journal

Ribbons

“Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours.” 1 Corinthians 3:21

“For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18

“It kinda seems like you feeling some type of way.”

My voice trailed but my eyes remained glued to the road, only glancing over long enough to notice that you had clenched your jaw and chucked up your hands the way you do when you aren’t sure of what to say.

“I mean,” you sighed, “I don’t…feel good.”

And in a flash of defense I retorted, “Okay, but I don’t understand why. We’re not actually together yet—

“—I know that.”

“Right.” I sat up. My back, tall in aggression; my shoulders rolled in retreat. “So then you know I’m just waiting for the right time.”

You didn’t respond. Instead, you looked out of the passenger seat and left enough air between us to fan the fire my insecurities had started.

“Mark.” I wondered if you could hear me choking from the smoke. “I literally just need time.”

“Bridget, you don’t want us to leave the party together. And we’ve been doing this for like a year.”

There was a pause. Then nothing. Then everything.

The year you spoke of fought to play out in my mind. Controlled and slow, then wildly like most rebellions. In it, we had found a constant God, lost our former objectives, and curiously poked at a revealed connection between us. A couple months into locked gazes and passion filled free falls, I pulled away asking for a pure friendship, more time to move on from my last relationship and more space to walk through my journey with Christ.

And you agreed.

“Like I said…I just don’t want to answer any questions or explain things that I’m not really sure about.”

But I was sure.

I was sure about you. I was sure about the irony in your eyes in that they were large and weary, but that they shrank fears and restored life. Sure about the way they hung on to me, sometimes desperately, as if to say that this affection both liberated and scared you. Sure that they hummed “iloveyous,” over, under, into and unto me. Sure that they noticed when my eyes hummed them back to you.

Uncertainty, however, had hipped its sloppy and weakly supported frame between what is and what was. It poked and prodded at this sudden reality and it used my old fantasies for the basis of its reasoning. “How?” it asked me. “How did we get here?”

And by “here,” uncertainty implied that I had arrived at the wrong destination. “Here” was not the original plan. I, Bridget, the well-dressed, successful and fully put together bad bitch was supposed to land over there: in Ghana. My man, the color of sweetened cocoa, would sweep me off my feet with the coolness of his pidgin, matched success, style, and reputation. We would get married and he would me fill my belly with beautiful babies and the lifelong security of knowing that I had achieved the perfect picture. But “here”, wasn’t quite that.

On the axis, I had actually landed right back at home, in the Bronx, with my parents. My career path, having to be completely reset after a year of unemployment, ran parallel to deferment. My physical presentation made weird angles with awkwardly fitting outfits and a grown out fade. My heart, full…lay perpendicular to yours.

My spirit leapt whenever you walked into a room. In your arms, I felt both lost and found. In your kisses I felt both naked and covered. But instead of what I imagined, your beautiful Caramel skin smelled of Caribbean waters. And your mind relied on my descriptions of coconuts and kelewele during rainy season in order to understand my experiences in Ghana. Your style—so simple and street, excited me but rang foreign to the Ankara prints I knew. And your career, like mine, had yet to figure itself out.

“It hurts because I don’t have a Plan B. I want you, Bridget. Today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.” You were looking at me now, again with those big and desperate eyes, searching me up and down perhaps hoping to find out how something so clear for you, wasn’t so clear for me.

I had no way to explain in that moment that the doubt I spoke of went far beyond you and I—it was better described as my unfamiliarity with my sense of self. I had grown accustomed to the brown girl who met my gaze in mirrors. The girl that played with pretty mental images and had mastered the art of deception with her ability to show everything but what she truly felt. She, I knew. She, I could control. But she was no longer who stood before me.

In her place, the reflective frame attempted to capture the fullness of the new woman I was becoming. She, in all her divinity, did not mind teetering between complete and unfinished. She did away with looking through pictures, and so she lived in moments. She was unconcerned with making things appear any different than what they truly were. And she did not ask anyone’s permission to be, and just be.

