20 Years In The Making

To Whom It May Concern:

That may be too formal for the conversation we need to have. The conversation that we should’ve had that you didn’t know about. A conversation that was almost twenty years in the making, one that I have gotten no closer to knowing what should be said versus what I needed to hear. No closer to knowing what I needed to know. I could start with “You are enough.” That phrase could’ve made us feel some margin of complete, three little words that we could have heard that would have made us ok.

Honestly, I don’t know I that last sentence was a statement or a question.

Maybe I should call you Bianca. Or… maybe I should call you B or BB. I should advise you that those nicknames are preceded by Aunt or Aunty. You have nieces and nephews that adore you. Little goblins that absolutely make you staddle the fence of family planning more than you are comfortable with. Trust me, twenty years is not enough for you to be settled on that topic. I commonly joke that I’m going to be 65 years old walking my kindergartner to their first day of class.

Remember in 9th Grade when you hopped back into the school year on crutches? With that hefty bookbag slung on your back and purse riding your hip like an errant toddler, there was a lesson you needed to learn, Dear. It is ok to ask for help. It is not a sign of failure and you needed to get that through your head.

Another thing you should know is that year you met some of your sisters. You needed them more than you will ever understand and believe me, they are just as much family. At this moment, you should make note “Blood does not make family” and that statement stuck with us more than you can imagine. We spent years in our awkwardness, struggling to fit the stereotype, unable to accept that we were not crafted and cut from the same piece of cloth. Sure, the colors were similar, and the weave pattern carried the crafter’s signature, but you are not the same.

They will help you come to terms with pieces of you that had struggles to embrace. Let me tell you this little secret, we still struggle to embrace ourself. Not because we don’t realize we need it. No; with us, it is never that simple. We struggle because we are striving and pushing forward to know who we are because it is still unclear. These women you call your sisters have been with you through disheartening break ups and the tears that came from feeling like we were only good enough to be a starter girlfriend. Being the girlfriend that helps guys build their confidence in learning how to date or give them the comfort of not being financially secure. We did well at that and when they found their stride, we were left there with our heart broken, fragments in a Ziplock bag with a bottle of rubber cement.

Our sisters sat there and gave us soft sloping shoulders for our tears and pierced ears for drunken ramblings, all while pointing to the puzzle that is our heart as we tried to help it take shape of what we last knew. Trust me doll, they are a large part of why we have not snapped, went off the deep end and have not ended up on a Crime Docudrama. They need VIP passes to the pearly gates in the afterlife; dealing with us should come with an express pass or automatic entry.

Another thing, you can like/ love anime. It isn’t odd anymore. Liking the dramatic and unusual art styles, story lines, and fashion is much more common. They have communities of black women like us that play video games, watch anime and cosplay! They actually cosplay! They gender bend their favorite characters sometimes, but they don’t try and hide their curly coils that don’t fit. Nope! They modify the character to have ethnic hairstyles, but they don’t rely on hot tools and chemicals to fit the look. You don’t have to be extremely pale to dress as Sailor Venus or Tsunade. You can play video games and unalive monsters as you have Link perched in a tree, bow and arrows at the ready. We actually have been toying with that idea of Sailor Venus… I’m suggesting the underlayers of hair be a tone of 6/7N and the crown and sides be a Honey Blonde with bright, iridescent gold highlights, it’ll look amazing on our skin tone.

All of this sounds so positive, but I am you. I know you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and I’m not one to bs, not even myself.

I regret us coming out and playing it off as a joke. We tried to let it out and learn to be us? I remember it too well. We saw how our mom reacted and we panicked. God… did we panic. But I remember how that made us feel. We spent nineteen years looking at everyone from a far, tamping down feelings, putting our thoughts through a filter and being uncomfortable in our own skin. It sucked. God, did it ever suck. We spent years afraid to explore and learn who and what we wanted. FYI, we are still trying to figure that out. Thank God our sisters and a cousin or two have not judged us but embraced us with open arms. Helping us sort out our Bi/Pan/Minsexual panics have become an artform, especially over text.

