The Fortune Cookie Of My Life

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.”….my fortune cookie read after eating take out late Friday night.

I chewed on a piece of my Rainbow Sushi roll and while savoring the art of such cuisine, I couldn’t help but ponder on the message and how it applied to me and my life. I quietly chuckled to myself at just how misunderstood I have been and continue to be. Follow me down my rabbit’s hole into the world of the unknown…

I ‘am 23 years old but I am still learning and growing into myself, every day.  And along with that, I am sometimes left in a state of confusion, “How did I get here? “ I ask myself after moments of contemplation.

My life’s story is not a pretty one but it seems that I don’t show it. People tend to believe that I ‘am  a “princess”, “spoiled” and a “brat” so much that I had to look in the mirror and ask: “Am I really?”

“Have I really gone through battles, trials and tribulations and storms because the world says I haven’t the world calls me ‘fake’ and ‘naïve’.  Am I really as strong as I have led myself to believe?”

Rewind back to last weekend:

“I ‘am so tired of you not being grateful for what we are doing for you. I and [blank] have gone out of our way to do for you and you shit on us. You act as if you don’t give a damn. You know what you are, you’re FAKE! You don’t care. You think that ‘Oh, I have this nice face and this nice body I can get whatever I want.’ Well, it doesn’t work that way in the real world! You need to wake up and smell the coffee!” – A person I will remain nameless but is a 61-year old girlfriend to a beloved family member.

The thing is, I just sat there and let her go “Ra Ra Like a Dungeon Dragon” taking everything that she “felt” in yet it didn’t affect me, instead it was validation. Validation that I ‘am NOT what THEY say I am. 

Here’s the problem that “the world” seems to have with me: I handle things with the grace that God gave me. They want and expect me to be intimidated and scared to the battles that I face and to be a little project. That way when I conquer the world they can say: “I helped her. If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be anything. If it weren’t for ME, SHE would have never made it.”

And like a slap in their face, I don’t do that. I am not ANYONE’S project. I ‘am not even my own project. I ‘am life’s and God’s project.

It’s funny yet it’s very sad. Sad that I will FOREVER be judged by the way I look instead of the person I am. I will FOREVER have assumptions thrown at me because I don’t fit in a box that some people so desperately want me to fit in due to the intimidation that I seem to cast. 

At first, I damned and cursed my intimidation because I didn’t understand it. “Me? Why would people be intimidated and jealous of me? Who am I to make someone feel insecure and inferior because I spent the majority of my life that way?” 

But after such “accusation”, I got angry! So very angry!

HOW DARE SHE? HOW DARE SHE?!? How dare she throw such hurtful comments and accusations without knowing me and my life? How dare she feel the need to break me and tear me apart because she didn’t feel as though I wasn’t “grateful” enough when I consistently said thank you at least 20 times a day? How dare she?

Then I got the craziest clear answer pop into my head: “Why else would a 61-year old self-proclaimed God-fearing woman who claims that every day is blessed and that she is filled with the Holy Spirit and gives without taking lash out at a 23-year old? It’s because she’s jealous and because she’s intimidated. She expected you to be terrified of Chicago and the people she brags about being her friends and feel inferior to all of her credentials when that is NOT the woman you are. You take on the world. You grab the bull by the horns. People despise that. No one ever wants to feel inferior. Yet your grace and your confidence makes it sting in people. One of the greatest and oldest quotes still ring true: ‘People fear what they do not understand.’”

I packed up my life and with only 10 dollars in my pocket, I moved to Chicago for one reason: to live my life. And my life deals with many trails, bumps and forks in the road but at the end of the day, it’s MY life. I will NOT apologize for living my life the way I see fit and I will NOT apologize if it makes others uncomfortable. It sounds like a personal problem that that person needs to resolve. It’s not mine. So for others to try to point out what they don’t see fit about me, makes me sad for that person because clearly they are spending entirely too much time thinking about me yet it makes me feel good because I ‘am doing something right to be so attacked so viciously.

Like my grandmother told me when my eyes were swollen with tears from crying due to the bullying and torment, she would hold my face up from me hanging it low, letting tears roll down my face: “My pretty black girl, if they aren’t talking about you then that means you’re doing something wrong. And since they spend all day telling you how wrong you are, means you’re doing something right.” It seemed like such  an oxymoron and I assumed that my grandmother was just saying something to make her emotional bruised 8 year old granddaughter feel better but now…I see just how amazing and smart she was. And how much I owe so much to her and how dearly I love and miss her.

I know who I am despite what the world says. I am a daughter, a sister, a god-mother, a niece, a cousin, a lover, a friend, a student and the list goes on but what I am NOT is a victim. I will not fall victim to this world nor the people in it. I’ve been there and done that and I’ am so over it. Instead of tearing me down, some people should take notes.

 

xoxo,
@BMynroe 
RaChelle-Denise McKinney