Delayed. And that's okay.

Up until recently, I was ready to get out of here. Ever since high school, really, all I could think about was leaving, moving far away to another country, staying there, and leaving everything here behind. In college, especially leading up to graduation, all I wanted was to get up and go, to move on to the next place.

But then I didn't have a next place to go to, and so now I'm still here.

And even though I still want to go. Even though there is still something in me pulling me outward, as there's always been. I'm afraid to leave. I'm just now realizing that leaving everything behind means really leaving everything behind. Starting over means really starting over. I desperately want out, but I'm not as ready to seize it as I thought I was.

So for now I'm still here with Ma and my dog. I'm going to stay and soak up all the love and warmth  that I can, gather all the comfort to hold inside me that I can. Until I'm a little more ready. Until I can trust myself a little more to be alone and do things on my own, to sustain good thoughts and good feelings. I doubt I'll ever be all-the-way ready. Hugh Laurie says you're never completely ready for anything, and the planner in me grudgingly can't deny that. I don't know when it'll be. Hopefully it's soon; as much as I love my two anchors, I know there's nothing substantial for me here. But I guess that's between me and God. We'll see.

In the meantime, at least now I'm a little more ready to stop feeling so guilty about being "stuck" here. Delays shouldn't be as shameful as I've made them out to be.

BOOKS! (My Wish List)

As mentioned in my last review, this is the second of two books that I was able to buy for $2.91. Not only that, but it's also a translation of a hugely popular French novel published in 2012, which got me so excited that I barely needed to examine what it was about (as much as I usually do) before buying it. I didn't even know that the lottery was that big of a thing in France, and coincidentally I ended up reading this novel right in the midst of all that hubbub about the $1.6 billion Powerball that was going on a couple weeks ago here in the States. So this ended up being a timely story that did not disappoint!

My Wish List by Grégoire Delacourt
(Originally La Liste de Mes Envies)

Jocelyne is French woman in her late forties who is bored with her life, having settled after enduring much heartbreak and abandonment. She lost her mom at 17. Her dad began succumbing to dementia when she 18. She married the first man who expressed interest in her, who'd initially only wanted sex but became her husband when their tryst led to pregnancy. She had two children before giving birth to a stillborn child, which she never got to mourn properly because her husband blamed and abused her for the loss. When she was younger, Jocelyne had dreamed of being in deep love with a man who was passionate about her, of being beautiful, of being a fashion designer, of being happy and free. Instead, she's living in the small and slow-going town of Arras, running a fabric shop, working next to a twin pair of frenemy shop-owners, married to a man who only loves her to a certain extent, and the mother of twenty-something children who have long left home and are hardly bothered.

Over time, Jocelyne has learned to be resignedly content. But two events interrupt that contentment. She starts a knitting blog that surprisingly generates a following, and later on she wins the lottery. Jocelyne starts tengoldfingers on a whim, figuring she'll pass the time by taking up something that everyone else seems to be doing these days. Her writings about stitches, techniques, patterns, fabrics, and the items offered in her shop actually amass a sizable readership of women that turns into an unexpected and off-putting community for Jocelyne─a community that looks to her for answers to life questions, but also offers her tremendous support when, say, her husband is ill. The blog might be the first instance in her adulthood where she feels like she means something significant to others. People want to hear her voice and appreciate her for being herself, without her having to convince them to do so.

The second event, which is the major event of the novel, is Jocelyne's lottery win. She follows the advice of her twin shop-owner neighbors and absentmindedly buys a ticket just for the heck of it, and ends up with 18 547 301,28 € (equivalent to $20,084,872.56 as of this post's publishing). After receiving a hefty orientation from the lottery organization's in-house psychologist, Jocelyn decides that she doesn't want anything to change too much. Though her pre-lottery life may not be the life she dreamed of, she appreciates her life because it is hers; it's stable and she's worked hard to maintain it. She may be bored, but she's not completely unhappy. So she doesn't want to sacrifice what she has for money, and is loath to pursue the multiple "wish" and "need" lists that she makes while contemplating her new secret fortune. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), that resolution comes to naught when someone else makes the decision for her.

My Wish List is a fairly quick read; I read it in two days and probably could've read it in one if I was in a hurry. Generally it's relatable to women and moms, or anyone who's wanted more out of life and just hasn't gotten it yet. I mean, who doesn't fantasize about having the means to do whatever they want when they want? Who doesn't yearn for a do-over in life? My Wish List's cover poses this question to all of us, "If you won the lottery, would you trade your life for the life of your dreams?" Take this book as an opportunity to see how you would answer that question.

