Since I'm writing these reflective growing up pieces, I've been obviously hung up on the idea of nostalgia. It's a bit of a trigger word isn't it? Maybe remininesse is a better word. It invokes a sense of happy reflection instead of a desire to reverse time. But it's all looking to the past for...something, right?
And can't nostalgia be problematic? Especially the unchecked nostalgia that have some pining for the good ol' days of slavery and Jim Crow. The kind of nostalgia that fails to see the harm, often destructive nature of past cultural norms. Hell don't we currently have culture norms that harm today?
Maybe there are people that don't live constantly under the consequences of the past. As far as I know, good or bad, we are all a products of our past. But don't past experiences determine a lot of our future outcomes?
Sometimes I find myself wrestling with how to reconcile my past experiences with my more knowledgeable self of today. For instance, my childhood was thankfully under the watchful eyes of two parents that gave a damn. Was it great? Whose ever had a perfect childhood? But from what I remember it wasn't the worst childhood. I could bring focus to all the times it sucked. To all the times I had to wear something in public and I felt degraded or didn't abide by some unspoken gender norm and suffered the consequences of it. Those moments happened too. Why not share these moments?
I don't know why I'm choosing to focus on the offbeatness of life. Maybe I'm too emotionally entrenched in the current stigmas of being Queer and Black in the South to really reflect on the bad shit? So entrenched that I can't break it down fast enough for others to understand. How do you convey layers of imposed stigmas and how they affect you as it is currently happening?
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