When I was in Year 8 (7th Grade in the US curriculum – it was a British curriculum), I experienced true loneliness. Let me give you some background info. I was in a quaint Christian Elementary and Middle School at that time and excited to be back after a looonnngg summer break. In 6th Grade, it was me and two other girls in the WHOLE grade, that’s why there was just one class with all of the sixth-graders. I don’t know what happened but we didn’t communicate that much during summer but I was excited to see them when I got back. We’ll be the trio all over again…It’ll be great!

They didn’t come back. Both of their parents decided for them to move schools for 7th grade and since we didn’t really talk that much or even see each other, I didn’t know that this change was coming. I walked into my first day of 7th Grade to realize…I’m the only girl in the class. My world came crashing and tears filled the brim of my eyes. I told my mom immediately of what happened when I got home and I insisted I change schools too, like the other girls did. She told me that it was too late to change schools and told me that I had my brother to lean on -since we were twins.

However, my brother, especially at that stage of our lives, didn’t want to hang out with me in school. It was 9 boys and 1 girl which made me feel small and even invisible at times. During the breaks, I got tired of being alone in some random classroom studying or reading my novel (we didn’t have phones then) so I decided I wanted to hang out with the boys. The boys would always play soccer during the breaks and I had previously played club soccer and I would say I was pretty good. I entered the soccer field excited to play with them, anything other than being alone.

They didn’t even let me play. Not even for a minute. As soon as I stepped on the pitch they all went quiet and looked at my brother. My brother yelled out from the other side of the field, “I don’t think you want to play with us.” I waited for an explanation and none came. I prompted “Why though?” He replied, “Well… you know… we play rough and we wouldn’t be able to play the same way we do if you join.” The boys nodded in agreement. That definitely covered his ass but it crushed me and left my self-esteem shattered. I can play “rough” but after that public humiliation, I never tried playing soccer again.

https://www.freepik.com/

I picked up my laptop and walked over to my bed to write this lol. She just looked over at me oh my gosh, how does she know? I really could have picked a more secretive title but nahhhhhh. Honesty is the best policy or something like that. Anyways, yeah this blog is inspired by my overthinking and UMBC dorms, shoutout to you all.

Okay, so I’m quite a curvy woman. What can I say, it’s in my genes. Naturally, this means I take up more space as I have some meat on my bone. Surprisingly, this is something I am still getting used to even though I’ve lived in this body for a while. I digress, my roommate is skinny WHICH ISN’T A PROBLEM but it means we take up space differently. I need to give you guys a visual about what I’m about to get into.

Here is our marvelous bathroom that we share with two other people. Pretty neat right??? Wrong. It’s incredibly small. And yes, I sound ungrateful for having a working bathroom and all but…who the hell were these bathrooms made for? I for sure have gotten used to it as it’s almost the end of this semester and I’ll continue to live here next semester but oh boy… it was an adjustment. You can’t see it in the pictures but we have a shower holder thingy that has all of our soaps and loofahs hanging in the shower. I can’t tell you the number of times, I’ll be showering and I move my arm to wash another part of my body and I accidentally elbow the shower holder and, thus making it fall. Not to mention that it is METAL and loud as fudge.

There are so many unspoken things that go into having a roommate. Of course, we talked about all the usuals at the beginning of the semester: guest policies, renting a minifridge, not having sex in each others’ bed (this is a joke btw). All of those are great and all but no one ever talks about *cues dramatic music*

Where the hell are you going to change? This is something that is inevitable and going to happen every day, probably more than once. I have never liked changing in post-shower bathrooms because it makes me feel sticky with the humidity from the hot water but I would do so if I knew I had a roommate to be courteous. HOWEVER, there is like no room to manuveur into shirts and pants in there without something getting wet and/or banging the doors when you move. There’s even less room when I am avoiding my feet touching the floor mat as it is dirty and wet. I am so squeezed up in there, it’s such a stress-inducing activity.

This is why I change in the room, regardless if she is in there or not. I still am mindful and make sure I have the towel wrapped to cover up my girl parts but I get the sense that she doesn’t like that. Since she changes in the bathroom, I feel like it’s a guide for me to change in the bathroom, but I physically can’t and that kind of sucks.

