Keeping myself safe.

Over a cup of tea my homegirl said to me "Friend, you need to disarm." It's not the first time I have heard that (too many to count), but this time it echoed in my mind.

Long time, no write. I have been honestly doing nothing and everything lately. As I sit in front of my window, facing a beautiful tree full of bright fall leaves, listening to Floetry’s ‘Headache’, I decided that it’s time to write again.

Like texting back, I have been slow to write lately. I decided to stop punishing myself for both of those things and to just enjoy where I am (sorry friends & family, I love you all the same). I have so much that I have been thinking about, but until now all of it has felt like a sacred secret to keep with myself. As a highly opinionated and sensitive girl, trust that I have been taking inventory of the things going on and processing in my own time so yes, more essays will come. For now, I want to share my thoughts on something I have been revisiting lately: disarming. I have been for weeks, interrogating my insistent nature to be armored and after honestly being clocked by two friends, my partner, and an Instagram post, I am ready to begin sharing about it in my writing as a way through.

I have been, for many years, keeping myself ‘safe’ in the armor I expertly crafted. Like a blue jay building a nest, I have handpicked methods to keep me closed off from parts of my world. I withhold affection in many of my relationships, I do not usually share honestly with people when they hurt me, and I hold grudges like they are my property. This was learned through childhood as a coping mechanism, and I am sure if I dig deep enough, I will be able to find the exact moment where I first felt unsafe to unveil. I am unsure if it was the criticism of my mother, the pressure to be molded by my father, or the generations of masking that they inherited but ultimately, I have with pride, built my armor. And while there are chinks in my iron, I stand in it, proud of the ways it has protected me. I have over the years taken disordered eating, invulnerability, distance, and sharpness and turned this into a nice and shiny suit. Or so I thought.

Even as I type this, I have deleted the beginnings of many sentences that feel like I am sharing ‘too much’. On some days the choice is brave, and it is done in preservation but, in many ways, it is a betrayal to the part of me that wants to open up and share. I am sure you can relate to warnings that we got to be weary of those we do not trust or who may use these intimate parts of ourselves against us for their own gain. We are told to refrain from sharing our bodies to prevent harm or to abide by respectability politics to keep ourselves safe (read: alive) or to gatekeep our heritage from outsiders for preservation. Culturally, we are taught that “What goes on in OUR house, is OUR business.” And with my body as my only real home, I took that literally. I kept it all, my business. My brickhouse body (in more than ways one), has allowed visitors but has largely kept out [perceived] intruders. Recently, I held a very tough conversation with my mom, aunt, and grandmother about a tough core memory from my teen years. An incident, where I got into a physical altercation with my father. I started the conversation off by ‘joking’ about the incident, which was my first mistake, but this is a tool in my box of armoring methods. If I laugh it off, maybe we won’t get too deep. Quickly into the conversation I grew offended by their inability to see my perspective.

“I don’t care what the situation was, I don’t believe parents should hit their children.”

“But, no, imagine how embarrassing that was for me!”

“Okay, but ultimately, it could have been de-escalated by the adult in the room!”

I was talking but, really, I was pleading with them to see me. I filled the room with smart remarks and tense body language. In an instant, I felt myself reverting back to my 14-year-old self. And instead of saying “Honestly y’all this is really still painful for me to talk about.” I perceived them as intruders in black masks, with weapons drawn, ready to come into my house through the roof, the windows, or even worse, my front door. So, I put my armor on. During the conversation, my partner and brother attempted to defend me, offering more perspective and validation but one thing about the women of my family is that we are witty, and headstrong and so their pleas to avail me were ultimately drowned. Soon as I got in the car, my partner with delicacy said, “I’m sorry your experience wasn’t validated bae—” and before he could finish his statement, my razor-sharp tongue cut through the softness “I ain’t talking to them about shit else.” And there it was, I lifted another few pounds of iron atop my shoulders and carried it to cover my home, myself. I pretended I did not care but, I so greatly did. Through watery eyes I saw them, and so badly, I wanted the imperfect women who stood before me, with strong dispositions like mine, with similar experiences of physical harm, to see me. Thereafter came many moments of tears, then embarrassment, betrayal, and more, and more. Most importantly, distance and distrust, and armor.

This conflict, like many of the other conflicts of my life have caused me to withdraw and build these walls around myself. Countless times, conflict has hardened me in ways that makes my flaws a bit more visible. It has caused for me on many occasions to be perceived as angry, overly sensitive (to some, easily triggered/annoyed), and dogmatic. I am honestly a softie, with kindness and compassion in my heart, and silliness on my tongue. I sometimes want to ask people “Have you ever tried to yell from an armored vault?”

The crazy part about all of this is that I know I am loved. That the headstrong women, and my father who decided I needed a whopping that day, all love me, deeply. And even though, I stand on the fact that they all could have handled me with more care, I love them too. However, what is love when we can’t disarm? Without taking off parts of this armor, there are so many things that we will never get to know and love about each other. So many things that I won’t even be able to see within myself as a reflection of the love I receive. There will be love that I am unable to give because it is trapped behind the armor.

What is love when we can’t disarm?

It is loneliness in a full room. It is writer’s block, and dreams forgotten by the time I wake up. It is the inability to feel my ancestor’s presence at the altar. It is grieving things left unsaid. It is masking. It is standing at the edge of a blank space waiting to be filled but only having the ability to look onward… and do nothing about it.

I do not have an answer yet about how I will fully disarm. Of course, thoughts of journaling, therapy, shadow and light work come up for me… but for now, it is less about solution and more about feeling. Getting into my feelings and getting comfortable staying there for a while. Standing in my home, looking out of the window as I was when I began writing this but instead of fall foliage, I see a life without all of this armor. I see the love I have held pouring out as I bask in the love pouring in.