I Cried … for Me.

 
I am awake, I am alive, and this morning, I am honestly exhausted. Not just the mental exhaustion that comes in the midst of a huge project or the spiritual kind felt when your very essence has been challenged. Not just the physical exhaustion that comes in the midst of a move or the emotional exhaustion after a trying event.

But the entire freakin team!

This morning, after struggling under this weight for the last two days, I woke tired, the kinda tired that always has me feeling like all I can do is cry.

So, I did something revolutionary. I hung my head and I cried … for me.

Because I am Kwe, and my life has been at risk because of that fact. Because I have suffered physical harm because of my ethnicity and because I have known bone-chilling fear that no one should.

And because I rarely speak of it. There are so many more that have suffered worse, my darker skinned friends and family and always I think of them. I work for them, desperately trying to make this country better so perhaps, for a moment, they don’t need to be scared.

But I never think of my own.

That is until an event earlier this week. I was part of a panel with 2 other amazing Kwe. In turn, we shared of what life was like for us, what we had faced, what we endured. And we did what Kwe’s do, we laughed about it. About the insanity of it, about the exhaustion and frustration but we didn’t cry.

And now I wonder if we should have.

Today, I am just tired – tired of people asking me to explain my pain as if it was a math lesson, tired of people questioning that pain as if I added wrong, tired of conversations lacking any form of empathy, tired of being an anomaly to study rather than a human in pain sitting right next to you.

I have a day packed with meetings and commitments today. I may or may not make it to any or all of them. Because all I know is that right now …

I need to cry.

Chat tomorrow.

I love you!
HUGSSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi