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in 2020 i meditated on the following ; scroll if you hate when i tweet threads.
it’s okay to love hard. a friend once told me i do a couple years back and i was a bit ashamed of it. but it’s about finding people on that wavelength—at least to me. learned more about affirmation & communicating through uncertainty.
in 2020 I finally learned to manage expectations with music. i was so mad that no white blogs validated “pissed off” that i ignored the black folk inspired by it. i learned to divest from music creation in a purely quantified metric of validation. took years to get it.
i learned that i’m impressive. not even on some arrogant shit. i genuinely learned that the stuff i do while simply just being me, is needed somewhere and meaningful to not just me, but to others.
i learned that i don’t have to compromise. graduating college is hard cause you’re thrown into everyone’s perception of what you should do. but i stuck to my guns. i only applied to 2 jobs this year. I work both of them, and my bosses are BIPOC in both spaces. and love what i do.
i learned how to listen. college was learning policy/activism in a purely academic sense but this year i got back to listening to people’s narratives and talking through values/experiences. think this is what I’ve missed for so many years.
I became a better musician. I’ve always been the best musician out of my friends, but embarking on music in a entirely hardware format really forced me to learn more about what I don’t know. and that’s more exciting than discouraging!
I learned how to root for others. gave up on competitive friendship; it never served me over the years. and it kills the community i swear we want to grow/expand. leverage your friends, support them, and most of all, give their story your time without inserting your own.
i forgave. there are folks i never dreamed i’d talk to again, even when i missed them dearly. i abandoned my need to spite/grudge. i’m glad I did.
and lastly, I became 100% me. many people experience enigma and it makes them hide parts of themselves from certain peers/spaces. i brought all of me into everywhere i went this year. it’s what mostly informed spaces i was able to enter.
