Thahabu

My friend Leah and I planned to take a little road trip to Philadelphia last week, then realized we weren’t up for the drive. Instead, I stayed in the house for a bit and watched Crooklyn. There’s a part in the movie where the main character Troy is sent down south for the summer to spend time with her relatives. Watching Troy play jump rope and make jokes with her cousin brought me back to hot, sticky summers in North Carolina. My dad would send me and my sister down there to spend time with my mom’s side of the family when I was a kid. Of the three of us, I was the youngest, playing Knock Knock Ditch with my cousins, and rolling my eyes every time my sister and cousin Amber argued about whether Outkast was saying “roses really smell like doo doo” or “boo hoo” on “Roses” (they were both wrong). I wouldn’t say those were simpler times, but it was a time when I was able to find joy in everything. Even watching Troy’s reaction to her aunt making her get on her knees and pray before bed was like looking into a mirror of my past, reminding me of the first time my grandma told us to pray.

Rewatching movies like Crooklyn and She’s Gotta Have It makes me think that Spike Lee, or the writers he hires to write some of his girl protagonist movies, really has a knack for portraying girls who are on their own or feel like they’re on their own. Girls who are spunky and strong but who are still allowed to be flawed and emotional. It’s not that annoying dehumanizing strong that I get all the time.

It’s funny, later that week, I told a family member whom I’m very close to, that I was depressed. She reacted in a shitty way, with the whole “keep your head up, you can’t focus on the negative, OMG just be positive” thing. I found it frustrating because not only did it prove that was I right to be hesitant to tell my family members that I’m depressed, but I’m literally always positive for this person. Whenever they’re down, I always make them smile! So it was a total slap in the face for them not to allow me to be “negative” for those few minutes.

My counselor says it’s important to create your own family at my age. I love my biological family but I’ve never been able to talk to them about anything without feeling ashamed or embarrassed afterwards. Spending time with my friends is the only thing that makes me happy; unlike my immediate family, they totally get my mental illness.

My friend MK—whom I got close to this year—has been super supportive. We have the same music taste. Before I came home for break, we went to a Speedy Ortiz concert in Brooklyn where this super awesome band she kept talking about named Eskimeaux played and I immediately fell in love with them. Their song, “The Thunder Answered Back” explains my depression so well, specifically the lyrics toward the end of the song:

I screamed out how’d it get this bad?
And the thunder answered back,
If you know not what you lack,
Then you must unturn your back.

Your inside is overcast,
You are tethered to your past,
And it must feel like fucking hell,
To be a patchwork of yourself.

A bunch of scraps thrown and sewn around your bones,
And though you’re alone it’s holding you too tightly.

As much as I hope that this thin mask of sadness leaves me soon, it probably won’t: It’s been with me for 19 years. I just want to become comfortable with it. ♦