Despite her obvious glory, her hasty arrival disrupted much of my current and future plans. This woman did not fit in well with my friends, my clothes, or what I had identified with for so long. Instead, she hung out less, took bigger risks with her outfits, and felt that phrases like “bad bitch” were too small to describe her. She felt bored at parties, alive during Praise and Worship, and spent her time reading, writing, and praying to soothe her growing pains.

And she loved you.

In the same breath, what this woman required of me felt too big, and too uncomfortable. Though she promised freedom and peace, it would cost years of figuring it out, honest conversations, losing touch with friends, letting go of the pictures I believed completed me—and I was simply not ready so I responded:

“I’m sorry,” before shifting the gear into park and slamming the car door.

I walked through that party and the next few months carefully, never coming too close to you or this foreign woman. I tried to wear what I used to like, go places I didn’t want to go and beat myself up when I couldn’t do either. I spoke less about you, my love of God, and my sudden spiritual awakening in hopes of becoming palatable to those I thought knew me best. I tried to be anything but free.

Somewhere along the path of denied truth and its inherent misery, however, came grace and its epiphanic arms. It held me close while it whispered painful lines of liberation and possibility. It released the corset hold of restrictive and fleeting external labels and identities. Then it draped a more comfortable cloak of newness, maturity, and individuality.

My walk with God has unmistakably begun to reveal my truest self. I have been forced to learn who I am without the bounds of my blackness, my pain, culture, or any other self-attributed contexts. I have had to accept the awkward and insecure journey of a woman unsettled. And I’ve had to care a lot less about the ways this journey and I are experienced by others.

In it, I find quirks and ugly belly laughs. I see healing and resolve. I taste a native sexiness. I feel a longing for you. And these moments, they offer rest to the frustration I often feel during this process but they also convince me to keep going.

Who I am today, perhaps would not have asked that we leave the party separately—but what remains true is that I need time. Loving you is worth letting go of pretenses that have otherwise never allowed me to be as happy, but it is not worth my self-discovery or my time with my God.

So, like the patient and loving man that you are you waited for me after the party and through this past year, respecting my boundaries and need for space. You weakly smiled when I told you I needed another year to figure things out and told me you would wait forever. In the instants that I’ve wanted to give in to impulse and desire, you pull away from my attempted kisses and remind me of the future you want for us both. You prophesy into my potential, support my now, and offer room to unload my past.

I am not naïve to the difficulty of this walk or its rarity, but I do know it is right for me. And though I hope you’ll wait, I know that I do not need you to because I am waiting for myself. I love you, Mark. I love you in full. I do not know what the future holds for us but I am completely grateful for who and what you’ve been. Your friendship has shown me the emancipating nature of unconditional love.

After the party I skipped, almost intuitively to the car to meet you. I saw the stings of our earlier conversation on your face. And though I wanted to pretend as if I didn’t, the big woman in me dropped the performance and stood solidly before you.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked.

You looked deeply into me, with a sureness that I’ve never seen. A sureness that knew that this time, my apology was not for my truth, but for the ways they have and may continue to impact you. A sureness that forgave my inconsistent courage, but accepted my unwavering honesty. A sureness that said you loved me through every stage of my evolvement.

You pulled me in and held me the way that you do. And in your arms, even if just for the moment, you helped me unravel the rest of my packaging. You untied my pretenses and showed me what it could be like if we raised them up, like ribbons, to fly freely.

New

I’m sorry.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

“White men are…” I paused, searching the breadth of my scorn, “vampires.”

The studio was still, but it was as if you could hear the slap of my words hit the cheeks of any and every pale pink face it applied to. Then it hit me. And it felt good.

“They literally reach the—their success by sucking it out of everybody else and then putting a name on it. They’re just the ones that can copyright it first.”

