Summary
Answering the "why she do this" question about celebrating a life in storm. Because my life is compassion, because my life is love, and, most importantly, because I wanted to. I added a stack of books to help the folk that don't get it. Welcome to joy mode with me. Flaws and all.
“Why she do this?” I listened to those words roll off my husband’s lips. He was relaying a question he got after I threw a birthday party for a family member battling substance use disorder. Even in writing that, I realize so many people would say it differently. I grew up saying that someone like this person has a habit, is an addict, has an addiction or, more plainly, “is on that stuff.” I’m new to this place where we name things differently to try to capture what’s really going on.
My father was a key chain holder who stood up in a room at least once a week proclaiming “I’m Rock and I’m an addict.” When he died, I held on to a few of those keychains with the golden Ns and As on them but along the way, I lost them, abandoned them or just didn’t care about them like I used to between the ages of 10 and 13 when I had a front row seat to his recovery and death. From 14 to 40, I built up a great huge pile of shame and guilt between me and the things that brought me joy. Sure, I had help from societal norms and messed up experiences that taught me to be more ashamed and more guilty. It took a long time to see it forming a wall between me and my joy and start pulling it apart. As Maggie Smith might say, I gave so many fucks.
Not anymore.
Something shifted in me around 2016. I think there were a lot of factors but quite a bit of it was put into motion when my mom died that year. Then everything from a new pandemic to the decline of democracy had me chipping away at that wall. I’m certain that my body had been telling me to do this for a while but by 40, it had really just decided to complain loudly. I’ll spare anyone reading this the medical details and just say that when the body tells you off, it really goes off. I started to not only rebel against shame and guilt in my everyday physical being but also in my spirit and mind. One of the biggest ways I did this was to embrace my bookish side again after years of being very constrained with my reading – only at desks, only scholarly texts, only sacred texts. I let go of all that and started reading more of whatever moved me. Call it the emotional nerd’s equivalent of putting that shit tf on!
In order to answer the “why” my husband got from this weekend, that book part is essential. I could say because I’m healing. I could say because I’m more compassionate. I could say because I’m a Pisces. Maybe it makes more sense to people when they know the part about my dad. But to really get to it, I have to explain that I am in the psycho-social state of my life where when I think something is going to bring me joy, I put that shit on. And just like some people use Pinterest or the Met Gala to bolster their fashion sense, I use books. So for folks who really want to know why I made dozens of specialty cupcakes and invited people to come celebrate that birthday, I have short answer and I have the starter syllabus. Short answer: Because I wanted to and that person wanted me to and there is no longer much of any barrier of shame/guilt between me and joy anymore. The syllabus part?
Four years ago this month I read Brian Broome’s Punch Me Up to the Gods for the first time. I go back to it frequently to remember what it is to really survive and thrive. Read that and we can talk more about why I threw that birthday party. When you finish that read Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. That will help you understand that any sanctimoniousness is totally wasted on me. I will throw birthday parties for any and everyone I want to regardless of whether they have doctrine on their side. Also, please know there are people who are seen in much better pulpit lights than that family member (seen as super holy even) who are fighting or not fighting the same battle. That book helped me end my relationship with hypocrisy and religious abuse. Then I’m going to say go to Beautiful Boy by David Sheff. I read that quite a while ago but I think about it often when I think about substance use disorder. That book gave me a parental perspective I had never considered. A birthday party for someone’s child is one way for me to tell them “hey I know this must be hard but I also know that this person was once just your helpless baby and we can honor that day for you and them.” Read Heavy by Kiese Laymon. That book taught me to look at the truths of my life no matter how scary. Laymon taught me to put words – my own words – to those truths and stop ignoring the things that hurt. You can’t define your joy well until you deal with the scary truth and what hurts. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s Big Girl taught me that I am allowed to go easier on that young girl who started building the shame and guilt. She had her reasons. I read What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young to get back to a place where I can have fun with my anxiety and awkwardness. And I tell everyone to read Yona Harvey’s genius collection Hemming The Water so that we can begin to know what it means to ask someone like me why I do anything I do.
More books, therapy, candles, incense…there are so many things I could add to this list to explain myself. But if I’m back on that truth thing, I think the truth is that what my husband was being asked wasn’t really “why she do this?” What he was being asked was “what is this she stirred up in me?” I know what it’s like for someone else’s joy action to ring a bell in your soul. It may feel odd right now but I hope the questioner can go ahead and let that bell ring. That’s freedom calling. I hope that person can go get it. I anyone reading this can allow yourself to celebrate the people who matter to you in the ways that matter to you and them.
Much love,
Tahirah