Thahabu

Someone told me the only thing I owe anyone is to be myself. I cried. It’s such plain advice, but it was the first time I’d heard it with such unfeigned honesty. I don’t believe a person owes it to me to be who they say they are, because they may not even have a firm grasp on their own sense of self. So I’m taken by surprise, every time, when someone doesn’t afford me the same respect; the space to simply be a person and grow. Like, the audacity. They think they own my spirit and energy. Acting as if I betrayed them whenever they find a new quality in they haven’t seen before. “Oh no, you need to be exactly who I thought you were when we first met,” is what I imagine they’re thinking when this happens.

I wish the people I’ve had to cut out of my life understood that things happen to people: We can be reshaped by events, and change is inevitable. It has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. I don’t owe it to anyone to remain in the canon they created for me in their head. Nobody owns me. Nobody has a claim over my personality; it belongs to a much higher being. I don’t know, the universe? God? Maybe I’m starting to have faith in God again, like I did when I was 14.

Something that happened this week:

I hit up Annabelle to come listen to the new Frank Ocean album Blonde with me in the park. We sat by the pond. I connected my phone to the bluetooth speaker, and the experience began. Fifteen minutes in, I thought, Damn, this is some 2016 shit. We’re really in the future. 90 percent of that thought wasn’t even about the album. The part of the park we were sitting is also a hotspot for Pokémon Go. There are always kids and an array of adults running around the pond, bonding with other players as they search for rare Pokémon.

There we were, listening to what some may call new wave R&B via bluetooth, while moms and dads were helping their children chase after virtual creatures using their cellular devices. I felt like we were in a sci-fi movie that people watched in the ’70s. I felt so present in the future, fully aware that 40 or 60 years ago someone likely pictured a moment like this as the peak of technological advancement. Vibrations ran through my lower arms and fingertips. I expressed this tingly feelings to Annabelle, who is particularly interested in spirituality and being synced in to your surroundings. She smiled, “Yooo that’s awesome.”

This probably sounds like I was high, but I wasn’t! And I really appreciated the fact that I was able to feel that sense of consciousness without the help of drugs. ♦