“Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat” Audre Lorde

Most people have seen this toy. It has evolved over the years but it’s still the same toy.  As a child, you would spend time trying to fit all the shapes into the proper cutout. Then you watch how excited the toddler gets when they have successfully placed all the shapes..correctly.  After a while, the shape puzzle is no longer satisfying. Then you begin to try and fit shapes into holes they were not designed for. Yep. you twist, pound, punch whatever it takes to manipulate that square shape into the rectangular cutout, or the star into the circle, the circle into the octagon. You get the picture. Looks like it should fit. Right?

It’s harder than it looks.

get frustrated, throw a tantrum, throw the toy

Eventually… success!

But when you look at it, it’s misshapen!

It’s distorted!

It doesn’t… fit right.

And after all that you don’t feel the satisfaction, you THOUGHT it would bring.

Well, trying to fit me into a mold has always been my life. And in the past, I have become quite frustrated when I tried to squeeze myself into a mold that didn’t fit.

Misshapen.

Distorted.

Unsatisfied.

I have made…” well you don’t look…”

This resting bitch face has come in handy when I get tired of being asked

the same…damn…questions. As if by repeatedly asking me you’ll trick me into saying something so they can have that Ah-ha moment. Ah-ha my ass. Keep waiting.

I never had childhood crushes.

Never fantasied about a celebrity.

Never talked openly about my sexual conquest.

Or should I say lack thereof?

Never been…in love.

But “everybody likes one or the other or both.

Right? So, I thought.

Not heterosexual. Maybe you just haven’t met the right man.

Not Lesbian. Maybe you just haven’t met the right woman.

These newfangled definitions might say pansexual. I don’t.  Some might even say asexual.  I don’t.

 But I am ok with whatever someone wants to call me. Because as RuPaul says’ “what other people think of me, is not my problem.”.  YEP!! Took me years to be able to say that out loud.

I lack asexual orientation and I am unbothered by that.

Never ever met someone who does not have a sexual identity. I am a Unicorn. Well, maybe I’m not but in my own mind…

My bestie in my head says, “if i didn’t define myself for myself, than I would be crunched into other’ peoples fantasies for me and eaten alive.”

So if I must define myself I say I am unapologetically black, woman, feminist, mother, sister, a damn good friend, lover of learning.