2005-04-24 @ 11:20 p.m.....

i've been hitting a brick wall lately.

leaving a dent in my forehead.

what is it, exactly, that makes us who we are? some would point to their parents and say "that's me". but nowadays that number is dwindling. as more and more families deconstruct and rearrange. it's like genetic recombination up in this piece.

i wonder so much about this. ever since my first biology class when they told me that blue eyes were a recessive trait. brown eyes dominant.

but what about the in-between? can u explain that to me? what about the gray area.

some would attribute their identities to their environments. they'd point to their surroundings and say "that's me". but with technology nowadays, the cable tv, the internet, and all of the white kids in the suburbs speaking "ebonics". so-called "hood" or "ghetto". emulating a lifestyle they see in the media and they perceive it as more "real" than the so-called reality they are growing up in.

i wondered about this ever since i moved to dc and everyone had a label. every class, mixture, skin color had a name. "she's got money". "she must be mixed with something". "she's bright-skinned".

i remember a time when i was just me. very aware indeed of my place in this world. firmly rooted in my own unique situation and identity. i thought i knew everything there was to know about myself.

some people have the luxury of just pointing to themselves and saying, "This is Me".

i wish that was me.

there is no longer a relationship between phenotype and genotype for me.

it's all one big lie.

i spent a lot of years in denial. of self. of family. of reality.

now i'm starting to notice that no matter how i embrace my own reality, the world out there still views me as the same person they see on the outside. nothing's changed for them, as it has for me.

except in confusion if i try to assert my knowledge, experience, my sense of self.

what makes a person Black in this country? it used to be the one drop rule. then it was the color of your mother rule. then it was the grandfather clause. today it seems to be a look. Mariah Carey can call herself Black on the cover of Essence. Halle Berry said she knew the world would always see her that way. it's obviously not a skin tone. it's obviously not a hair texture. it's obviously not a shape of the lips, eyes, nose. it's no longer the fingers. no longer the body type.

so i wonder, world. why do we have to define these notions? why do they matter? who is really keeping score?

literally, what the bleep do we know????

la verdad es que yo no se nada. nadita.

i give up. i give up trying to assert anything of myself to anybody else. all tha matters is that i am comfortable in my own skin. which i am not right now. but i need to learn to be. and i need to get a grip on reality. the world will always see me as they want to see me and i can't pretend that they don't anymore. it was cute when i was little and i didn't know any better. but now that i know. the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. it's not so cute. all i can do is be totally honest with myself.

even if my mother wasn't gracious enough to afford me with the whole truth all of my life.

even if my father was never there to give me guidance and a man to look up to.

even if my brother hadn't opened my eyes as the first doubter of our family connections.

even if my mother still refuses to talk about it.

i have my answers. i have my identity. i can point to myself, and my surroundings, and my mom, and my brother.... and say "All of this. This is where I come from.... and who I am, well that is what I take with me wherever I go. I adapt to my surroundings, for sure. But I always feel at home".

....

that was a lie. meaning, i can't say any of that. b/c i still feel uncomfortable in my own skin, with my place in this world, with the veil that surrounds everything.

what had happened was.... ~ ....what comes next?