“Okay, thank you!” Mina interjected as she typed a note to herself on her phone.

And just like that, it was done. The bravado? Gone. That sugary tang you get from a satisfactory slight? Dissolved. What remained was a flighty adrenaline high of unsuppressed resentment and my now, relaxed fists, that escorted me off the set, past the cameras, and back into my seat next to my castmates who were also waiting to be called for their confessional.

“The African Millennials” was an exciting project for each of us to be a part of. Mina, the Executive Producer and Creator of the show, was investing in its second season. It offered a digital platform for young Africans with varying relationships with the continent to voice our passions and sometimes, uninformed opinions on culture, societal norms, and black millennial experiences. And it was, in my mind, the perfect opportunity to restart my media climb here in New York after moving back from Ghana. It was, in my mind, redemption for the year I lost, failing to become Accra’s newest star.

I looked around the room, perhaps, for validation—hoping that someone would endorse my sentiments with a head nod; the bounce supported by the vibration of a shared experience. But there was no one.

“I’ve never heard of black men cheating,” Acrown shrugged. Muffled snickers hot-potatoed through the room, landed on my lap, and died. I sulked.

That’s what got yall’s attention?

 When I got home, I was positive that my mother would endorse my behavior. She knew more than anyone the intricacies of my vexed experiences with the white patriarchy.

“You said what?” her voice, so suddenly shrill, could barely conceal her disappointment.

“It’s really not that deep mom,” I retorted, my tone equally failing to hide my own letdown. “People say worse things. I’ve said worse things.”

And I have. And it was justified. Or so I thought. In between my consumption of oppressive daily interactions with white men, advertisements that only hailed the features I would never have, and the news that constantly bottom-lined the expendability of black lives, I had built the kind of bitterness that sought reparations in the form of verbal assault. Insulting them was the least I could do to make up for the pain they wrought.

Yet, for some unknown reason, I could not find peace with what I said. For months, I looked to friend after friend for solace, manipulating every conversation that I could to conclude in a, “Yeah, I’d say that too.” I read through articles and think pieces that supported my rhetoric. And I sat upright in my bed at night, recounting the very moment I found out that my ex-boyfriend—the one white man I thought might be different from the others, had joked that the name for a Black Flintstone (if there ever was one) would be, “nigger.”

But nothing made it feel better. So I ignored it.

On August 8, 2018, Mina TV published their most watched episode of The AMs, “Would You Bring a White Partner Home?” The 1,000+ comments that mostly sided with my arguments should have brought the confirmation that I needed. Instead, the agony of reliving said moment—along with many other poor character displays throughout the season proved louder. There were no compliments or dials that could dim down the ugly manifestation of my unhealed wounds.

I want to be very clear. There has been a dramatic shift in the way I understand life and love. A shift not feasible by fleshly doing, but only through an encounter with a God that lovingly, but harshly takes away everything you have ever known, including your right to be unjust to others though they have been unjust to you. My inability to sit with this moment marked the beginning of the end to the Bridget who once sat comfortably in pride and ego. The wrongdoings of others began to pale in comparison to my own.

I believe that somewhere along the line, subconsciously, I grasped that the same God who has shown me boundless love, mercy and favor throughout my entire life—also did it when I cursed and despised Him. This same God, not only forgave my inequity, faults, and ignorance, but had also planned the ways they would be used as redemption. This God, who had seen me at my utter worst, loved me all same. How then could I, a product of grace, refuse to share it? I never deserved it in the first place.

Grieved by this sudden truth, I took to self-condemnation. I wallowed in the parts of me that clung to victimhood and self-pity. Woe was me: a lying, stealing, cheating, swearing, volatile and vulgar, selfish human being. I thought a lot less of those that I had offended, and more about what those offenses said about me. And I lived in paranoia; afraid of making the mistake that would rip the rug of favor from under me.

This too, was wrong.

