We Choosing Perspective

Perspective - a particular way of viewing something, influenced by your experiences, beliefs, or position, seeing a situation in relation to others to understand it's true importance.

I woke up this morning in a state of gratitude, determined to go down the list of the typical things. Thank you for waking me up this morning. Thank you for breath in my lungs. Thank you for our home, our food, our clothes, everything capitalism tells you to be grateful for because there are people elsewhere who do not get it. Yada, yada, yada. And we all know a lot of that is not about lack, it’s about greed. But that’s a whole other conversation.

Then it hit me… perspective. I am grateful for perspective because I can remember when it was missing. I can think of the moments when it lacked and how I reacted then. Lack of perspective had me reacting from fear, bitterness, jealousy, scarcity, sadness, an entire emotional economy rooted in not being able to see.

Perspective is my child who struggled with anxiety and other mental health challenges, who once had difficulty waking up in the morning, and who is now consistently on a regimen that works, led by her physicians, yes, but also by herself. She woke up this morning running late for the bus. I got up ready, because my husband said, “You’ll probably have to take her to school. I can’t.” I was up. I was ready. I walked out and she was standing at the door saying, “Oh no, I made it. I’m not gonna miss the bus.” Perspective is knowing that six months ago, this was not our reality. And where we are now is… wow.

Perspective is a bus driver who waited for my son when he had to run back because he forgot his instrument. She waited while he ran into the house, grabbed it, and came back. I know there were times when drivers wouldn’t have waited, when the rush mattered more, when he wouldn’t have felt safe enough to ask. The fact that he did… that’s it. That’s the shift. And it reminded me, we’re in a different place.

There’s also perspective in where we are right now in this country. It’s nerve wracking. It’s uncertain. We don’t know where we’re going, and every day brings something new. That creates overwhelm, sadness, hopelessness. But perspective reminds you we’ve been here before. Individually, we’ve been here before. As a nation, we’ve been here before. As a people, we’ve been here before. And even though before wasn’t this, we moved beyond it. In many ways, we’re already beyond what we once were. Perspective becomes a reminder of strategies, tools, lessons, victories, hope. Of the stories of those who immigrated here, whose reasons were once questioned and are now unfolding in real time. Of going within. Of connection. I’m grateful for even the awareness to have perspective.

There was a time when I visited family members in jail. I remember the moment my father was arrested for what I was told was an expired registration. To this day, it doesn’t fully make sense. Maybe it was more than that. What I remember is seeing him taken away while my mother was in the hospital after giving birth to my baby sister. I got up in my eleven year old body and cooked dinner, trying to shield my siblings from what had just happened. I refused the McDonald’s my father’s coworkers offered when they came to help. Perspective is realizing there were people who wanted to help because he was a good person. Perspective is knowing we were okay. He came home. I can let that little girl sit down, be sad, and stop carrying responsibility for a world she didn’t create. Sometimes perspective is just the breath you catch, even in chaos, even in uncertainty. Look back for a second.

Perspective is this. I am not Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison. I am just Rachael. And that is enough. I am a curse breaker, a prayer warrior, a lover, a friend. Perspective is realizing that what makes me me was not a mistake. It did not need correction or improvement. It was already whole. And I have the awareness to grow and bloom into the flower that has always lived inside me.

On this 100 year anniversary of Black History Month, perspective is remembering that Harriet was one woman moving through the darkness, guided by intuition, the Holy Spirit, and sheer determination. That Malcolm had parents who gave him the knowledge of self long before the world knew his name, and prison only reactivated what was already there through connection. That Martin went to India, saw the caste system, and understood it as a mirror to Black life in America. He worked with people who didn’t always agree with him and became the face of a movement he did not create. Perspective is a group of twenty something Black Americans, the Black Panthers, standing against the full force of a corrupt government to feed their people, protect their communities, and share liberation knowledge with African nations. Africans never sent warships to rescue them, but they still came and liberated us.

This system is designed to make you doubt yourself at every turn. Even in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, everything was given simply because they existed. Even after the so called disobedience, when they were removed from Eden, the ability to co create with the Divine remained. Perspective was watching my mother support her best friend’s daughter after she was kicked out for becoming pregnant in high school, helping her stand on her own and raise her children. Her friend put religion before her role as a parent. Love, I’ve learned, isn’t about words or declarations. It’s about connection.

Perspective is me wanting to edit this into safety, afraid of being misunderstood or TLDR, and choosing to post it anyway.

I’m trying something new, if you feel encouraged and can do so, feel free to Buy me a latte