Jr.

Hello and welcome to another post written by yours truly!

It's the new year- in fact, the end of the first month of the new year and so it's time for another blog post!

My dad, My brother Hassiem, and I c. 2000

Welcome to a NEW and IMPROVED theme!! :O I hope y'all like it!

It's crazy that it's already the end of January! The month seems to have flown by and gone slow at the same time!

It's also my grandmother, Ivy Ruth Idlebird Williams'
74th Birthday! Isn't that wild?? Whatta blessing to have 74 years worth of Ivy Williams on this earth. <3

It's ALSO been a year since I started my LEMONADE series of blog posts!! Wow! "Pray You Catch Me" was the post I wrote a year ago today.


Anyway... as I'm sure you're used to if you're a regular reader- an update on my life

• The last semester of my collegiate career has been pretty nice so far! I got promoted on my RA staff to LRA and I'm mostly in charge of Staff Development. I'm hoping to use this position and my Undergraduate Diversity Fellowship position in tandem to develop diversity trainings and reflections within my staff! I'm extremely excited for that
• But also my supervisor, Joshelyn LEFT US to go work in Californiaaaaaa and I'm really excited for her as she starts the next chapter of her journey!
• I have a new supervisor, Rachel! I'm excited to learn so much from them and have our last semesters here at UVM together! I'm also excited to see them figure out what they want to do and to hopefully be apart of their lives as they figure that out. 
• UPB is going well too!! We recently has our Executive Team interviews and I'm really excited for us to decide and announce them soon. I am so pumped for next years' leadership and can't wait to hear the amazing things they do. 
• Alexa is a gracious human and I'm blessed that she is in my life as my supervisor on UPB. I am so excited to see where she takes her journey and can't wait to keep in touch!
• Classes are crazy!
• Islam & Race is definitely what I needed at the right time. I'm going to learn so much about critical race theory concepts and Islam and myself and other people and I am so excited. 
• Human Neuroanatomy is SO interested but is going to be SO difficult and I'm not excited for our first exam next week. 
• Speech & Hearing Science Online seems pretty straightforward? Idk I'm not that worried. 
• Foundations of Social Work seems to also be a great introduction into the Social Work profession and I'm excited for what it'll teach me and whether or not Social Work will continue to be the right field for me
• My life is wild 
• I had a crazy date encounter and I was embarrassed but now I'm over it and I'm okay and haha that's all the details you'll get ;) 
• My emotions are still everywhere, but I'm okay with that because I'm trying to figure myself out and it's important to be patient with myself as I figure out more and more about myself. 
• I started seeing a black woman at CAPS and I'm excited for their to be a mutual understanding about some of the things that I need to unpack in these appointments. I'm excited for a person of color perspective especially at this extremely white school and I'm excited to learn more and more about myself 
• I NEED TO FIND A JOB HAHAHAHAHAHA I'M STRESSED but also excited idk we'll see 
• I love myself 

Okay! Onto the subject matter of this post. 

So, if you've been keeping up with my blog posts, you would know the reason why this post is named "Jr."- it's meant to be an exploration of my relationship with my dad and with my genetics AND my first blog post outside of the LEMONADE theme I had all of 2018. 

This is meant to be the first of 5 (or 6 haha what am I cooking up??) posts written for "An Exploration of the Self"

Which like I know is the whole point of this blog, okay, but idk it's like more personal things y'know?

First, I'd like to talk about my genetics. 

For my 21st birthday, two months ago, one of the gifts that I bought for myself was the 23andMe Ancestry & Health kit.
It was 50% off at the time  and I'm very glad I made the investment.

Among the many health things that I found, I think the most interesting ones included my likelihood for lactose intolerance (something I'm trying to be more and more conscious and careful of), my muscle composition (basically there's a genetic component as to why I may be able to run fast, but no for a very long time OTHER than my weight :O), and my carrier status for many genetically variable diseases.

What I was more looking to get out of this experience, and what was more intriguing, was my Ancestry report.

The biggest reason I wanted to do this in general is because describing myself as "Black" or "African American" might be enough for me, but it would also be nice to know what country (or countries) I come from! There are many people in my life who are able to know this just based on their personal family records and whatnot, but unfortunately, for someone who's not-so-distant ancestors were slaves, it's not so easy.

