Being a Black Woman and Making Olive Oil

Raise your hand if 2018 isn’t shaping up to be what you expected. I know for a fact I’m not the only person who just raised my hand. The first four months of my 24th year on this earth haven’t been the easiest. I am 24 and I feel this crushing sense that I’m not going to live up to the expectations I have set myself, that I’m not going to live up to the expectations that others have set for me. This doesn’t stem from a childhood trauma where I was told every day that I was good for nothing and that I would never amount to anything. I mean ok, my childhood wasn’t perfect, not that any is but it wasn’t a page out of a Jacqueline Wilson novel either (I realise that my transatlantic cousins won’t understand this reference but I’ve been kind enough to include a link). My childhood consisted of praise and my being told that I was the head and not the tail. That I was more than a conqueror, that I am born for greatness. I was never coddled but I was always uplifted and pushed to be better because I had to be for so many reasons…

Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a TV show created by Shonda Rhimes. Everyone should’ve raised their hand, well there’s this scene in an episode of Scandal where Olivia Pope’s father Eli, basically berates and tells her she has to be twice as good and work twice as hard and the reason behind that is because she’s a woman and to add insult to this, a black woman. This is what I feel, I have to be better and work harder, and I feel as though I always have. When I was told I couldn’t obtain a neuroscience degree, I did one and finished with an upper second-class degree, when I was told that I couldn’t go to America and work with special needs individuals as it was a waste of my time and would amount to nothing, I did and I did it well, I even fell in love while I was over there but that’s a different story for a different time. The point is, I like to do what I’m told I can’t, I like to be that one. I like to disturb the peace by working to be extraordinary and normally, this fuels me, it makes me go harder. This year however? This year, so far, it’s broken me and I’m working hard to get back up and I am, but it’s becoming a painful and laborious process (don’t ask me how long, I’m impatient). The struggle is real.

How real? Well, my degree has armed with information that is fabulous but also stressful, like I know that black women get paid 63% less than men which then leaves a 23% gap between black women and white women which FYI, is A LOT. I know that childbirth mortality rates for black women compared to white women are staggering in the U.S and the U.K. I know that only 8% of black women get employed in the public sector, these are college-educated black women. I always have to work that extra bit harder, not just to get my foot in the door but so I can get my foot in the door and work so that the generation after me have different statistics, ones that are more favourable.

I have always been that child who always teetered on the glass is half-empty rather than it being half-full and I’ve always worked to remain optimistic and steadfast in my belief that “This too shall pass” but recently, I find myself asking “what if it doesn’t pass?”, what if I have this sinking feeling forever, what if, I’m constantly going to be afraid of leaving my house because the anxiety is so crippling. What if I’m always about 0.75 seconds from crying when someone gets too close to me on the tube or in the street. What if my breathing always quickens when I start to approach a large crowd and I can feel my eyesight blurring. Like I said, the struggle is real. And like I said, I have always been a little more melancholic than normal but recently, it’s a whole other level, it’s as if, my brain said, “it’s going really good, let’s throw a new level of anxiety and depression into the mix and then let’s change it up and not give you a coping mechanism”. BAN-TER.

As a black woman, I often find I can’t be vulnerable, I can’t have a meltdown because we have this image of being strong, you put “strong black” into google and it will finish it with “woman” for you. It’s the narrative that I fit or rather the narrative that I’ve been placed in. It is also a dangerous narrative because black women are often not treated for depression and anxiety because our health isn’t taken that seriously. We are just believed to be stronger and tougher, it not only affects our mental health but our physical health. This narrative can be attributed to colonial times where black women were seen as physically stronger and so able to handle more, it has trickled down into our post-colonial era of thinking. The “Mamie”, black women have always been steadfast characters, who always “handled business” when needed simply because we have had no choice but to, as black men were killed and beaten, black women were there to pick up the pieces.  

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am absolutely a strong black woman, I will read you for filth and tell you about yourself whilst making you the best cup of tea, you’ve ever had in your life but I’ve come to realise that I cannot always be that woman. I’m trying to be ok with that and take the advice I so often give others, that’s it’s ok not to be ok as Jessie J so eloquently and simply put it. I’ve started to find different coping mechanisms because the ones I used to use aren’t working, like using boys to distract me, again, another story for another time. But what have I learnt? I’ve learnt that falling apart is actually sometimes inevitable. When I really think about it, this has been a long time coming, this breakdown, I mean I’ve had breakdowns, undergrad wasn’t all peonies, lilacs and copious amounts of rainbow drops. It was failure after failure, mental health moment after mental health moment but I succeeded. I graduated and I was and am so proud and grateful. I think that’s why I thought this chapter would be fine. I would do the masters, I’d work, I’d also volunteer and also write articles. I’d do it all and be that girl who could do it all and though I stumble, I would not fall. Well, I fell, HARD. Luckily, it wasn’t face first and my nose is still very much intact. I compartmentalise and it’s how I’ve dealt with things for as long as I can remember, I shove it in a box, I put it on a shelf and I say, I will come back and deal with you when I have time, except, the boxes on the shelf have increased in number as have their contents. Oh, and did I mention, I made the shelf myself from paper mâché and painted it brown to look like wood?

I am trying to rebuild, so I decided to go the Anthropologie in my subconscious and buy a new shelf made out of bronze with wood panelling, because Anthropologie has stuff like that. At present, nothing is on the shelf, because everything is still on the floor like the clothing of a 16-year-old about to embark on her first date but, slowly but surely, I will begin a spring cleaning and start packing them away because it’s time after that prolonged winter. I’m not naïve, these issues will probably always be there, like that ugly shirt you thought you threw away that belonged to your partner and then mysteriously, you find it in your laundry. The shirt alike the issues, you’ll eventually reconcile with and I’m hoping to God I do. I’m hoping and praying that eventually I reconcile and accept that it’s a part of my life that will just have to be dealt with specifically because I have no choice, it cannot be like this forever, I have things to do, such as finishing my degree.

I’m quite steadfast in my faith and so I’ve started to turn to that a little, again as a coping mechanism. I watched this video with Rich Wilkerson JR and Levi Lusko. Levi said something that resonated with me, He said that you don’t get olive oil with crushing the olive. I loved this, I was reminded that nothing beautiful ever started out that way, it was created from nothing or was broken before it had to made. I believe that I’m being crushed daily but little by little, the oil will come and from that, I’ll use it for my glow.

So, what was the point of all this? Well if you’re a 20-something woman of colour, know you’re not alone in that quest to shatter glass ceilings so it’s easier for those that come after us, that it’s ok not to be ok and that you should embrace the crushing, for if it were not for the crushing of olives, there would be no oil. Take that crushing and use that oil to glow.