For all those who are Struggling with Something

Written June 10th 2008

The older I get and the harder various struggles get in life, I realize more and more just how necessary and important community, family and unity are. We can't do it all alone. We just can't. I know I can't.
As strong and triumphant and hard as many of us who struggle seem on the outside, going about the day to day, it's when we're at that peak of struggle that we need a hand to reach out to.

How many of us, after a hard ass day of being the rock, being the strong one, going through the motions, have come home and cried alone? Or sucked it up and internalized it into self destruction? Or worse, took it out on someone we love who we didn't trust enough at the time to let in to give us the comfort we needed at our most vulnerable moment.

It's time for us to truly be strong. And that doesn't mean being solitary. The saying that there is strength in numbers isn't a myth. Finding in community that solace and peace is important. Yes, we need that in ourselves as individuals as well, but having support through the process if finding self is so valuable.

So this is me, being strong and brave and independent and saying I struggle and need the support of community.

I've been struggling with my Lupus and trying not to fold into myself because of the pain or the stark reality of what its doing to my body. I put on a front that everything is ok when it's not. I smile through the pain. I joke through the seriousness of what my doctors tell me. It gets harder and harder for me to go to appointments alone and hear that I have to hear. And sometimes I just want someone to hold me and let me cry in their arms. I don't necessarily need a solution or for my problem solved. Just the comfort of knowing I'm not alone through it all.

I struggle with my sexuality and feeling continuously judged by the various communities I'm part of. I feel like I'm judged for having loved a man, even though I'm part of the lgbt community and don't consider myself bi and feel more pansexual. I feel lost in what I want and need and knowing that I can love who ever the hell I want, knowing that I am who I am. I'm feminine, but that doesn't take away my desire for other women. And that doesn't take away from the fact that there is a man who I love dearly and if we were still together, I would have stayed with him. That doesn't change who I am. In fact, it makes my sexual orientation stronger, because I define how I feel and who I feel it for, because, I am just feeling. Woman, man, does it matter as long as I'm loved and love another? I'm still me. There are those who have supported no matter what, but why not more.

I struggle with depression and how very far and deep it can and has taken me. Knowing that some of my best art, my best writing, my best performances have come when I let myself fall so deeply and completely into that dark place. But sometimes it's hard to come back up. Hard to remember to breathe, to live, to smile, to be. I get sucked into sickness and thought and bills and working and struggling so much that I forget about the beauty in the world. Sometimes I need help to remember. Need a hand to pull me up before I drown. I struggle with the DNA I have that is so close to that dark, tortured self and need for you to tell me it will truly be okay sometimes. I am, for so many, the rock, the strength, that reassurance. I need a rock now to support my journey back to the light every now and again.

I struggle with my identity. Never black enough. Never Palestinian enough. Too light. Too dark. Hair too soft. Hips too wide. Nose too small. Lips not full enough. Eyes to light. Too confusing looking. Where is the love of just being a woman of color, who just wants love from my various communities. I'll never pass for white. But I need to be sometimes. Sometimes I feel so alienated. So disconnected to the identities I claim. Other times I wear my pride so brightly on my sleeve that it's even painful for those who are "purely" from that community. Maybe I'm trying too hard. Maybe not hard enough. I can only be who I am. And this is who I am. Black Mother. Palestinian Father. Born and raised in NYC and lived everywhere else in between since then. Broken Arabic/English tongue. Hummus and Fried Chicken. Christmas and Eid. Easter and Ramadan. Mosque and Church. Thats who I am. And I need for there to be community that acknowledges and accepts that.

I struggle with myself. Stubborn and proud. Hard-headed and strong. Vulnerable and weak. Energetic and beautiful. Triumphant and timid. Shy and bold. A force to be reckoned with unless crippled by some unknown thing to silence my tongue. A child of an alcoholic who struggles with being an enabler and tries to not be an addict as well. A woman struggling to raise siblings who prefer me to our mother. And I sometimes want to never answer my phone again and hide from the world. I've been trying to save everyone for such a long time, I've forgotten so much of my self. And now what. Am I damaged goods? Am I too broken to help? Am I being too dramatic? Has the struggle caught up to me? Or has it really only begun and what I thought was struggle these 24 years just the warm up. Can it be harder than this? I don't know if I can handle harder than this. Not alone.

Loved ones, I struggle. With alot more than I can write right now.
Just needed to get some things off my chest.