SMALL NO MORE!
- Invisible Man 2.1
- Nov 3, 2020
- 5 min read
2020 has been something else, but despite all the stuff that has gone I will tip my hat to it and The Rona for giving me some time to stop, sit down, and collect my thoughts.
I had been on a spiritual journey for a while leading up to 2020 but being furloughed for four and a half months gave me some time to amp up that journey and explore without distractions. Now, my mind is not in the right state to go into everything I did and learned (I will add that to the list of future topics to cover), so I’ll just jump ahead to one of the tasks/quests I decided to take on after watching a couple of videos on YouTube. The biggest of these is to answer the question, Who am I?
If you read my About Me post then you’ll notice I mentioned Episode 7 of Lovecraft Country entitled, “I am”. I am not a horror fan and while I don’t think Lovecraft Country is strictly horror, I had a bad experience watching Poltergeist as a kid and don’t want to tempt fate and repeat it. So, I tend to stay away from anything that even looks like it comes close to horror. That said, I was drawn into Lovecraft Country by friends of mine who were raving about the show. I have limited my streaming services to two and wasn’t going to go and get HBO just for that show so I decided to check out the Heavy Spoilers channel on YouTube and get caught up. Now that I know where the scary parts are, I may go back and watch the show.
Out of all of the episodes I got to skim, Episode 7 touched me. Partly because I was feeling some type of way at work at the time. Coming back to work had a different feel and flavor to it. It wasn’t great when I left and it was only slightly better once I returned. One saving grace was that it was quieter. Most of the employees were still out on furlough and since the only way you could remove your mask was when you were in the office with the door closed, I spent most of the day with my door closed and made sure to put a note on it that forced people to knock so that I could put on my mask before they could enter (helped keep interactions with my boss down to a minimum too!).
So, I got to spend most of the days with audiobooks or meditation music. On this particular day I had listened to Jay Shetty’s book, Think Like A Monk. He had talked about forgiveness and gave an exercise on how to forgive yourself. Then, because I had to process all of that, I stopped the audio and went to YouTube and got caught up on Episode 7. That’s where I heard the quote Hippolyta gave Josephine Baker.
There is so much more to unpack there, but one of the key reasons that it touched me was because I had gotten a final performance review the year before and my boss told me that I needed to talk more. They mentioned that they get scared when I’m quiet because they don’t know what I’m thinking. Then, despite opening up (at least I thought I was doing that) I get something similar on this year’s review. Never mind the fact that we barely spent any time at work or interacting in person! I was pissed! So, here I was trying to be nice and non-assuming for their sensibility but they still didn’t see me. I opened up and they still didn’t see me. What the hell was I doing it for then? I looked around and asked myself where the hell did it get me? Nowhere! Even, opening up didn’t get me anything. I was keeping myself small and what was the point? That was that. With the forgiveness technique and that quote, I went home and had some of the best writing and brainstorming in a long time, and even now, several weeks since that moment, I still feel good.
If I could take the quote Hippolyta used in the show and tailor it for me it would be pretty much the same, but I would say it like this:
“I just wanted to come to work, do my job and be seen for the great work that I do. I spent twenty-three years going the extra mile and making sure I didn’t fall into any stereotypes because I knew not only was my reputation on the line, but anyone coming up in this company behind me could (and would) be following in my wake. All those years I thought I had everything I ever wanted, only to come here and discover that all I ever was, was the exact kind of Black man White people wanted me to be. In the end, they didn’t see me and don’t see me. Especially boss lady! I kept myself small and hid in the shadows for what? Scraps?! Crumbs? A pat on the head?! I hate that I wasted my time, my energy, and my life but most of all I hate me for letting them make me feel so small. Not any more! Time to be bold, be bright, and let my light shine.”
I don’t know who I would end up saying all that too, but in my head, it would be a big fucking deal and the boss lady and anyone who ever thought like her would realize that because people don’t act like you and talk about medical procedures and getting a boil lanced off your back, doesn’t mean they are keeping things from you or that you need to be “scared” of them (I think she slipped up and if she went to the root of that statement, she would see it had nothing to do with the fact that I don’t speak, but that her bias was slipped up and started showing).
This blog is a bit of me stepping out of myself and trying to be bigger. I’m not going to share everything here, but I will share and process what I choose for myself. Not because the boss lady was searching for something to ding me on, but because I’m sick and tired of feeling small. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere so why not change things up and go big and see where that can get me!
Next step is to figure out who I am and what I want to become? I have some ideas but need to process some thoughts and beliefs and reassess my dreams and there is no better place to do it than here at Unvarnished.
Here I owe no one the truth but myself! So far the experience of diving in has been fun and produced some eye-opening results. Let’s see where the larger LaMarcus will end up being when this is all over.
- Invisible Man 2.1
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