks” face on no matter what because it was so big. I opened it and nothing was there. I did my best to not look disappointed. Was I being pranked? Was this a sign they didn’t like me? She looked serious but happy - not like she was trying to hurt me. She explained, “Well, I know you like to do arts and crafts. I thought if anyone could do something creative with the box, it would be you.” I did like arts and crafts. I was excited she had noticed. In a blink of an eye, I decided that maybe she didn’t have the money for a present, so the thought she had shown in making me feel seen was good enough. I smiled, nodded and thanked her. I could make something of the box. She started laughing, not at me but to our mutual friend. “I told you”, she said.

“I told you that she would even appreciate a box.” The friend nodded. Then she turned to me, “You appreciate everything. Your real present is at my house. Let’s go get it. You can keep the box, too.” She laughed, winked, and started up the stairs to get the present from across the street.

I nodded, trying to take everything in. Was I so appreciative that it was noticeable? What did I do that made her see this part of me? Why was it so important that she discussed this with our friend and set out to test it?

In my favorite K-Drama (Yes, I have a favorite), the two main protagonists seem to be doomed to a life apart from each other even though they are deeply in love. Their lives as they currently stand are worlds apart. The line of the show to give hope struck me as being important, but I couldn’t place a finger on why yet exactly. 

It goes something like, “It doesn’t matter where we are. It matters that we are looking in the same direction”.

Life, whether we want it to or not, continuously moves us forward. We move forward regardless of whether it’s safe, we feel ready, or we’re prepared. We just move forward because time gives us no other choice. Because of this, we seem to connect more with people who are seeing the same things as us. We look to leaders who dare to speak the words we’ve been daring to just think. It is daring to become more brazen or more brave. It is this direction forward that has given me both hope and fear.