I Said I Wanted To Be My Whole Self In 2019... The Universe Responded In A HUGE Way
It’s hard to believe that we are only 15 days from the start of another year, but here we are. Over the last few years, I’ve chosen a word to define my year and used it to hold myself accountable. In 2016, my word was yes. I had to say yes to all the hard scary things. In 2017, my word was confidence. I needed to work on being confident in the work that I produced and myself in general. In 2018, my word was boundaries. I had to start saying no to people and things that were not good for me.
This year’s word was wholistic. When I first chose this word, it’s because I wanted to show up as my whole self on Mamademics – whether it was my social justice writing or my art journey. As I’m sure most of you noticed, what really happened was that I didn’t produce nearly as much content as I have in the past. Hell, if I’m being honest, I still have three unfinished projects from 2018 that I’ve struggled to complete – the Black History is American History curriculum for ages 7-12 is incomplete, my intersectional feminism class remains unfinished, and my book proposal has been sorely neglected.
I thought being my whole self meant that I would finish these projects and share so many others, but as the year progressed I realized that I couldn’t be my whole self because I didn’t fully know who that was. If you’re reading this confused, it’s probably because I was too.
After having Blueberry in 2017, I found myself in a space of darkness. I wrote about how my mental health took a turn for the worse via postpartum depression and the realizations I made about being a strong Black woman. I thought that the medication and therapy would help me… it did but I was also still in soooo much pain. It often felt like the pain was just in my head because my symptoms were a hot mess. My doctor put me on a Vitamin D regimen and I started to feel somewhat better but something was still wrong. Early this summer, I was tentatively diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The diagnosis became official in October and I’ve been on a new pain medication for my anxiety and chronic pain.
I thought that this would be the start of me finally getting back to being myself. I’d be in less pain, which meant I could get more done because my focus level would come back. I started digging into old projects and making plans to finish them up, but on November 16th everything that I thought I knew about who I am came to a screeching halt. I received an inbox from someone on Facebook about the possibility of us being half sisters.
I’m going to back track a little bit. In the spring of 2017, my husband and I decided to do 23andMe ancestry tests. I was pregnant with Blueberry and we thought it would be awesome to discover our ancestry, so that we could teach it to the boys. I was even going to do an entire blog series about discovering our roots alongside our children. For those confused on why we needed 23andMe for this part, our ancestors are descendants of the transatlantic slave trade, so we don’t know when and where exactly they were stolen. When the test results came back, they showed me all these people I was related too. Most of the people shown were distant cousins except one, it said this person could be my granddaughter. Well considering that Sesame was only 5 at the time, I knew that was impossible. I looked to see what the other possibilities could be and it said a niece or half sister. I was still confused because her places of origin were no where that I had family. I decided to inbox her through the app to see if she knew anything.
She never responded.
I let it go.
I was entering my third trimester of pregnancy with Blueberry and going through so much emotionally that I forgot about it for a little while. A year later it came up when I was talking with one of my sisters but again I mentioned that I didn’t really want to dig into it. I had messaged the girl once and was totally not trying to look like an obsessed stalker. In October, my sister asked me about it again. I repeated what I said before and I really didn’t want to deal with the possibility of family drama. I didn’t want to talk to my mom about it because we have a complicated enough relationship. Plus, I had just come to terms with my fibromyalgia diagnosis and I was just trying to create a new normal for myself and my family.
And then my potential sister responded…
We quickly pieced together that our parents had been stationed on the same military base around the time of my possible conception. Her dad agreed to take the 23andMe test.
Last Thursday, December 12, 2019, the results came back.
Our DNA was a 49% match.
He’s my father.
For 36 years, I’ve thought the person listed on my birth certificate was my father. He isn’t. In some ways, I am relieved because he sucked and when he died 10+ years ago all I felt was resentment for the relationship we never had. I also felt relief because I didn’t have to ever mention him when people would inquire why I don’t look or act like my other siblings. I didn’t have to worry about it coming up at family gatherings because everyone knew my stepdad as my dad anyway, so I no longer felt the need to explain that I have a different father from them. I could just shrug and say DNA is weird like that.
DNA isn’t always weird like that though…
I said I wanted to be my whole self this year but I had no idea what that truly meant. A diagnosis for a condition I’ve struggled with since my teenage years. An answer to why I’ve always felt like I don’t quite fit with my family of origin. I’ve always thought I was one of those pieces of a puzzle or toy that was out of place but really I’m the piece that connects to the additional add ons.
Moral of the story: Be careful what you ask for because the universe just might send it.
Note: This essay will definitely be continued in my book and I will go into way more detail.
