You’re enough
Be yourself
Let your light shine
Don’t dim your light for anyone
Speak your truth
Doing my daily routine this morning and tapping into affirmations... my 41-year-old self finds these messages so reassuring. YES! I knew it. *Pats self on back and turns on Janelle Monae’s I Like That* And then Little Ama pops in with an incredulous expression, a sneer, and an eye roll. (Little Ama is a combination of Elementary Ama and Teenager Ama...really all of the young Amas that came before.) “Easy for you older people to say. You can ‘vote with your feet’!”
I pause. And listen to the quiet yell inside. It’s accompanied by whisper-shouts of the other words I used to hear directed at me and still hear directed at other young people:
Do as I say (Not as I do)
Don’t say/ do that in public
Why do you talk so much?
You ask too many questions
If you _____, your friends won’t like you
You have to listen to [me/your teachers/ grandparents/ older people] and do as we say
If you wear that folks will laugh/ think you’re a boy/ won’t think you’re pretty
Moving against conformity and the status quo is a challenge for me, at my big age. How are the kinds of words of encouragement in the first list helpful for young people who are being fed the messages in the second list simultaneously AND have almost every aspect of their lives dictated and determined by older people? They have to go to school, by law, and it’s rarely a school they pick. And even if they pick the school, picking the older people who teach them (yes, the school staff) is out of their hands.
In the past year I have heard several second-hand stories about my niblings encountering older people in school settings who found them to be “too much” for some particular behavior. And recently when I texted with a peer, he shared the quote about the only constant being change and mentioned in passing that the particular high school teacher who used to always say it hated him. Now high school for us was a solid two plus decades ago and this memory still lingers for him along with the quote. This “successful professional,” primary caregiver of two little ones, who is partnered in a loving relationship, and a contributing community member thinks of this quote in tandem with being hated by an older person who was responsible for caring for him. (Maybe, in addition to sticks and stones, words do hurt us and the unaddressed wounds linger.)
Real quick, before any of us get it twisted, I’m not bashing teachers or saying this is exclusive to schools. Schools are where I have had the most experience and thus the most data. Additionally, they are designed to demand uniformity from the students, so the call for “normal” seems so much louder and more frequent than in other spaces. Church, doctors’ offices, hair salons, clothing stores, subway stations in NYC..all sites where I experienced something similar. (Remembering having a person on the subway who I perceived to be a man, of greater age than I, approach to tell me in my 30s that I should be ashamed of my natural hair and question my upbringing and what my parents taught me. The audacity to question MY foundation while spewing hateful, unhelpful comments to a complete stranger.) I’ve witnessed a range of people, even family members I love and adore, callously tease, mock, demean younger people. Often in the name of making a joke or out of love. This is not about pointing fingers, it’s about looking into mirrors.
It’s not actually easy, ever, to let my awkward, freak flag fly... or even to just be a bit “different”. And it especially wasn’t when I was younger.
So I’m wondering, now that it is supposedly okay for me to let my light shine (it’s an iridescent and shimmery light BTW)...
How am I aligning my actions to the affirmations I offer younger people? Do I tell them to live out loud, then stay quiet when other older people try to shut them down?
In what ways does letting my light shine, serve as a beacon for other people? What are the effects when I openly dim my light? (For example, sharing self-disparaging comments)
When are the times I try to dim a younger person’s light for my convenience or their perceived “safety”? (Thinking of the times I discourage younger people from asking about an observable disability within earshot of the person with the disability; or when I rush past a question about my rationale because there “isn’t time.”)
I don’t have any reflection questions for you
this time, dear reader. Not that I don’t want to invite you into my journey...I’m just still deep in my own wondering. Please share whatever comes up for you as you engage with this. I tend to process and grow best in loving community with others. And we’re in this together.
Until next time...Keep Shining.