Growing Apart

I remember when I quit drinking (the first time.) Friends I used to party with came around less and less. I got invited to fewer and fewer parties and get-togethers. It was all in the name of keeping me away from alcohol. But, I wasn't an alcaholic— that I was aware of (yes, I was.) And my friends certainly were...

I started smoking at the age of 12. I stole roaches from ashtrays when I visited my friend's houses. That was 1989 and things were different then. You know, Reaganomics was tailing, crack was everywhere— even among the white upper-class, and I was certainly neither.

Singing in school bathrooms, rapping to desk beats, breakdance battles in the street on linoleum floor rolls; we made broke look good. Weed made broke feel good too. I had my first drink at 14 I think. It was 40 ounce of Old English. I threw up everywhere.

Where were my parents? In those days, parents sent their kids outside to play and told them to stay in the neighborhood and be home by sundown. We had rules of the road like, "Don't talk to strangers." and "Stop drop and roll." if you catch on fire. Other than that, my whole neighborhood was out on the block without supervision. Granted, there was always someone's grandmother sweeping the sidewalk or somebodies aunt people watching from a window. But my father worked all day, and my mother was always home watching my younger siblings.

There was no internet.

Let me restate that. There was no internet in the hood.

The web was born in 1990. We had 1 single landline. We didn't even have call waiting. People interacted, in person. gasp! Such required social skills. And I was bad at that. But good at faking it. Ah, professionalism.

It was so easy to get into the wrong crowd. There was so much social pressure. There were no online facades or party lines to meet people. You knew who you know. You met people through people. You had to be tough and yet, friendly.

And I was a people person, bah! No, I wasn't at all. I thought I had to be a people person. It was exhausting and deeply enervating. I'm an introvert. I have spectral differences. I didn't know that then though. I just thought I was different. And I was different, way more than I let anyone know. But everyone already knew. Fitting in meant safety in the 90's. Everyone was in a gang, clique, or part of a set. It was normal to rumble with other neighborhoods.

I think we grew up a lot faster then. Or rather, we were weathered by our teenage years. You certainly weren't sheltered if you were a teenager in the 90's. It wasn't that there was a lack of love anywhere. On the contrary, I think today's form of detached and unavailable love is rather fake. As much as there was too much (damn near neglectful) freedom and license, there was also a swift kick to the rear for f-cking up— and spanking wasn't illegal.

Making this story faster, I didn't think I was one of the bad kids by comparison. I was though— in my own way. I did what I thought I had to do to make it through. My mother worried about me. I sure as hell didn't feel like a kid. But looking back, I was. I felt 25 at 15, doing grown things I had no business doing.

I did a lot of good at the time too. This is the way I dealt with my karma. And after all, when parents or cops came around, it was, "Talk white. Act normal." It went something like, "Ugh! Omgggg officERRRRR... YAS! I totally was getting this beerrrr for my uncle and like got like, sidetrackedddd... Can you walk me home?" ...Blink Blink (valley girl voice.) Worked every time. Oh yeah, in those days, you could buy alcohol and cigarettes for your parents from most stores — with a note — forged of course.

Most of this time in my life is a blur because, well, I was either smacked or tanked. I was a happy drunk though. I was that.... lying about my age.... sneaking in the club.... tucking your Nine, give me all the free drinks, type of chick. I didn't know anything else. My boyfriends had cars. That made me lit.

I had my first child at 17. Predictable. I still accomplished a lot. I pulled through school. I took myself to college, with a baby. I got a job at the bank (score.) I lived a triple life type of life. Again, I didn't know anything else. It made sense at the time to compartmentalize.

I didn't even touch on my involvement with music, music celebrities, etc. I'll save that.

When you grow up disenfranchised, you don't know you are. Your class, your level, that's what you're going to be. We all have fantasies, dreams, and delusions of grandeur but most of us end up like our parents. We make the same stupid choices they teach us. We do the same self-sabotage they do. We hold the same limiting beliefs our parents have. And we shackle ourselves to our caste in society.

Luckily for me, I could sometimes pass as normal. Yay! Or, I could impress someone with my talents, beauty (at the time), or emotional intelligence. I would bedazzle them. Smitten, I could do no wrong. I could navigate ambiguity as well. I could get away with being bad at things (and bad in general) by blinking repeatedly. I was troubled, a brooding artistic, an old soul... introverted, confused, sensory defensive— then seeking, flipping and flopping between good and evil, sweet and spicy, empathic then numb. Did I mention, sexy? Just kidding. Did I mention, stimmy? flap flap

Who, ...what the hell am I? I'm human. I think I'm human. I've been wrong about a lot though.

I didn't even touch on my mental health adventures. I'll save that for later too.

Nor did I mention my private obsession with complicated scholarship— like comparative religious studies, physics, and chemistry (not to make drugs, I promise.) Philosophy, punk music, wait... and Public EnEmY, TUPAC and Wu...Tang...Clan.