We have had to spend the last eleven years coping with anxiety and depression that have left us spiraling on more than one occasion. We had an impulse to buy this pretty piece of gold fabric from Fenty. We wanted to wear it to a party and the day of the event we debated, felt unsexy and put it back in the drawer. We fight our mental health all the time. Only a few years ago we were diagnosed with Severe ADHD and the anxiety and depression were almost like side effects… sheesh. Buckle up, Buttercup! This retraining for our mom is a struggle beyond compare. She constantly tells us we were tested when we were young and that I was normal until a few years ago. You will spend lots of time on sending her various social media shorts that explain what it’s like in our brain on a daily basis… Spoiler Alert!---> She has ADHD too and is unmedicated… she has the attention span of a gnat and will respond to you in conversations even though she has heard nothing. This is commonplace. I’ll pray for you.

We spend a lot of time trying to retrain our own brain which becomes a time-consuming project no matter the task. Cleaning and organizing will probably be the tasks that keep us out of the Celestial After Party. We have gotten better but there is a crap ton of room for improvement. Our current closet is our pride and joy, but we constantly have to reorganize it since things go to crap very easily.

Lastly…

Doll, you need to sit for these. Trust me, grabbing our teddy bear holding the crab that says Cancer is not a bad idea. 2006-2023 have been rough off and on without good reason. In 06, we lost our Grandpa Ron. In 07, we lost Pawpa, Grandpa Houston. That one was unimaginable. I still remember making gumbo for dinner. At the time, he was good to go with no worries. I was about to take the plates in from the porch where we ate when the hospital called. I almost dropped all the bowls right there as the function of my legs disappeared.

2014 was absolute garbage; -50/10 do not wish to repeat. We lost Aunt Ruth in July at the end of the month. That one hurt but the next one left us a trainwreck at high noon.

Late September, Nana passed away. We should’ve fought her sooner to go for a second opinion. We should’ve packed up the van and made a trip to Chicago or Pittsburgh where there are cancer treatment centers that focus solely on that. I spent enough time dwelling on that so you shouldn’t have to atone for it. I still feel the guilt around her birthday and day of passing.

We have seen many friends and family pass on between then and 2022, many of them were hard to see. You lost your last living grandparent, Grandma Judy in June of 2022. At this point, we have been coasting in and out of logic, a concept that we don’t understand on the best of days… I’m pretty sure we are the driver for the Struggle Bus TM, and it is fully fueled.

So yes, “To Whom It May Concern” is much too formal for my intents and purposes. It is much too strong for a letter that is here to prepare you for the things I wish I had the knowledge of. This is the foreshadowing and premonitions I would have begged for upon the altar.

Sweetheart, you should’ve heard “You are enough.” You needed to hear about your beauty without the qualifiers like “…if you lost some weight” or “…for a big girl.” Your beauty is not contingent on your size, and you needed to have that spoken to you on repeat. You needed to hear that those deepest brown curls with electric blue ends are perfect the way they are. The way your hair grows from you scalp is yours and it is the crown you were made to flaunt with head tilted skyward.

You deserve to be loved. Period. You do not need to hide yourself and hold back for fear of rejection, I know why you do, but you shouldn’t have to. Your oddness is going to be endearing to the person that is meant for you, the quirkiness and the ring of insanity that lights your dark honey brown eyes like the embers on a wildfire, all things that draws them in like the promise of riches and fame to the greedy and gullible.

This was a conversation we needed to have sooner but had to wait until the knowledge was gained as experience. I had to roll and roll and roll again until I had enough EXP for that intelligence boost. And I wish I could leave this letter to you even if it broke the time continuum or changed the future, I could be at peace that I didn’t let myself down as I have felt like I have for the past twenty years.

At least I would’ve been able to give you the cheat codes to make those years navigable and manageable even if you couldn’t stop it all.

So, when you get to sixty, we may have another conversation or there may be a book of guidance that our forty-year-old self may need. Can’t leave ourselves in a predicament, right?

Right.

Your more flabby and less sane self,

Bianca