Favorite quotes:

"I'd like to have the chance to decide what my life will be like, I think that's the best present anyone can get. The chance to decide what your life will be like" (32).

"Because our needs are our little daily dreams. The little things to be done that project us into tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the future; trivial things that we plan to buy next week, allowing us to think that next week we'll still be alive... You can spend your life filling a house, and when it's full you break things so that you can replace them and have something to do the next day. You can even go so far as to break up a relationship in order to project yourself into another story, another future, another house. Another life to fill" (111-112).

Talking with Yasmin 11

Today I'd come in with things I wanted to talk about (can't remember what they are now), but Yasmin had had two exercises in mind so we went with those instead. She said it was up to me to choose, since it was my session. But then I figured that if she'd taken time to plan something out I might as well see what it was about. Turns out it wasn't about much. The first exercise was listening to her read from a certain book, and that was nice. The second exercise had something to do with self-esteem and was a dud, to be quite honest. I know she's trying, but meh. Eh well. Blahblahblah. Notes here:

• Yasmin starting off by reading Be-good-to-yourself Therapy book by Cherry Hartman
• Express your opinions; it's good to hear yourself talk
• Asking for what you need/want and respecting whatever "no's" you might get, but not inflating the importance of said "no's"
• Been trying to avoid rejection like the bogeyman because you're not sure how to rebound from it and don't want to know what that "no" says about you and what you're lacking
• Feeling unmotivated this week; been thinking about the fact that there are no guarantees in life
• No guarantee that things will work out for you, no guarantee that people will receive you or respond well to you, no guarantee that the thing you love to do will ever love you back...so like, what's the point?
• Not trying to be negative, just astounded by the uncertainty of everything. Everything is a risk and that's terrifying

Things People Give Me #25

My friend from high school is currently living and working in Germany, and we've been exchanging messages occasionally to keep abreast of what each of us is up to. This morning I woke up to a new message from her, and I enjoyed it so much that I asked her for permission to share it, with minor omissions and whatnot. It makes me so glad when people trust me with their thoughts and tell me things like these. It's a lengthy offering of honesty and reflections on applying to grad school, selling yourself, teaching, progressing at a job you might not have felt cut-out for, and discovering what you like and want to do most. Very timely and relevant for other 20-somethings like us who might be struggling in this wonky phase of post-graduation or preparing for post-graduation. For your reading pleasure:

[her original message]

 Hi Danielle, see? It took me more than 3 weeks to respond. How are you? It's been a busy month for me. Although we had winter break until the 11th, I still felt really busy. I've been working on my grad school apps this whole month. U of [Whatnot] wanted a 4-6 page Statement of Purpose AND a 1-2 page Personal Statement!! Too much!!! I am a really slow (and reluctant) writer so it always takes so long. For some reason, I don't have any sort of writing process and I always feel lost when I write. Somehow I can't get my thoughts together because I have so many. And especially because this was an application essay, I felt really under pressure because it determines the next two years of my life. It's just so hard to sell yourself honestly, you know? How do I know what I would contribute? How do I know my strengths and weaknesses? They are asking us to know ourselves and communicate a coherent image of ourself to the admissions committee, but in all honesty, people aren't all that coherent. They are complex and inconsistent. Trying to project a coherent self just feels like a lie and I can't write if I feel like I'm bullshitting. So anyway, it was super hard. I had to ask a friend to help me brainstorm and focus on specific aspects of myself before I could really get the app done. But it got done eventually. Now I'm working on my U of [Whatnot] one and it's smoother sailing because it's not as long and I feel like I've already organized my thoughts when writing my U of [Whatnot] one. What's challenging about this essay is trying to use the Canadian spellings of things. But it's not that big of a deal. 

Teaching is alright. Definitely different from what I expected. Have you taught anyone before? Stood in front of a classroom and sweated? I thought that with my years of tutoring experience, I'd be well-prepared, but teaching is a different game altogether. It's psychological. It's figuring out how to motivate people to want to learn. It's learning group dynamics, which people work well together, who distracts whom, considering their age and maturity level (The 9th graders are in the gender-split phase where the boys refuse to interact with the girls and everyone is apathetic because it's cool. Little do they know that the world is not driven by apathy, but by passion). It's recognizing that different classes have different personalities and you have to be ready to adapt, be flexible, get the quiet classes to participate and the loud ones to calm down. It's learning that your plan never goes as expected. As a student, you never realize how much planning a teacher does. They structure the way the class runs. I'm always surprised by how much authority I have too. Whatever I plan for the class is what we do. It's a weird, new experience, but I'm happy I get to do this for 10 months. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but I'm learning a lot, and it's helping me strengthen my weaknesses. I hate public speaking, dealing with discipline problems, raising my voice to be heard, but I'm being forced to. And I know all of it will get easier as I go along.