Being a young lady, there's a lot of angelic and devilish sh-t you can get away with and not even know you're being a bitch. I was a lovely bitch at that. No bullsh-t. You can stalk me on Facebook and see that I'm still pretty f-cking popular for some reason. How? I have no idea why people like me. I like me, don't get it twisted! There's no lack of esteem going on here. I just KNOW I'm a bag of mixed fruit. It just seems like nobody else knows or cares. Or they actually think my weirdness is refreshing.

Awkward hugs all around!

I'm also a sweetheart— that you'll find out soon enough.

Moving on, SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW, at SOME POINT, I started having nervous breakdowns all the time. I literally could feel my brain decompartmentalize at various points in my life, and my life cracked apart with it. Trauma, shock, rapid environmental adaptation, cutting... paradigms started shifting. And it was terrifying.

I didn't want to destroy myself anymore.

Maybe it was the nightmares of alien abductions and what they said to me.

Maybe it was surviving being shot.

Maybe it was coming back from a NDE realizing I didn't go to heaven... or hell.

But I went crazy several times a month. And I still had to go to work and feed my kid.

My first mentor was my boss at the bank. He didn't know he was my mentor. I was like teacher's pet. He used to say I reminded him of his daughter who he couldn't see anymore. He was Jewish. He always chose me to do his filing. And he always talked to me while I was working.

He talked about what it took to be successful... and about mindset. He ranted continuously about the reasons brown people stay stuck in the ghettos and how the Jews got out. He felt Jews and Black people had similar struggles. My father's last name is Jewish which was on my record at the time. I always wondered if he thought I was some kind of Brownish Asian Jew. At the time my hair wasn't straightened and I wasn't this yellow either. But I know it would be in my favor if I shut up and listened.

...We'll talk about racial identity, skin bleaching, ambiguity, and us mixed-Filipinos one day.

Digressing, he spoke out loud about secularism. And, he told me how to spend my money.

I wanted to change. I wanted to live in a house like his and drive a car like his.

But I didn't know how.

I didn't want to grow old to be the poor grandmother that swept the sidewalk.

I stopped drinking— several times. Although, I know NOW wine is healthy in moderation.

I stopped smoking— although I still believe weed is good for you. I stopped because I was constantly stoned.

I stopped doing dumb sh*t like arguing about things people will never change.

I stopped making others feel guilty for things they can't or won't change.

In my goodie-two-shoes making up for bad karma phase, I stopped trying to change the world and people.

I stopped believing money was the root of evil.

I stopped believing in the race hypothesis and actually started studying human origins.

The list is long. Longer than this. I kept changing. Change. Change. Change. Sometimes forward change. Sometimes lateral change. But change was the constant. And it wasn't out of a criticism of self. It was embracing evolution.

Thinking I was onto something, my relationships all went haywire.

I lost my junkie friends.

I lost my gang banger boyfriend.

Most people that I grew up with still keep in touch but we have little in common, and nothing really to talk about at length, except maybe parenthood and small talk. Catching up.

My friends don't crypto.

My friends don't affiliate mahketin'.

My friends don't eCom.

My friends don't live in mansions, drive nice cars, and have ads on Facebook.

Some of my new friends do, but that's not the point...

As we grow, we sometimes outgrow. And that makes something that already hurts, hurt more.

There is such thing as healing trauma. And it can be fatal, ironically.

My childhood and young adulthood sound crazy but all of ours is, right? Right? It is. If you delve into the depths of your shadows and traumas, it is. It's also subjective. First world problems. When I lived in Jamaica, that changed me too. I always thought I grew up in poverty until I saw real poverty. I became more grateful because of it.

Back to my point... what was I writing about... oh yeah, growing apart.

It really sucks sometimes when you and your best friends just don't vibe anymore. When your BF is still on that old wave, and you're trying to break free— mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually; without breaking free of them. It sucks when most people around you have nothing to offer but to pray for your lost soul and when they start saying things like, "What, do you think you're better?" It sucks when you're detoxing and regain your empathy, only to have it drained constantly by the bloodsucking, well-intentioned, vampires around you.

When you're intoxicated, you don't realize you are the toxic one. And you don't realize that toxic people before you widdled down your boundaries and managed down your standards, since, um... your first christening. You don't realize how abusive it was to be told that you're born worthless, but if you only get baptized... (I did. But that's another talk.)

I don't want to STAY in the ghetto — mentally, emotionally, or physically, ...........f-ck this sh-t.

F++K control.

And even if I make big bucks this year, my mind still wanders to the gutter.

Petty Mayonaise. I'm ratchet A....F.

I have to wear the Payless Purse when I visit my old neighborhood, or I'm bragging.

I'm more secure with myself than ever. And yet, realizing, my relationships are non-secure.

Everyone wants a cut of the check, but nobody wants a cut of the WORK.

I changed. As if that's a bad thing. I changed, for the better. I changed, for my kids.

And I really didn't change that much, which is hilarious and troubling. Because what if I do?

I can't give unless I have something to give.

I can't reach out if you pull me back into the crab-bucket.

Introverts get lonely too. We're not all shy.

I still love everyone I ever loved, just most from a safe distance.

They say it's lonely at the top, I must be halfway there.

Should I click post?

F-ck it.

Post.