If it remains a mark of our oppression that as black people we cannot be dedicated to truth in our lives without putting ourselves at risk, then it is a mark of our resistance, our commitment to liberation, when we claim the right to speak the truth of our reality anyway.

--bell hooks

(via In Community and Resistance)

#truth

Reblogged from my friend Lauren over at http://inyourafterglow.tumblr.com/

The two artists I have the most music by are India.Arie and Eminem

As such, the two feelings I'm torn between are:

"And if he ever left me, I wouldn't even be sad, 'cause there's a blessing in every lesson and I'm glad that I knew him at all." --India.Arie, "The Truth"

and 

"when someone seems too good to be true, they usually are. But see, when you're in it it's too hard to see..." --Eminem, "Spend Some Time"

Not sure I'll ever make a decision between the two feelings. Not sure it's even possible. I am not sure how I'm not supremely angry or if I'll stay that way. I'm not sure what to believe about the past four months, except that for the sake of my sanity it can't be nothing. Not sure how long it will take to shake this sick-to-my-stomach feeling or to rebuild the ability to trust. Not sure you ever really know a person. Not sure how to make myself stop caring about him. Even less sure than I ever was before (not including the past three months) about what love ostensibly is. Not sure I'll ever really understand what happened here. 

I am sure I'll waste lots of time and energy trying to. I am sure that I feel humiliated, like I have been made a fool of. I am sure I'll throw myself into my independent work like nobody's business in a thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that my life doesn't make sense to me anymore. I am sure that I was happy (albeit a different kind of happy) before this and I can be happy again after it. I am sure that there's a lot to be learned from this situation.  I am sure that I will never again undervalue the importance of complete and brutal honesty, especially when the truth hurts. I'm also pretty sure that I am (un?)fortunately too good a person to repeatedly flame him on this blog, because like I don't deserve this, I can't make myself believe he's a terrible enough person to deserve that, so I will try to avoid it (after this).

A DirectTV blimp just passed overhead saying "Change your life." My first reaction? I don't want to. But sometimes you don't have a choice. 

I will leave you with an excerpt from my favorite play, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls who've Considered Suicide/ when the Rainbow is enuf:

"My love is too beautiful to have thrown back on my face. [...]

My love is too sanctified to have thrown back on my face.

My love is too magic to have thrown back on my face.

My love is too Saturday night to have thrown back on my face.

My love is too complicated to have thrown back on my face.

 My love is too music to have thrown back on my face.

And you remember that the next time some man tries to walk away with all of your stuff. 

I know that's right. Or says I'm sorry a million times.

...

 It's ok. I asked myself how I could let that happen and I realized that I was missing something. Something so important. Something promised.

I suppose what I'm left with now is me time. More than time to analyze what happened here, I suppose I should go find what I'm missing to make sure it never happens again. Not that I'm blaming myself--mistakes were made on both sides--but something needs to change.

How did I get here?

Honestly?

A. "Honesty is the best policy." -- Benjamin Franklin

B. "A half truth is a whole lie" -- Yiddish Proverb

C. "People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty." -- Richard J. Needham

D. "Society can only exist on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks." Lin Yutang

Pick the statement with which you agree the most. Can they all be true??

I was always told to be honest. All the time, in all situations. And when that could not be the case, I was told simply to never ever lie to the people I love, because they above all else, deserve respect. We shouldn't be afraid to hurt the feelings of the people that matter the most, for those people deserve to have us as we really are. If truth is a virtue, then these are the virtues upon which I was raised. You are polite, courteous, and decidedly fake amongst strangers and people who have power and control over us. You are real and true and rough and gritty with everyone else. To that, I have recently added that above all else, you must be real and true and rough and gritty with yourself.

Even more recently, I have been told that I am decidedly wrong. That I should be polite to everyone, even the people I care most about. That if I care about them then I should care enough not to say anything that might hurt them. Which to half of me, makes sense. But to the other half, I feel like if I can't be my self, honestly really and truly myself, with my closest friends, then when can I ever really be me?

My friends say that hurting people doesn't define me. I never said it did, but I feel like my feelings define me, and if I can't express myself freely, isn't that lying to myself? That breaks a cardinal rule.

I'm not a Christian, but doesn't somewhere in that Book of theirs, it say "To thine own self be true"? My goal for this year and the rest of my life is to love myself above all else. If I censor myself so that my friends love me too, isn't that like cheating myself out of something? Is it worth it to be loved?