Aphorisms on Tenderness (Being a Self, Vol. 2)
Depression robs of many things — joy, energy, the will to live — but it is perhaps most insidious when it steals the desire for affection, the giving and receiving of it, the ability to be tender.
In the depths of your depression, you experienced rare moments of wanting to reach out and hold others’ hands. Now, medicated, your desire to do so is frequent and unruly, descending upon you even in class, while you sit cold and anxious. All you can think of in the moment is that holding your friend’s hand would make you less cold and less anxious.
Holding and being held by others grounds us.
Of the short list of what things are lovely in heterosexual relationships, the loveliest is the feeling of being held by tall men who smell nice.
This, then, apart from knowing that your family would not understand, is why you have not pursued relationships with other women: who holds and who is held?
It is not so objectionable being she who holds, the big spoon, the one who stands behind while two dance, shawty who provides financially and emotionally, but it is so much easier to be who is held.
Truthfully, the moments of being held by tall men who smell nice never last: the men always pull away. It is despondent-making. So, women take on the work of holding, in hopes that they will be relieved, that their love-practice will be reciprocated, and they will be held again. But it never happens, because for men as well as women, and the gender nonconforming, and children, it is so much easier to be who is held.
Parents who succeed at providing support, affection, and tenderness deserve all thanks, praise, and adoration.
But care is singularly difficult. We are geographically far-flung, separated from the ones we love by the global inequality which impels us to wealthy, imperialist countries, separated from others we should know by artificial national boundaries, exhausted from giving so much of our labor to capital, exploited, desensitized, traumatized, abused, and most of all, socialized against care. We are told, “the only person you have is yourself,” and we believe it. We are told, “people will always betray you,” and we believe it. We are not told, “practice goodness and encourage others to do the same.” We are not told, “examine the possessiveness you feel towards others that causes you to feel betrayed.” We are not told, “go to therapy if you can afford it, read good fiction, visit libraries, write often, figure out what prickly things in you cause you to hurt others.” We are not told, “confront whatever troubles you have not faced or they will harm your children and those in your care.” We are not told soon enough, “you have bipolar disorder and your mood swings and intense affect alienate others.” We are confused when friends forsake us. We become solitary, depressed. We lose our ability to care for others. We become distant fathers, unavailable friends. We look to God for the care we cannot give ourselves. We become unable to care without religion telling us to do so. We become invested in arbitrary rules created millennia ago by flawed people, rules which marginalize multitudes. We know, without ever admitting it, that God’s love is not unconditional. We do not believe that ours can be.
Love is not blind acceptance. Yes, it is patient and kind, yes, it hopes all things and endures all things, but it also rebukes wrongdoing and speaks truth to power. It can be anger, disappointment, but love is never indifference.
Love is an everyday practice.
Love is not cliché; it resists irony. It is neither marriage nor monogamy. Love is queer. Love is feminist. Love is trans-inclusive. Love is decolonial. Love is anti-ableist. Love is radical. It is respecting boundaries. It is being mindful of others. Love is ethical. Love is ethics. Love is justice. Love is reading Black woman warrior poet Audre Lorde and working, as she exhorts, to overcome silence and “all the endless ways we rob ourselves of ourselves.”
Love is Black women.
Love is tenderness.
Love is possible.