After watching the documentary Aftershock, I felt compelled to call my mother to see if she was doing okay. Unfortunately, the U.S. maternity health system has failed black mothers time and time again. Shamony Gibson, Amber Rose Isaac, and other black women were not able to get recognition in the media, but their stories and legacies live on. Their stories were truly devastating and made me thank the universe that my African mother did not have an instance of life-threatening neglect. I emphasize that my mother is African because she and her siblings were the first generation in my family to birth children outside the borders of our home country. That is a pretty big deal.

The year was 2003, this was the year that my mother found out she was pregnant. She then discovered there were two babies in her belly instead of one. Twins!!! Fraternal; a boy and a girl. (I could have been extra twining with Dr. Kate but my brother happens to be a boy and not identical to me). My parents lived in Prince George’s County at the time, gearing up to be parents for the first time which is probably a nerve-racking yet exciting experience.

Image by Shutterstock. (I hate it when the watermark is on top of the photo.)

With newfound curiosity, I asked my mom on a call last week what her experience at the hospital during her pregnancy and birth. She told me how the care you receive, depends on whether someone has insurance or not. Luckily, both she and my dad had had insurance they received from their work benefits. This pipelined her experience as a black woman in the U.S. differently as they knew that she would be able to pay for the outstanding bills that come with birth.

The doctor that she went to for her prenatal checkups did not follow an individualistic approach and went very by the book. The doctor insisted that my mom would go into pre-term labor (she didn’t). My mother felt as if she wasn’t truly given a chance and it was dehumanizing that the doctor wasn’t listening to her when it was HER body. Of course, she was not the expert on how this whole pregnancy thing worked but the person who who she needed reassurance the most from, was giving her the opposite. She said something to me on the call that truly stuck with me, “I’m an individual, not a machine”. I am certain that other pregnant women have felt this way because even though birth is a miraculous thing, it seems almost belittling in a sense what doctors tell or don’t tell their patients.

My mother got a C-section for her birth and stayed 4 days in the hospital after the birth which is not nearly enough; that was the maximum amount of days she could spend. She expressed that she thought she was being discharged too early, especially with the pain of the staples. There is so much pressure for new mothers to have it all figured out. From regaining your own strength to nursing your babies and attending to your mental health. I’m getting overwhelmed by just thinking about it. She did have a wonderful support system of friends and family to guide her along the way to lessen the heaviness of it all.

Mothers are superhuman. Tell your mom or motherly figure that you love them today.

Earlier this week in the shower, I was racking my brain on what I could possibly write for my blog that tied into themes of phenomenology. I had been looking for a topic for a while but I felt as though all of the topics I had brainstormed were not good enough then boom💥, it came to me. Honestly, it was kind of an Eureka moment. As mundane and repetitive as showering can be to some, I usually get enlightened with the best ideas when 100-degree water is sprinkled on me. Since showering is something I do every day (except on the rare occasion when I go camping), it is a mindless activity that I ABSOLUTELY love. Sue me, I’m a shower enthusiast.

Daniel Zender

I stopped scrubbing my body and thought to myself, “How do I know how to shower?” I remember taking baths as a kid but who taught me how to ensure that I actually clean myself in the shower rather than just letting the water drip on me? There was a time during my pre-teen days when showering and homework were the two most tedious tasks that I could do and I would simply stand in hot water for 5 minutes and call it an “efficient shower”. I believe the answer to these questions is that I had multiple resources that informed me how to shower which I applied either consciously or unconsciously. This then led me to ask myself, “Do I have a specific routine in the shower that I utilize every time I shower, and if so what is it?”

This question prompted me to observe myself every time I stepped foot into a shower henceforth. It was a very surreal feeling as I was so used to showering without thinking much about the showering part. The quick answer is yes, I do have a routine that I follow aimlessly every time I shower without fail. It took a lot of concentration for me to pay attention to where I was gliding my loofah and how long I spent scrubbing each part of my body. I felt like a voyeur to my own flesh; paying too much attention to agonizing detail. I would be lying if I said that there weren’t some points of these various showers where I fell back into the groove of letting my body clean itself without my brain being truly present. I have to admit, that it takes an immense amount of brain power to observe experiences while still being or participating in them.

I find it hilarious how my “shower thoughts” manifested into thoughts about showers. I highly recommend this exercise to everyone as it shifted my understanding of self which is always important.