renewal

I do my best not to look backwards.

I’m a white bitch who grew up in the comfortable California suburbs in the US. Perceived victimhood to something comes baked in. It’s probably the most encouraged, most reinforced, role a white woman plays in white society:

Look at how delicate your hands are. What a lovely, charming, wife you’ll be. You’ll be sure to take such peace to your husband. You’re such an amazing nuturer; what an amazing mother you’ll make. Of COURSE you’re the victim to some stronger, outer, force; because you are so fragile, so caring, so unprepared for “the real world”. Stay here, stay safe. If you behave, your husband might buy you something nice that you can show off to your friends. You’re so fragile; they should have been softer with you. Don’t they know you can’t handle such things?

As per my first post, it goes without saying that I broke myself time and time again to fit into that fucking box. It was the only world I was exposed to, and to not fit into this box means complete rejection. The allure of “belonging” is always a dangling, moving, target within white society. It takes up all your mental space, in a community so isolated from the reality. I think the fierce and delicious force of being a victim in every situation is truly what keeps white society so isolated from the reality of the world. Man, the belief that I’m a victim in some “uncontrollable” circumstance is soooo tempting to take on. What could I have possibly done to prevent this? What responsibility do I have in the matter?

LOL, but, step 10 feet outside the borders of white suburbia, it takes all of 5 seconds to realize that the perception described above is an absolute waste of a life. Age, experience, some epic, brutally honest, self-healing, and of course, my temper, have all changed my perspective on this, entirely. I’m not going to lie, the years of deep, spine snapping, ego melting, and radically and debilitating honesty have eaten up the fun years of my 20s; but there was this rage within me that prevented me from playing small (in retrospect, thank the gods…). And, without the protection of inclusion in the family and society I grew up in, it lead me to explore elsewhere.

It wasn’t until I left white suburbia, and I was nomadic for two years, that I started to break out of my own victim shadow. Despite all of the jargon we were fed about how unsafe it is outside of the U.S, I slowly started to understand the horrifically inflated power and protection my light skin provided me. I could travel to almost any country in the world, and because I’m a white American with a bit of cash to spend (and I’m genuinely too old for sex slavery…..), I’m obscenely safe. Damn near untouchable. It gave me context to how dangerous my victim mentality was in the reality of obscene privilege and societal protection: I wasn’t a prey to others; I was the predator.

It wasn’t until I went through some really, really, dark experiences and abuse during this time that I truly understood that, even in the context of being the recipient the untethered darkness of others, my experiences were still crazy privileged. In my adult life, I didn’t suffer abuse for my looks, or for how I sounded; I suffered due to my own choices. There’s nothing as confronting as having to come face to face with role I was playing in my own toxic situations. Sure, I might have been a victim in a grammatically correct, circumstantial, context. But I was a fucking adult, who had my own money, and my own means of getting myself out of those situations. I’m grateful that life gave me such consistent, irrefutable, examples of where I needed to step the fuck up and take responsibility for my own fucking actions (or, sometimes, lack there of).

These experiences, and the radical honesty thereafter, led to the absolute shattering of so many perceptions I curated over my life. This is why I withdrew so…absolutely…from society and from others. I was stripped down to such a complete level of accepted ignorance that I know longer knew how to participate in society, or where I even fit in it. I also knew my human body and mind needed time to process such an epic…death….and I’m honestly still going through that rebirth process.

The disorientation of this mess of emotions is also what’s fueling my, now erupting, desire to create with writing. I genuinely have no idea where this path will lead me, but it will certainly help me massage through and build out some actionable next steps for all the observations pulsating through my being. With so much unbecoming, I need some structure to ensure that my renewal process endures.