In condemning myself, I not only continued to fuel my pride—as self-loathing is conceit’s disguised sister, but I had also declared myself as the god over my life. I denied the Father’s pardoning and peace, and decided that I should surely suffer for all the things that I have said and done. It made more sense to abide by the inconsistent and contradictory judgments of our society. The dichotomies that declared certain mistakes to serve as lessons, while others would lynch, fit much more easily within my lifestyle. These too felt good.

But I believe that when you have truly given control to the Creator, you must also relinquish the subjective ability to decide good and evil. You have no other choice but to renew your mind to the idea of an infinite love that protects, redeems, and pardons just by faith because we are simply incapable of earning it through works.

Yes, white men in my life have time and time again battered my spirit and self-esteem—but there is nothing to gain in holding it. I no longer want to allow variable experiences to impact the way I walk through my life. I want to look at others through eyes of empathy and understanding. I want to love the way my Father has loved me.

I am sorry for what I said. I take full accountability. But I also refuse to define myself by this or any other wrongdoing—for who am I to say that I am my mistakes, when the Father has said that I am love?

I lean into forgiveness, of myself and of anyone who has hurt me—even white men. I rest in the peace that comes with denying the limitations of this world’s convenient boxes. I look upward, to the heavens, for the standards to live by.

And that feels really good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercy

God loves me.

“And be not conformed by the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2 KJV

“Miss, yes—you. Please. Come forward.”

Bishop Kissi held an expression of disappointment on his face; one that collected in three furrows along his forehead and hung like waning crescents underneath his eyes. I was afraid. It had only been about four weeks since I began attending New Life Church, but it was enough time to know that his disposition was far from the norm; his tone far from the usual zeal.

“Please, come.” Bishop used his hand to motion me forward a second time.

Hindsight informs me that my hesitancy, in fact, marked an awareness. I imagine that the duet between my stuttering feet and burped tears reflected a quiet knowing that I had done something wrong. Most of us are fearful of truths that we already know, but refuse or are not ready to accept.

When I finally arrived at the front, Bishop beckoned for Pastor Michael, a man of God with a heavy anointing, to join us. I had watched him move under the spirit, prophesizing and performing deliverances time and time again. My inability to understand his spiritual power, however, had caused me to behave awkwardly around him. His presence deepened my apprehension and I gave way to the anxiety forming in my chest.

“Pastor,” Bishop began, “what were the prophecies you gave this young woman?”

“I told her that she would never inherit the hardship and pain of her mother,” He replied. “I told her that there is a great calling upon her life and an abundance of divine blessings that she will come to know at an incredibly high speed.”

It was a humble summary of what had been revealed to me over the past few weeks. Pastor Michael had called me forward during Friday and Sunday services to share prophecies about the success of my career and the trajectory of my life. I was given detailed accounts over the hardship my parents and I had undergone, forewarned about distant relatives and acquaintances that wished us harm, and reprimanded for poor decisions that I had made.

Bishop shook his head. “The Lord revealed to me that these prophecies will not yet come to pass.”

So suddenly dizzy, I howled a loud, squawking sound. I could see Bishop mouth, “don’t cry,” through the wet fog that had stained my vision. My dress, now cool with nervous sweat, draped me in familiarity, as I knew too well the chill of suffering.

“You see child, the problem most of us fall into when we hear prophecies or information about family and friends that have wished us harm is that we start to connect the dots. We begin to fixate on the past and when we are finally able to figure out who has hurt us, we become angry and bitter, and we bewitch ourselves.”

I swooned, collapsing from the weight of defeat and wonder. How could he have known?

“What was the condition given to you?” Bishop inquired.

“He…told me that I have to forgive.”

Glum with reminder that I had not kept my end of the bargain, I returned to my seat and laid my head over my mother’s lap.

“You see, you all do not understand what this is all about!” He exclaimed. “Life is more than these…things we give so much time and importance to. We as a church are missing the true meaning.”