I think the best part of this whole experience is the freetime. I was really lost my senior year. I was having panic attacks the summer before my last year, which I had never had before, because thinking about the future and not having something concrete was really scary to think of. It's like you've been walking around this whole time and suddenly you come to a cliff and you look down and panic because you don't know what's down there. I really felt useless, having studied German. Like, German is a good to know if and only if you have a main skill too, which I don't. So I panicked all the way through applying to the [Whatnot] and the Austrian version of the [Whatnot]. And then I breathed a bit when I got the grant because now the cliff was a bit further away. And now I'm here and the freetime has allowed me to really think of the stuff I want to do. You spend like 16 years straight through being educated that you barely have time to think about your own passions and your long-term goals because you have so many short-term goals in front of you (finishing that paper, studying for that exam, doing required readings). Once you have free time, you fill that time with what you want to do and it helps you see yourself so much clearerly. Having time to just think and reflect was really valuable because I realized that I really like building things, designing stuff, figuring out how things work, programming. But most importantly I really like to help people. And maybe one day I could help more people if I had more money. Tip better, donate to Wikipedia, stuff like that. And I can't do that stuff with just a degree in German. I want to learn to make programs /websites/applicaitons that help others (it also pays well). It became totally logical that I should apply for a Master's so I did. And I hope I get in so I can continue to work on my goals. 

What have you been up to now without the bookshop? I too worked in retail before and I know I can do better than be walked on by people with money all day errday. So can you. What have you been doing with your freetime? Volunteering? Finding another job? I wouldn't be too hard on yourself either because like I said, freetime also has its value ;) I hope you are doing well despite the insecurity, and I have absolute trust that you will figure it out eventually :) Take care!

Sorry I wrote so much haha! honest writing is the only writing I like doing

[in response to my response to her original message]

Aww, I'm glad you liked my message - of course you can reproduce it if you want haha! I'm applying to the School of [Whatnot] because they take people from basically any major since [whatnot] is an interdisciplinary field. I am an interdisciplinary at heart, so it should be a good fit. Plus I will learn how to program and design applications. And then I will finally have a main skill to pair with my German. I'm applying as a citizen and hoping the spellings don't matter because I have been integrated too long in American society d: I really enjoyed reading your message too! And never worry about "making things about" you. That's what friendship's about! (among other things). I'll send you another message next month, but until then, keep doing you in all your writing, cooking, reading, twerking glory ;)

BOOKS! (Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown)

This book is very special to me because I'd learned about the man who mailed himself north to freedom in elementary or middle school, but had no idea that he'd written about it afterward. This book is doubly special to me because I was able to buy it and the next book that I'm going to review for a grand total of $2.91 at a calendar store. The cheapskate and the bookworm in me are both insanely pleased right now.

In a nutshell, Henry Box Brown's story goes like this: In Virginia, Brown and his wife had different masters, but he often did additional work for his wife's master and gave the scoundrel money because said scoundrel had the power over him to demand such things. When Brown wasn't able to meet his demands, one day he came back from work to find his wife and children gone. They had been sold further south by his wife's master. Greatly distraught, weary, and rightfully enraged, he had finally had enough of the tyranny of slavery. And in March 1849, with the help of a couple trustworthy associates, he risked death to have himself sealed in a box and mailed from Richmond, VA to Philadelphia, PA. This memoir is part of his later work as an abolitionist speaker, actor, and storyteller.

Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown by Henry Box Brown

At only about 60 pages, this book is one of numerous precious testimonial slave narratives that we have access to today. Henry Box Brown employs it as a means to tell his story, as well as to offer some theories about the treatment and conditioning of black people that are strikingly relevant to the current BLM/New Civil Rights Movement. For instance, early in the book Brown discusses the nominal quality of black marriages and a particular lack of autonomy for black female bodies. Sexual agency does not exist for black women, and he makes clear that a slavemaster's right to a female slave's body supercedes that of her husband's. He then boldly supposes that one of the strongest motives for even the most "respectable" men to own slaves is sexual: white men keep slaves in order to have unlimited access to rape as many black women as possible, and then profit off of their mixed offspring as an afterthought. The devaluing of black women is nothing new, and on top of that, it's profitable.

