Yellow bone, yellohammer, red bone...

Sometimes I get put into a situation I don't like. I think everyone does at some point in their lives. However, when I start to point out what I find as fallacies I think people get highly offended. Or they assume that I am making so much to do about nothing. Hey I get it.. but when situations happen where I am made to feel like I am less than. I must address it. Today I heard someone use the term yellow bone... now if you don't understand the term you can google it. I wont go into it, but I don't like the feeling I got from it.. so of course I had to write about it..

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Yellow boned
a term so much like thick bread
it settles like a hard lump in my stomach
at once I can hear the jarring words...
"You will never understand.
You are not one of us.
You are half"
Cast aside for racial ambiguity
as if I am impure
unclean
as if the only way to be clean is to be one irrefutable thing
like I am a blob of black ink on white paper
it is black and white
it is black or white
choose
Like I could bathe in the flames and arise the color of ebony
or maybe dip in cold water and arise white as milk
Or maybe I can peel back my flesh and become red?
To be without one label is to be born in sin it seems...
and it is those who share the legacy of my own blood that would cast me away
half cast, like so much luggage
mulatto, like a bastardized blend of horse and mule
Yellow bone
like my bones and flesh did not develop inside my black mother
yellow bone
like my great grandfather did not develop in his red mother
yellow bone
like somehow, I am not a sister, a friend, a lover, a peer
I am an IT
and you ask me why I loath the word?
Why my insides clench and the wounds of the child I was crack open to bleed anew?
Maybe you can't understand because my bones are yellow..

Nothing fake here...

I often talk about love...
Lack there of, or presence of for example. I often talk about love for self as well.
What happens when someone challenges your self love, and you find your foundations are weak? I was openly criticized for being two faced, but this happens when I try to actively express my opinions.
I have not perfected the art.
So I have had it reiterated through events in my life that it takes much strength to be yourself. It takes tremendous courage to express your opinions. To understand that people will not agree with you or argue with you just for the sake of not being wrong. To understand that you may be the one that is wrong truly takes self confidence.
So anyway, of the art of expressing opinions... I think it was best put to me this way. "You can't determine what people will think of you. You can't predict how they will react. " But I and several others I am sure, do the predicting anyway. Why make it such a big thing? Why agonize when reactions will just happen anyway?
Hmm... then I suppose the merit in conveying your opinion honestly, at risk of being called two faced *insert expletive here*, is that you are being true to you. Loving yourself by not denying your feelings.
It takes a brave soul.
But it has merit.

Why did I?

There is this silly notion that one day you wake up wise.
That perhaps with age you'll just start to 'get it'. It's really a lovely fairy tale but that is just what it is, a fable. I'd like to call it the fable of youth.  The idea that you turn 18 and you're instantly an adult or you turn 21 and then.. yes and THEN everything makes sense.
Not likely.
That is why I continually dedicate myself to being a lifelong learner because baby, I don't know squat.
Well..
Maybe that isn't to safe to say...
I DO know that if you don't pay your bills before you decide to go out and splurge you will forget and be behind. Because who wants to pay bills? I also know that sometimes the very thing you think is going to happen actually does. In short, the only thing I know for sure is that predictions are iffy at best, and it's always good to have a back up plan.
I seldom follow the rule. I admit it here that I'm a creature of habit. I like to do the same thing at the same time every day, with maybe an occasional surprise or two.. I like consistency and some predictability. Maybe it's because I'm a taurus or maybe it's just because I've had a lifetime of unpredictable happenings and it can get rather old.
Anyway what I kind of wanted to touch on is my anxieties. You wouldn't know it by looking at me... or maybe you would? But I have anxiety that occurs in social situations. Yes, the heart palpitating, sweaty, nerve racking anxiety that often damages opportunities. I go to a support group for it now, we've had only one meeting but.. It struck me that I am seriously not the only one. I am not the only one who keeps talking, afraid that if I stop I will be deigned uninteresting and cast aside. I am not the only one thinking that everything I say SHOULD be interesting. I am also not the only one who laments on the idea of being hated.
The question often comes up, why do I care so much?
Why indeed?
I can't tell you. Only that I do. I care too much. That is why I criticize my everything. That is why I struggle with confidence and why it is hard for me to really just be cool.
No worries though. I am learning that this is not a weakness. It is a condition, and while the condition may never fully be cured, it can be significantly improved and liveable.
I can live.
I can live, and actually be happy.
So here I am, dreaming a better dream and I hope you do too. Don't give up on you.
With much love...
Orhea