And he was right, at least, about me.

For so much of my life I have drawn value from career and academic achievement, outward appearance, and personal accolades. I have been validated and found sustenance in the ways others expressed admiration for my loud, cheerful persona, hard work ethic, and supposed, destined success. But for the last two years, life and I have not looked like any of those claims.

A more honest depiction of who returned eye contact in my reflection was a shell. One that was cracked and broken, sickly and underweight, irate and resentful, lost and confused. I identified so greatly with my career failures in Ghana and blamed myself for being unable to protect my parents from increasing debt and eviction notices. I cursed at God for his lack of mercy on my father’s health and my mother’s business.

I stopped showering. I lost my appetite. I fell ill. I lay in bed day after day in a heap of apologies for myself; drunk off the fumes of a weed addiction. Bridget—and whatever I had once claimed she was—was no longer.

To remedy the pain, I found solace in hatred and victimhood. I spent hours mediating over the relatives that abandoned, betrayed, and laughed at my family. I sang songs of death to old sweethearts that left me with the sour after taste of being fucked but not chosen. And I held on to every prophecy with pride and spite, ready to spit on everyone. I would make them all sorry for doubting me; for leaving me; for hurting me.

At the end of service, I ran up to the pulpit where Bishop was seated, looking through his notes. Blinded by the act of revenge I had turned my blessings into, I still could not figure out what he meant by the “true” meaning of life.

“Bishop,” I exhaled. “So, does this mean my prophecies will never come to pass?”

He chuckled, realizing my confusion, and held my shoulder. “No, no. They will all come to pass, but, there has been a hold. You have to understand Bridget—God wants to bless you in this life. He wants to make you great. But it is not what you have, that makes you great. It is what you give. How can God trust you to bless others with what He’s given you, if you can’t forgive those closest to you?”

Though this season has force-fed me numerous lessons, forgiveness has been the hardest to swallow. I have worked incredibly hard to let go of past disappointments and learned to accept what was and all that is no longer. I am learning to love without bounds or exceptions—in the same way God has so faithfully loved me. And while I still remain hopeful for His favor to manifest in my life, I do so humbly, thankful for all that He was already done in the restoration of my peace and protection of my family.

So much of my journey back to God, and by that, myself, includes many things that I cannot yet understand or explain. I am scared—both of the supernatural and to share with others my experiences with it. I am pained with anxiety that others will not believe my testimonies or may alienate me because of my willful exclamation to the love I have for the Lord. I worry that people will treat me differently, or that my friendships will change, because, I have.

I write this in spite of it all, leaning on the exchange of freedom for my truth. With this, I say thank you to God for each and every person, opportunity, and struggle He placed in my life that was, and is, dedicated to my self-actualization. I thank Him for helping me to let go of the pain and anger that once stood in the way of my destiny. I thank Him for wisdom, humility, and patience. And though I still cannot fully recognize who I see in the mirror, I give Him all the glory for her too, because I know that she is stronger, happier, full of purpose, and closer to the woman I have always wanted to be.

Bishop gave me a small nudge to shake me out of my daze.

“Let it go, Bridget,” He said. “Love, and be free.”

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness and still become something beautiful.

– Unknown

Anyway

“MAMI BREEEEEEEEEEEJ!”                

Emmanuel’s voice violently cut through my window before plopping itself on my chest. His visit was expected, as we always gossiped in the mornings before running downstairs for our usual egg sandwich and pancake. But today…today, I wondered who came up with this stupid idea, anyway. I pulled my braids from under me and readjusted my pillow. If I stayed quiet, he would leave, right?

“My Queeeeeen! Ah, so you want to behave as if you can’t hear me?”

Wrong.

“Emmanuel, relax.” I rolled to the edge of the bed before tossing my legs over and flipping upward to meet my reflection.

“Fuck.”

