Life, for a lot of people, can be a series of unfortunate events. It’s seemingly, a stacked deck or roll of the dice. Where we are born, to whom, when, in what skin; These things determine a lot about our journey from birth to death.
For example, trans-gender women have a life expectancy of 35 years, if she is also black.
If you happen to be born black you are 60% more likely to experience sexual assault before you are 18. I’m not even going to link to a source here – I believe black women.
Because I was born a woman to Puerto Rican parents, I’ve been given less money than my counterparts born white. This has put me at a distinct economic disadvantage my whole life.
It all feels very random. It doesn’t ever seem to make any real sense. The ways I’ve struggled…the ways in which even further marginalized and vulnerable people struggle.
The system is rigged in a million different ways and I’ve long asked myself…what kind of a God?
It’s so scary writing that “out loud” but that’s what I’m here to do, right? Live out loud. I believe, when faced with the truth of our history as human beings, it is normal to question the faith I was given. To be honest, I’ve lost my faith in many of the institutions I was raised to respect. Including God and country.
The state of the union, the state of humanity more often than not leaves me feeling helpless. There is, it seems, an endless amount of deplorables among us. Scores of people who go out of their way to advance their agenda by cutting you off at the knee.
It’s a wonder, my heart hasn’t shriveled into cold, hard, lifeless chunk. My cynicism can run deep as the Grinch but, human beings, it seems, have this capacity for love that endures and this sustains me.
In fact, the only thing I’ve yet to lose my faith in is love. It is the one consistent thing.
It is, to me, a powerful entity. I can’t see it but I know when I’ve been touched by its presence. It reaches me in the darkest spaces of my soul. I’ve seen what happens to beings devoid of it. I’ve seen what happens when it’s corrupted.
I believe in its might.
Love has saved me countless times. In its myriad forms, great and small. Love is in the laughter of my kids, in the bawdiness of my girlfriends, in the history I share with my sister, and the intimacy that lives between my partner and I in equal measure. It is an overwhelmingly bright light in an extremely bitter world.
I am blessed to be flooded in the light of love.
Do unto others takes on an entirely different scope when in this light. My life takes on new meaning and my faith is restored. Because I am loved, I will love.
There’s no rules or limits here except the ones we set (healthy or not). There’s no shame here, as long as the love is mutual and consensual and respectful.
Love, in every form is owed that reverence.
I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is exactly I don’t know.
Who in the entire hell am I, a speck on a speck, in the cosmos? I can’t answer that.
Is there love? Emphatically, “YES,” I have given birth to it, time and again. There is love. It has filled me when I was empty. It keeps filling me still . Dragging my heart along. Forcing me to feel…something. A nagging voice that whispers, insists, “I’m worthy,”
I don’t know a thing of men and their Gods. I do know everything about women and the fires of love that cleanse us time and time again.
Brown Girls Out Loud 