To Stop Without Shame

Early on when I was a child, my mom made sure I knew my place in this world. I had to work four times as hard, in order to be considered half as good as a white man.

Twice as hard because I was a girl, and twice more because I am black.

So, she made sure I worked hard. I read a dictionary from front to back before the 4th grade. We had the whole Britannica Encyclopedia in the hardcover edition (don’t age me) and I read the entire series before the 7th grade. I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation out loud for hours on the weekends to make sure my diction and enunciation were sharp.

“White people already think we are animals,”

she’d say, “

You don’t want to prove it by sounding stupid when you open your mouth.”

In middle school, Shakespeare was my idea of “light” reading. I was always studying.

Always working. Always trying to be better.

I started my first job while in high school, at 16 years old; I worked as many hours as I could legally (and also illegally). I took part of a dual enrollment program where I also took college courses at the local community college, whilst enrolled in AP courses at my high school and working just shy of full-time. When I went off to college, I still worked, but now it was 2 jobs while going to school full-time.

I know work.

I know strength.

I know go…. go… go.

And if it’s not getting done by the people around me, then fuck it, I’ll do it myself.

But as I’ve begun to age, I’m able to see that all of this go… go…. go isn’t really getting me as far as I’d hoped.

Women are the most educated group in America. Black women far outpace their gender in education, but are in the bottom when it comes to salaries and titles in upper management. We are taught that hard work can correct this if only we’re willing push ourselves a little harder.

“C’mon,” they say, “you can sleep when you’re dead.”

In my lifetime, I watched the most qualified candidate for President, both by education and actual on-the-job experience, be beaten out by a white man whose only qualifications for the job were the fact that he was both white and male. All of the hard work in the world would have never been capable of correcting that.

And just so we’re clear… this isn’t just a problem that exists “out there.” There are times I have a visceral hatred for my husband’s privilege. His ability to sit and do nothing. The privilege that makes him comfortable with doing nothing. I was taught idleness is laziness, but not my husband. His ability to watch sports while playing Apex or Call of Duty for hours on end has me humming Cell Block Tango.

“Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero. Lipschitz,”

Seriously, your Honor. He had it coming!!

And after all of this conditioning, I’ve discovered that my body doesn’t know how to be comfortable in itself, how to not constantly be pushing to do more, how to offload the guilt about that other thing I let slip through the cracks. My body is now more comfortable with the scrimmages of living-- the pain and aches. With weary and numb. My body is in a constant competition to prove that it can survive sweatshop work on 4 hours of sleep while maintaining career, family and sanity. 

Even when I try to rest my body, my brain just won’t quit:

Let me add that item to my grocery list. Run that audit. Send that follow up email and check my son’s homework. Wait, does my daughter have yogurt available tomorrow morning for her first breakfast? (Yes, she has 2 breakfasts a day, it’s a thing). Crap! Did I remind my husband about that upcoming work trip?!

On and on my inner dialogue goes. So, I might as well be doing something. Ugh cardio while studying, here I come. If I can’t quiet my brain, I sure as hell can beat my body into submission. So, I do. Day after day, I tell myself that these two-a-day workouts are necessary anyways so I can lose all this baby weight I’ve been carrying since the first kid (Oh hush. He’s only 132 months old). Staying up until midnight to study (yes, I’m back in school, full time again… I know, I know) is necessary because I don’t want to study while the kids are up. It takes away from family time. The overtime hours I’m working are also necessary because time and half pays and allows me to prove myself.

Like I said, I know work.

I know strength.

I know go… go…go.

That is, until my traitorous body decided to stop.

I just couldn’t go anymore. Every action felt so heavy, and my mind was racing so much I couldn’t quiet it. I started idealizing a permanent way to achieve peace. I knew it was time to talk to someone. I was depressed and I couldn’t out work it. 

So, I saw someone, got on Zoloft, and started to get back to my old ways, crushing COVID and homeschool and full-time work and nighttime studying, but my body quickly rebelled again, this time with constant pain. After a trip through every specialist Western medicine has to offer, all signs pointed in a single direction:

My problem was stress, and it was literally killing me.

I began to wonder how I allowed it to get this bad, but then I remembered…. I had the perfect teachers.

The women in my family have lived this way for as long as I can remember. My Aunt always had a migraine and begged us kids to play quietly. My mother was constantly there for others, but never for herself. I never once saw my Grandmother relax.

I don’t know stop. I don’t know quiet. I don’t know peace. How to just sit and be.

And I don’t know these things because I’ve never been taught to rest without guilt, or stop without shame. I am beginning to try though because I want a life that feels different than this. I deserve a life that feels different than this. And I think you do, too.

So, let’s start somewhere - maybe with a long weekend off or inking a foot spa into our full calendars. While it may never feel like enough to us, it might be just the lesson we need to pass on to the little women that are watching us. Let's show them that they're bodies are more than strength, blood, sweat and tears. That in this life, in their bodies is joy, grace, beauty and celebration too.  Let's teach them better lessons than the ones we were taught about our worth.

Danielle Bradley

is a writer, a mom of 2, a wife to Robert, and a gift to the world around her. She loves a good burger, a shot of tequila, and honest conversation.