045. I Am

Believing is seeing.

I'm not sure where the rhetoric of 'seeing is believing' came from but, I cannot help but feel like that is where all imagination goes to die.

Most days, I find myself unsure of what I should write about. Today, I had an idea presented, something I brought up in conversation yesterday. However, when I thought about writing it, the thoughts surrounding it all felt a little premature.

In my time, some have considered me to be an overthinker, others, a deep thinker. For most of that time, I believed it to be a curse. When everyone else seemed to possess this ability to quickly acknowledge something and move on, I would find myself obsessing over the most mundane of concepts. Losing sleep connecting dots with hopes that I would find an end and finally be able to rest and move on.

Lately, what I have begun to notice is that there is no end to the ways in which the dots can be connected. Over time, a new concept will arise that will spark a thought you once thought dead and buried. However, all thoughts, it seems, exist somewhere in the ether waiting for something new to spark life back into them. 

I think perhaps the reason this created pause, and continues to create hesitation as I type is because of the simple fear of perception. As I journey further into this challenge, I share my perspective, I share my thoughts and scariest of all, I share and expose myself. For this specific thought, to do so, I must share an aspect of my journey through life that I do not wish to claim as myself. However, to deny the claim, almost feels like a slight abandonment of self.

'I am not who I think I am.

 I am not who you think I am.

 I am who I think you think I am.'

When I first interacted with this quote a few days ago, I did not quite understand it; more so, I did not think I would be referencing it so soon. Perhaps I thought I would have more time to connect those dots, however, for so long now, it seems as though the dots had already been connecting. 

Though I did not grow up in my country of origin, I was born and raised on the African continent. When I was 14, on the way to my French class, my friend said words to me that I did not realise I would carry with me so many years into the future. I suppose, at the time it was something I found startling as it forced me to question who I thought I was and how I was perceived. Looking back, this perception of myself likely created much of the 'othering' that I felt among my peers. What she said to me was, 'you know, if I put a paper bag over your head, I would think it was a white person speaking'. 

Having had spent all my life at the time on the African continent, in majority Black-African spaces, it simply made no sense to me. How could I possibly sound anything other than what and who I was?

A few years later, I came across the idea 'too White for the Black kids, and too Black for the White kids'. Over time, I started to internalise this - accept it as an aspect of self. When I struggled to connect with my peers, I assumed it was for one or the other reason. Without attempting to delve deeper to understand whether or not I shared a connection with the people I was trying to connect with beyond this façade. Of course, over time, I was able to make friends from the full spectrum of the rainbow. To them, I was neither too this or too that, I was simply me. They allowed me to be Stephanie. 

I always hated the notion of being too Black or too White, I never understood it. To me, it always felt like an excuse to not get to know a person beyond a complexion, accent or aesthetic. It assumed that there was someone who held the reins when it came time to define what it meant to be either Black or African. What frustrated me was that no matter how dark my skin, kinky my hair or useless my passport, I was still denied access into a club I was born into. Because of the music I liked and the way I spoke, there was nothing my ancestry could do to make me Black or African enough. 

I suppose I should have found it freeing because the same people who dared to condemn me would be the same who would dare say, 'you know we as Africans, we do these things, we don't wash our hands', meanwhile allowing the spread of your cold among your colleagues as you refuse to wash your hands and wear a mask. Of course, this is a joke made amongst colleagues but, it doesn't stop it from manifesting. The joke does not stop this colleague from sharing the virus, the joke does not encourage him to wash his hands. 

When we make light of how one person might differ from the rest of the party, it seems harmless. When we create stereotypes to police who is allowed into the party, we create a monolith incapable of learning, incapable of experimentation and exploration, a monolith incapable of growth. 

When I moved to the West and my White peers would say, 'oh, you don't sound black though', or 'really, you're African, but you don't sound it', that too did not sit right with me. I suppose that was finally my opportunity to escape the shackles of an identity that rejected me, I could claim the story of the girl they thought I was, rather than the girl I was. However, what would the point in that be. My parents will always be my parents, and my stories would always tell the tales of a life one could only live on the African continent.

There are tales about the African continent we have simply accepted. There are stories about the African people we continue to tell. In our acceptance and retelling of these tales, we kill imagination and we feed the monolith, one that was never of our creation; furthering the beliefs that we continue to see.

Perhaps by today's standard, no, I do not fit what it is to be African but, as you ponder what it means to be African, ask yourself,

        Where did these ideas come from?

        Why do I claim narratives that only further to diminish who I am, and how I am perceived?

Because remember,

You are not who you think you are.

You are not who I think you are.

You are who you think I think you are.

Halfway through!?!? Where does the time go honestly. Thank you to all of you who continue to read my thoughts. And thank you for all of you who engage me in conversations that allow me to think deeper and see myself beyond who I think I am. Apparently, I write. Dare I say, I am a writer. Well, I wrote, you read, so I guess…maybe.

It was definitely an undertaking to get these thoughts together. I hope you allow this to inspire conversation. Until then, I wish you a lovely weekend. ❤️