the boy who overcame

a mini essay/restful musing on self-recovery

Photo by Paulina Milde-Jachowska on Unsplash

Last week I wrote about the journey to come home. Home being a physical space and also what we make within ourselves when we are free and on the way to self-acceptance. Home can be a scary place when we aren’t prepared. In writing on this journey I had planned a simple two part series in order to get my thoughts out, but instead I find myself having to push back my plans a bit as I really immerse myself in this idea of self-recovery that bell hooks speaks to in her book Sisters of the Yam. Maybe this series will be three parts or…let me just sit down with my thoughts.

“Before many of us can effectively sustain engagement in organized resistance struggle, in black liberation movement, we need to undergo a process of self-recovery that can heal individual wounds that may prevent us from functioning fully.” bell hooks

Part of self-recovery, at least for me, is being able to tell my own story. We need testimonies of how we got to be where we are. We need to be able to tell our own stories because who else can we entrust to say what really happened? Lest, like Zora Neale Hurston says ““If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” Storytelling allows us to be free from being collapsed into others’ conceptions of who and what we are.

And so.

Monday morning I found myself crying at the gym.

It is probably not an exciting thing for others to watch a six foot one Black man weeping his eyes out on the Peloton bike, but nevertheless there I was. I tried my best to contain the salty, hot pools of water running down my face. But. I had clicked on a Destiny’s Child song, “So Good” and found myself caught up in memories that reminded me of how far I’ve come.

I remember my 7th grade English teacher. I remember how much contempt that she had for me and how she always seemed to remind me that I wasn’t enough. I remember others who echoed similar words. Whether it was the shame that others put on me or the shame that I instituted with foolishness I felt that she was right at one point in my life. I could never crawl out of the pit that I was born into. Well. That little boy is now a man. I’m more than she could have ever dreamed. I’m doing so good.

“Wasn't it you that said

I thought I was all that and you said I didn't have a clue?

Wasn't it you that said

That I wouldn't make it through?

And wasn't it you that said

That I wouldn't do too good? Look at me, now ain't God good?

Now I made it out the hood

I want you to know that I'm doin' so good” Destiny’s Child

This was a recent post that I made on social media that captures what I’m feeling.

On Monday I came home to myself again on that Peloton bike. I listened to the same song on and off throughout the day and cried my eyes out. (I cried my eyes out Wednesday as well.) I cried because I remembered that little boy and the steps, admittedly shaky, to become the man that I am. I am the boy who overcame.

Here are two songs that I have felt are profoundly inspirational to me in my self-recovery process:

“life can never break your soul” - whew

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