Tag Archives: caribbean childhood

Grief

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Over the last few years my grief has capsulated me into a space where I am unable to feel . I have been walking in a haze wondering when the days will end. I ask myself why and create responses that reflect facts and aggressive fiction. I have issues with my self-esteem. I see every incident as a sign that shows abandonment . I have allowed moments of clarity keep me treading water while the other moments I am just floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with no sight of land for miles. I just float in an endless brilliant sun and waves that kind of cradle me instead of pulling me under.

I have been living in the scene unable to process the next steps with a clear mind and spirit. My ancestors have been cradling me , mainly the ones that crossed the great sea and chose freedom in the depths of the sea and the ancestors who escaped into the mountains and brought our traditions with our gods to the new world of the Caribs. My ancestors may not have been great fighters yet they found a way to stay alive and they have been keeping me from sinking. My mother has joined them and I hear her saying ”mommy loves you “. Its what she said every time we were together about to part ways. She said it in every message as well , Hi, its mommy in all her messages.

This is her favorite time of year. It was mine too and still is which makes it feel conflicting. I have lived with unprocessed grief and have forgotten how to keep her alive in my soul. I forget to soak the fruit for cake, to buy a tree , to play cheesy music and watch atrocities Christmas’ movies. I just sulk. I stopped hosting , creating a space for community that felt safe and freeing. I just walked out the door to sink into grief.

Grief has had an easy passage since I have dealt with bouts of depression for years. I have had moments where I never left the bed , just sleeping because in my head I felt seen , well, loved and successful. I have struggled for years. I pretend in public, thanks to taking theatre classes for a year. I pretended so much that now I am tired and say fuck it.

I scare people now. I am honest and clear on how I feel . I say what is hurting to those who are closest to me. I let people know that I have moods. I get nervous if I am overwhelming and try to balance who gets which parts of what is heavy on my soul. I have people that know how hard this month is for me. How it would be full of light and sensory endorphins to now bleakness and grey skies.

People that thought they were my friends , have left me because I am no longer “fun” because I cannot hid anymore. I am open now because I need help. I am open now because staying closed could cause my final chapter to happen. I have dreamed a particular dream for years where a death of some kind is coming for me and I run but not really. I had it again however this time and embraced it . This threw death of course and hesitated to attack me . It came to me slowly only for me to kill it. I want to live and proclaimed it . I want to live for my ancestors hard work and for me. This is my present to myself. To live for me because floating will eventually give me a horrible sunburn which would ruin my velvety chocolate skin plus the pruning could become permanent. I have decided to swim towards the next step in a vast body of water that currently hasn’t land in sight.

Will I find land , hopefully. If I don’t at least I have started to swim. The waves have always been kind to me all these years. I think they want to me to explore.

Conditionals

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My mom was depressed and wasn’t able to make use of her amazing insurance to get proper help. She had her faith and her quotes. She needed someone to talk to and it wasn’t me.

My mother was hurting and I didn’t understand however I felt it. I grew up hiding within myself dealing with my own confusion of adolescence and believed that my sister would be enough for support since they were so alike. My mother and sister looked alike. When we would go out , people would automatically understand they were mother and daughter regardless of the skin tone difference. When people saw me they would say, “You don’t look like your mother, is she your mother?” They would ask this as if a man is not needed to make a child. This sentence would trigger me so I would say I was adopted so they would walk away feeling satisfied in their ignorance. If I engaged in this conversation it would end with the person no longer speaking to me .

I was hurt every time someone verbalised this separation between my mother and I. It was if they were manifesting our separation. I was sullen and secretive of my feelings because like my mother and her mother before her and so on… no one spoke about their feelings, you just prayed them away.

I was distant with my mother for issues that she wasn’t aware of or she wasn’t sure how to address them in me. She would have my sister as her representative and I would feel agitated when she did that. I became protective of my intimacy and held everyone at two arms length although I only wanted their closeness.

We had a confounding relationship and yet I would destroy anyone for her and my sister. I didn’t know everything yet I tried to protect her with my distance and I also hurt her with my distance . I wanted to speak to my mother about everything that was troubling me yet she was working her main job and building her company while going through a divorce. I was in school. Our time never seemed to matched up. My sister was able to bond and I couldn’t and it bothered me.

When I was little , my mother was my best friend; I truly didn’t need anyone else. I don’t think I have ever advanced past this stage and have felt a betrayal because we grew up and life happened and she kept me out in order to keep me safe. I grew up wanting that quality to continue however her life changed and I could see it yet she never shared with me. So I hid within myself in my own home in plain sight. I hid with for my emotional safety and have left it on auto-pilot ever since .

Later in life she had told me she didn’t think we needed to know out of fear of hurting our wellbeing She grew up in a lovely home that was filled with trauma. I know parents think kids don’t see , but they do; I did. Telling ” white lies” is still a lie. I felt the energy of trauma yet I wasn’t sure of the details and no one would tell me outside of me ease dropping in adult conversations in passing and I would hear some of my relatives saying the worst things about my mother. In those moments I would plot my revenge as her protector and cause them hurt later with my words. I feel for my sister, trapped in the middle of this with her own developmental concerns while absorbing this energy of discontent. I wanted to save my family.

My mother was hurting , she cried often and in private. I have inherited this. She was a shy extrovert and her life propelled her into a fearful reclusive person. I became a risky introvert just to feel alive. We loved each other but I wish I could have done better. Death makes you time travel. I go through her books filled with her penmanship, with her loops and elegant P’s and Q’s. I learned her signature as a child mainly because I thought it was beautiful. I have her book of thoughts. I read her words and remember seeing her writing them. . All I have now is her handwritten thoughts. I think about the stories she had told us about her childhood and about bits of her life that she kept inside while raising her children. I remember all I saw with my overly observant eyes . We missed opportunities to repair and nourish our family of three.

My mother lived the majority of her life hurting and without proper support. My sister lives guarding her new little family in a reclusive way. I live a life going back to the past to have a future.

I feel like I am living a third conditional life.