I'm Ida. Hippie and old soul from Oakland,Ca who loves love, artificial flowers and music. Cali born, but Southern bred. Welcome to my thought bubbles.
I recently spoke to a guy who was my age who talked about his struggles with grappling with the deaths of people close to him. After he spoke, I told him how I completely relate and resonate with how he feels and empathize with him. I then told him that he should seek help and not resort to the things that he told me he does to cope. Now, by no means was I being judgmental about the means he used to cope, nor am I license professional to give him the help he needs. But as someone who cares about people, as someone who is empathetic, and as someone who can relate to how he feels, I said something. I told him how my partner was a victim of gun violence (as someone close to him was). When I told him that, he looked at me with a straight face and said, “Wow. By looking at you I would have had no idea that you deal with that. My auntie always said this, but man, we really should be like Black women. You have a straight face and is so put together that I would have had no idea that you dealt with that”. He went on to share how he admired women’s strength to give birth and carry on with their lives.
This interactions was impactful and interesting to me for a few reasons:
-It reminded me of me strength (which, I’ve felt that I have not much of lately)
-it reminded me of the strength of women and how in so many ways we carry on about our days, because in many cases, innately, we just do.
-I was glad that Black women were getting the recognition of our strength, although we posses more…
