Autobiography \'I Don\'t Know, Jon. Switching Paths

Autobiography

'I don't know, Jon. Switching paths like that? I'm overwhelmed as it is ... "

"You can do it!" he repeated. "I know you can. I'm telling you, I see this in your future. Plus," he added rather seriously, "I think it's where your talents lay!"

It was I who was voted "class psychologist," in high school, so innate was my predilection for listening to people's problems and offering solutions on the fly. In fact, I had spent the last several years of my life banking on that student-voted accolade, and on the fact that I was good at helping others, that I liked science in general, and that knew I would do well as a clinical worker. Yet here was my friend Jon, a person who I didn't think had any predilection toward helping people, analyzing me like crazy and offering me advice. Plus, he knew I had just spent the last four years of my life struggling through college to earn a Psychology degree.

'You don't know what you're talking about! What do you mean, you 'see this in my future'?" I asked him with a laugh.

"I'm telling you," he said. "You wait and see. You'll say 'I told you so!'"

'Whatever!"

He winked at me before I headed off to work and while I waited for my next student to arrive -- I still work at Disability Access Services offering assistance in English and Psychology -- I grew increasingly annoyed. Who was Jon to tell me what to do with my life? Who did he think he was? I'm focused, I'm determined, I'm

I'm changing.

I looked at my arms. They were toned and firm. I pointed my toes and flexed my quads, proudly feeling the tightness in my muscles. Four years ago I weighed a lot more and I exercised a lot less than I do now. I recall being able to grab my tummy flab and not being able to climb the stairs to class without being out of breath. I remember just a few years back sitting in my room on sunny afternoons and reading instead of going for walks. It was only after I met face-to-face with the terrifying aspects of physical illness that I acknowledged that proper care of the body is equally important as proper care of the mind. Witnessing my parents -- my own flesh and blood -- struggle with health issues sparked in me an interest in improving my lifestyle habits. It was time to become more balanced.

I started by reading trade books that pertained to health, because as a bookworm books are most often my first line of attack. I used to tear through book after book, growing up as an introverted only child. Each book would to me in a different voice, voices that I internalized and would later channel into my own personal writings: journal entries and poetry. I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger, poetry that helped me to articulate uncomfortable emotions and escape from my parents' loud angry arguments emanating from rooms adjacent to mine. I reacted to an unhappy home life by literally tuning out that which I could not tolerate inwardly, and tuning into a myriad of musical styles from rap to classical. As a result, my teen memories are flooded with images and ideas that I have grasped from reading other peoples' writing and listening to other people's work. Floating around in my head are snippets of every tune I blasted through my headphones and visions of every character I got to know through books. I hid myself away in films, homework, anything in which I could find safety and escape.

Though introverted by nature, I did have lots of good friends in high school, although oddly, most of my close friends were boys. My friendships with boys have always consistently flowed easier than those with girls: I feel comfortable confiding in my male friends and generally enjoy being in predominantly male company. I think I had a tomboy spirit in grade school and still do.

Team sports just didn't do it for me; I just never took to them and nor did I get into the rah-rah spirit of the local teams in spite of the hooplah and enthusiasm that surrounded competitive sports in high school and in my community. I believe now that I would have made a great athlete had I opened myself to that possibility. However, I did participate in other, more bookish, high school activities like yearbook and newspaper. I dove into those writing-related tasks with enthusiasm because they reflected my innate talents and interests in writing and publishing. I also did really well in all school subjects and mostly got A's until college.

I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1982 and when I was 1-year-old my mom's job took us to Missouri. She worked for Southwestern Bell as a billing manager and only in 1993 did she go to college and get her business degree. My parent's gender roles were reversed. It was my mom who had the steady job and the steady personality. My dad was moody, controlling, and couldn't keep a job for long. His odd jobs varied from bus driver to chef to being a driver for a rehabilitation facility. I never saw my dad as a role model. My mom, on the other hand, was my inspiration, my guidance, my sister and friend. She provided me with the emotional strength and motivation to pursue my dreams at my pace and nurtured me every step of the way.

I believe my upbringing would seem somewhat ordinary to most Americans. As a black female, however, my upbringing does not necessarily reflect the experiences of others like me. I grew up in virtually all white, middle class suburban area of St. Louis. Racism was an issue. Isolation from my community was an issue. I'm sure that my dad's sense of impotence and inferiority were partly due to his disconnection from a strong and solid African-American community and personal identity.

I believe in large part my quest for identity fueled my interest psychology. W.E.B. is known for saying that African-Americans have two souls: an African soul and an American soul. The interface and potential conflict between those two souls is what drives many black Americans like me to seek renewal within black communities. The rift between these two souls is, I believe, at the root of so many problems within the black communities of our country.