My eyes had swelled overnight and had attempted to mimic the processed pink of the rubbery sausages that the kitchen served downstairs. But, who leaves a mirror right in front of their bed, anyway?

I felt around the room for my keys before unlocking the door. I yanked it open and turned away quickly so that he would not see all of what was the night before. So that he would not see my shame.

“Sweetie dahhhlinggg—MAMI BREEJ!”

I snorted.

Emmanuel chucked off his black flip-flops and dumped his weight onto my bed. The old frame creaked and sighed from the sudden pressure.

“Ah, but why is your pillow wet?” he queried; the answer seemingly less important than the discomfort it posed.

“Sorry.” I sat down at my desk, untied my headscarf and looked outside the window. The trees that canopy my balcony looked ragged and bare from the harsh winds and rainfall that replaced the sun of late. How comforting. It appeared that I was not the only one that withered when going through a break-up of sorts.

He perked up and perhaps for the first time that morning, he looked at me. “Mami, you good?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is it Kojo, again?”

I winced, feeling a sudden tightness in my chest. Love had a funny way of doing that, of becoming that much more real, when it hurt.

“Ooooooooooooooh…,” Emmanuel groaned and threw his hands over his head. “As for dis one dier–”

“Its probably over, anyway. So stop. It’s done.”

“What happened, now?”

“Nothing…I’m just so tired of this shit. This is so dumb. I’m so dumb…” Emmanuel looked away and tried not to roll his eyes. We both knew that I would go back.

“But you knew he had a girlfriend—“

“YES. Damn. We don’t need to keep going over that.”

“So then what is it again, ehn?”

“I just…I just want him to choose…me.”

Emmanuel shook his head. “He won’t. Nahhh. Kojo will just be with both of you.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Chale, I’m telling you—just let it go.”

I wish I could explain how I got here without sounding like the very women I criticize. The ones that get so wrapped up in a smile or a look that seemed to promise them a future, that actions, had proven, did not exist. The ones that defended a smile or a look through the very pain that it caused them. The ones that thought love, despite it all, was enough. But I cannot. So, I will not try to.

Instead, I’ll tell you that in the midst of the heat that accompanied the months of my semester abroad, I fell madly in love with a man, that I knew belonged to someone else. And though, a wicked love, it was, there was a time where I would have gladly fallen, and fallen, all over again. Please do not mistake my honesty, for pride or joy. No, that is certainly, not it.

I often still spend my nights thinking of the other woman and what she is like. If she drank apple juice as much as I did, or practiced her dance moves in the mirror before going out at night. If she traced his jawline with her index finger or pulled at the hairs on his chin while he slept. If she and I could have been friends…

…If she loved him as much as I did.

I write to her in my head, apologizing for the pain she does not know yet and for the lies I might have told her, for him, if she had found out. I wonder if she could ever understand that I could never be sorry for loving him, but I would always be sorry that it meant hurting her.

I hope that she can forgive me, as I have finally started to forgive myself. And I pray that she might, one day, see that we actually have a bit a common—after all, in a way, we both know what it feels like to concede an entirety, to a lie.

Emmanuel took a deep breath. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

I would not know for a long time. For the days that turned into months, and the months that turned into a year and a half, Kojo and I continued on in our love saga seesawing between passion and confusion, confusion and passion. Despite my efforts to let him go or accept things as they were, it often felt like I was incapable of either.

This summer, I made the decision to stop speaking to him for good…or at least until I thought we could be friends. Most, if not all of me, however, knows that I could never go back to being his friend; our interactions would be too much of a reminder of the time I knew I deserved better, but stayed, anyway.

I have learned to love again since this experience—a feat that seemed almost impossible just a year ago. The stars have aligned in a way that my path has crossed with a beautiful, and awe-inspiring man who teaches me something new, everyday. I have never met a love so patient, so selfless, so kind, and so unconditional. I look at him and wonder how I got to be so lucky.

