Graduation is an exciting, momentous occasion. However, it is also a time of serious reflection. Bear with me as I journey through this new period of autobiographical blogging, but when I can’t express myself audibly I do better writing it down. It’s a challenging time in my life. The transition stage. Yes, the stage where things are not necessarily bad, but they ain’t good either. You find yourself moving from one mountaintop to another valley to another hill to another plateau and eventually to another mountaintop.
For one, I’m a new college graduate several years older than I initially intended, and I’ve never felt more alone. I’m surrounded by people who appear to have it “all together” when in actuality they don’t. The frustration lies in their need to mask their imperfections which doesn’t help someone like me who will tell you straight up “I’m struggling, please help.” Why? I think I’ve bugged my mom a million times with that simple one worded question. To which her response is “I have no idea.”
Gosh, the world says you’re supposed to have all the answers “mom.” LOL!
But let’s face it. Nobody does. I began to wonder what do I have to show for my 8 years in undergrad: a lucrative business, a few short films, no STDS or babies, lack of a love life, and a handful of student loan debt. Yet, I’m not any more popular than I was in high school. I’m heavier. I have less of a social circle, and I never partook in the college lifestyle. I never went to parties or clubbed. My first time in a club; I was 18 years old at a house party event in Philly. I paid over $100 for this “slammin” outfit only for it to get ruined with watery beer and drunk vanilla people who couldn’t hold their liquor. That was my introduction to the party lifestyle, and I was pissed.
I’ve never been a sports fanatic. Although I’m built like a football player, I never took to football, baseball, basketball, or even golf for that matter. I do like hockey. GO SABRES! But I’m not invested. The performing arts has already been my first love, and I’m learning that my love affair with film is the only best friend I have at this moment in my life.
When you reach milestones as an adult, you recognize tough aspects of your life you once avoided. For example, a girl on her sixteen birthday experiences a debutante ball as she embraces early womanhood, a woman on her 25th birthday realizes she never wants to have children. Where’s the serious music? LoL!
I’m not a woman nor do I want to be. Yes, I get the LGBT card for free based on my personality which is cool with me because I love my LGBT peeps. However, you will never see me talk about my sexual life because that is something you should keep private. Yet, I’ve found that we won’t keep those portions of our lives private. But we’ll keep our inner feelings and thoughts silenced which eventually eats away at us. Wow, that makes a lot of sense. (Sarcastically Speaking) Sometimes our morals, values, and belief systems can be all screwed up. I never understood the homophobic trend anyway because if you’re straight why would you care? But let’s not veer off topic.
Luckily for me, I grew up with Yvonne who did not play those games with me. My mom taught me to be unapologetically me. The downside to that I walked a lonely road and I still do today. Now I’ll be honest when I became an adolescent I wanted to be apart of the crowd. In fact I could say, I was a member of the B-Clique in high school. We weren’t the A-clique which were the sluts, gays, bull-daggers, punks, etc. I went to an arts magnet high school, and yes, if you were black, gay, & talented you had a high ranking in the social hierarchy. But the B-Clique was cool. We were the “street” kids who rode the city bus to school, and skipped gym to talk about our dreams in the cafeteria. My clique was full of wise, feisty people like Sharaye. She always wanted to be a doctor, but by senior year, she gave up on the dream because she was told that it was an unattainable goal.
Yepper, the hoodboogers. That was my tribe. They accepted me for me, and I saw them as people, genuine people. As I grew into adulthood, I realized that being a member of the B-Clique meant nothing in the real world. I would have to learn to tolerate the individuals I didn’t align with. The snobs. The buppies. The kids from 2 parent households who looked down on us with single parents. The intellectuals. The educated.
It took me 8 years to learn how to be okay in my own skin. I’m not a flashy guy. I will rock a t-shirt and sweatpants any day especially if it is hot outside. I love to talk and ask questions. I love to think critically. I love museums, art, theatre, and even opera. It doesn’t make me weird or less than. It just makes me an outrageously “cool” guy. LOL! Okay, but it makes me unique.
I’m sharing this experience to encourage others who may be going through a similar thing like myself. It’s hard out here for a black millennial filmmaker with heart. You want to be liked. You want to be accepted. You want to feel the love. But let’s ask ourselves, is that love real? If I can’t love you through your mess, then I don’t really love you. It’s conditional. Christ loves us through our mess. Now I don’t want this new blog to be religious based because although I’m a Christian I respect other beliefs. However, if Christ can love me through all the “shit” I’ve done and will continue to do because I’m not perfect. What’s wrong with us? Why do we force our loved ones to obtain this unattainable model of perfection? As black men, why are we so scared to open up and share our burdens with one another? Why can’t we have real dialogue about what’s going on in our lives? These are questions we must ask ourselves, answer, and find solutions for.
If I have to be the one to start it with my first blog. Then so be it.
Sincerely,
Robert “Bobby” Henry