In another instance, Brown draws from his  childhood to demonstrate how slave children are brainwashed to think that their innate purpose lies in subservience. Brown and other little ones on the plantation mistakenly believe that their master is God and that the master's son is Jesus. Said master and son are amused by this superstition of theirs, and encourage it. On other plantations masters might even sit amongst slave children to teach them the word, but won't allow them to read the word themselves─or even touch the Bible! Fortunately for Brown, he stops believing that his masters are divine when his mother corrects him with her own instruction, emphasizing that he know Christ for himself. His family is able to teach and empower him at home; many other black children are not so lucky.

Speaking of Christianity, Brown is very open about having been conflicted about the religion. As a black man who was controlled and taken advantage of by white people who wielded a warped, disingenuous piety against him, this isn't a surprise. Nearly all of the people who own him or use their power to mistreat him and other slaves are white, so-called good Christian people. A slave-owning Christian extorts money from him for years, then sells his wife and children away. And surrounding slave-owning Christians whom Brown has grown to know and trust are deaf to his pleas to help him get his family back. So, understandably, he's got beef! Brown writes that he could've very well been bitter and ended up hating Christianity, but he instead embraces it because he's learned that the faith is really about love and freedom for all. Neither he nor his narrative are anti-Christian, but he acknowledges how other black people might turn out to be so.

Something that's also salient for the Movement today is the frequent economic manipulation that slaves were subject to at the hands of their owners or overseers. To counter centuries-long assumptions of our people's inert laziness, we often try to remind ourselves of the power of the black dollar. And I think the beginnings of this sentiment can be gleaned from Brown's stories of slaves lending or giving masters money based on negotiations that go unhonored. With promises of freedom, of not having loved ones sold off, or of receiving their own facilities as incentives, slaves would work to save all the money they had to meet their masters' exorbitant demands. And in return, they'd be tricked into diverting their funds to other purposes, placated into compliance just long enough to forget about running away, or flat-out swindled out of their money by masters who'd never had any intention of conceding to the terms agreed upon in the first place.

With all the points Henry Box Brown brings up (and there are more), he ties them all back to the reality that generally, white people didn't have qualms about owning people because we were not people to them. This isn't news to me, but reading it the way he tells it makes it difficult to swallow because I see the same anti-black sentiments expressed in 2016, especially in response to continued calls for justice, equality, and humane treatment. Many a time Brown overhears slaveowners and other white people saying that blacks "don't have souls" or "don't have feelings" to justify their own depravity. Such depravity, along with many things good and bad, is sown into the fabric of this country. I think Henry Box Brown wrote this narrative to ensure that Americans not only don't forget this fact, but that we do what we can to resist and correct it. His journey to freedom is astounding, but what he has to say about it is even more so.

Favorite quotes:

"For I feel convinced that enough has not been written, enough has not been said, enough has not been done, while nearly four millions of human beings, possessing immortal souls, are, in chains, dragging out their existence in the southern states... Having, myself, been in that same position, but by the blessing of God having been enabled to snap my chains and escape to a land of liberty─I owe it as a sacred duty to the cause of humanity, that I should devote my life to the redemption of my fellow men" (1).

"The advocates of slavery will sometimes tell us, that the slave is in better circumstances than he would be in a state of freedom, because he has a master to provide for him when he is sick, but... no amount of kindness can be made the lawful price of any man's liberty, to infringe which is contrary to the laws of humanity and the decrees of God" (29).

Talking with Yasmin 10

Notes from today's session. I did the compassionate statement assignment Yasmin gave me last time, but it was so hard for me to do! I've realized that when I have negative or judgmental thoughts about myself, in my mind that's the truth. That's just how it is. So trying to re-frame these statements or come up with positive rebuttals to them was greatly challenging and uncomfortable because I felt like I was going too easy on myself or denying the truth, like I was being naive or something. But I did it, and now I have a record to go back to and reassure myself if/when those thoughts resurface.

• Pole class frustrations; can't stand not being good at things especially when there are witnesses, disappointed in yourself, frustrated when you don't get the hang of things right away 
• Reading through my entries for the compassionate statements assignment 
• feeling a lot of unresolved disquietude and guilt; self-induced pressure to do get it together
• "difficult emotions" meditation
• getting comfortable in the uncomfortable 
• RAIN, recognize experiences instead of resisting them, and allow them to happen without attaching meaning or judgement

DeelaSees turns THREE! :)

Today makes three years since I created this space for myself. Happy Blog-iversary to me, and to anyone who reads this!

I will continue to use my words for good, and to write them well.

-Deela