I realize that at a certain point, my attachment to Kojo became an unhealthy one that I surrendered all of my power to. I not only allowed it to define me, but I wanted it to. If Kojo chose me over another, I believed that it would, in someway, make up for the fact that I had not already chosen myself. I became so focused on what would be a fleeting satisfaction that I lost nearly two years worth of opportunity to really love and celebrate the amazing person I have always been.

I apologize to the other woman that I may never know, for the ways my insecurities and selfish decisions have impacted you. I apologize to the man, who now holds my heart, for the many moments I have made you feel as if you were not enough. I shake my head at the man that I let believe was the source of my light simply because he basked in it. And I laugh, affectionately, at myself for letting someone make me #2 when I am the only choice to make, again and again.

I cleared my throat and blinked back the routine tears. “Anyway—”

Copycat

Imitation | 1The assumption of behavior observed in other individuals

2Something produced as a copy

I remember her vividly, her face, perhaps, a bit too clear in my head: the mismatched brown splotches from years of bleaching and the tribal mark that ran across her left cheek. I remember her strained, yellowing eyes and the disgust that filled them. I remember the way her lips twisted and poked as she mouthed, “Ashawo.” I remember feeling terribly ashamed. I remember wishing I were anywhere, but there—anyone, but myself.

That was not the first time I have been called a hoe in Ghana. It was not the first time someone had taken one look at me and decided that they already knew what I was. But it is a time that I have difficulty forgetting—something I cannot shake. It is a moment that became a part of me, and one that set up much of my experience the past few months here.

I did not know it then, but that moment would only be the first of many other startling encounters during my stay. And each of them would come as a surprise because for a long time I believed that moving to Ghana meant that I would find comfort in obvious similarities, when in fact, I have never felt anymore different. The truth was, in trying to make Ghana the home that the U.S. could never be, I miscalculated shared skin color, heritage, and language as the only parts of the equation necessary to be seen as an equal. I had failed to understand that Ghana’s conservative nature did not bend to nourish liberal minds, and that instead, it cut down anything that did not remain in line.

So soon enough, all of these kinds, of moments, became the voice that made my decisions everyday. It maintained a thick accent and heavy tone, a down inflection and clear emphasis. It raised concerns whenever I wanted to wear something short and/or tight and hushed my laugh whenever it got too loud or took up too much space.

I stopped getting dressed up. I laughed much more quietly and I spoke only when spoken to. I tried to be bashful around discussions on sex and reluctant to share any seemingly womanist ideas. I acted more like the woman my culture would rather me be. I mimicked how I thought she moved and I copied her style. I tried to be less, me. But the issue with imitation is that when we run out of the script that informs us, we are left with a blurred line between who we really are the person we have tried to be. We become unable to run from the reality of uncertainty and discontent. Uncertainty of what is, and what was—discontent with who is, and who isn’t. It is when the dust finally clears that we find out that the truth of who we are—who we have always been…is still there, having never left, waiting to be loved.

This is not really about the woman that called me names because she did not approve of my outfit. And this is not about all the other moments just like it. But it is about what happened to me when I internalized them. It is about me twisting and manipulating myself into someone that could fit in. It is about performing under the guise of a copy, because it was the only way I might feel at home; because it was the only way I thought Ghana would love me back.

I still do not really know what it means to be myself. I am still figuring things out. But I am learning that that journey is not worth compromising for a false sense of belonging. I am learning to be proud of my mistakes and to make them loudly. I am learning to be unapologetic over my laugh and comfortable in the home I have within.

It is often, too hard, to imagine the Ghana I want to help shape—the one that does not shame others for what they wear or who they want to be. However, it is always, too boring, playing the copycat. The truth is, I will always stick out—that is to be expected of a first-generation, Ghanaian-American, BOMB ass black woman from the Bronx in any space. So if I am going to be called a hoe, in any language, I might as well be looking sexy as fuck, or at least, like me, when it happens.