Why is this not so easy?
Slaves weren't allowed to keep records.
Slavemasters ripped families apart and purposefully kept people from different tribes together in order to avoid rebellions or communication among the enslaved.

Being able to know where your family is from is a privilege. But, I digress because that's not the point of THIS particular post.

I found out that I'm 4.3% East Asian & Native American- which is interesting, but not the most wild concept.

I found out that I'm 73% Sub-Saharan African, inclusive of 25.2% Nigerian, 20.4% Ghanaian, Liberian & Sierra Leonean, and trace percentages of Congolese, Senegambian & Guinean, Southern East African, African Hunter-Gatherer, and Sundanese. It makes sense that I'm primarily from West Africa and Nigeria since those are the largest epicenters of the Atlantic Slave Trade- this also was not the most wild concept for me.

I also found out that I was 21.9% European, inclusive of 10.4% British & Irish, 2% Spanish & Portuguese, and trace percentages of French & German.
This ended up being the wildest part of my findings.
Not because I have white in me- that's a given considering my grandfather's recent ancestry, but just how pervasive this whiteness is in my family line.

You know what that means right?
Slavemasters were making second "families" with their enslaved.

Out of the 1062 relatives that I have on 23andMe, 97% have this British & Irish ancestry. Some distant cousins, that 23andMe predicts me having, are 100% European.

I found an ugly side to this journey for knowledge I was exploring.
There is so much suffering within my blood, within my family line.
Suffering that I have felt through the intergenerational trauma that plagues my family.
Suffering that can only be dampened with each new generation.
Suffering that people STILL want to encourage in this country.

While I feel blessed to have been able to learn more about myself, there's still so much of my history that I need to explore.
Not just genetically and historically, but familially, locally, and recent as well.
I'm going to switch gears.

Now I'd going to talk about my relationship with my father. 

It's just going to be a ramble of thoughts that I have every now and then when I think about him. 

For context- my dad Jamal Davis Neal, Sr. passed away when I was 13 years old on December 29th, 2010. 

Now- sometimes I question my abilities to really remember events. I feel as if a lot of my childhood memories come in really random doses and I don't have an exact chronological or ordered memory bank. Or is that just how memories work? Idk. Let me know??

But I remember my father being apart of my early life. 

There was a time when he lived with us and a time in which he didn't.

There were times when my parents were together. 

And times they weren't. 

He cooked well. 

He adapted to my first phase of cutting beef out of my diet when I was 12. 

He made me too much food, but I would eat it all because it was delicious and because I didn't want to disappoint him. 

He came to my concerts and performances. 

Did he like them?

How did he feel about my love for singing?

How would he have felt about my Marching Band career?

Probably positive because I was doing things that I loved doing. 

He wanted to lose weight to inspire me to lose weight. 

Would we be on this journey together?

Would he like lifting as much as I do?

He probably already enjoyed it. He did play football, right?

Would he have taught me the correct way to lift weights instead of me having to look things up myself? I'm sure he would've. 

He was intelligent.

He had a love for myths and fantasy. 

I think the last book series he read were my collection of Harry Potter books. 

We watched all of the first 7 together and he "wanted to see how they went and how it ended." 

We were supposed to watch the last one together. 

Would he appreciate my love for knowledge? I'm sure he would.

I don't ever remember having a discussion about my future job or school or anything, probably because I was in 8th grade. How would he have felt about me wanting to be a doctor? How would he have felt about me wanting to be a minister? A social worker?

I kinda did my own thing when it came to school anyway though. 

I'm crying as I write this. 

I don't think I value what I'm missing enough sometimes. 

It's hard to know what you're missing until you know you're missing it, I guess. 

And I'm really missing the developing relationship we were sharing together. 

I'm really missing him. 

I miss my mom and him together, but I know she's happy right now. 

And I'm sure he's happy that she's happy. 

I don't know if they ever understood each other enough... I don't know if they ever understood themselves enough.

I don't know if I'll find love. Love enough to spend 13+ years with someone. Love enough to bring a life into this world and share it and raise it together. 

I'm okay with that. Right?

How would he feel about how much I cry?

It's not necessarily a manly thing to do. 

But the things I associate with toxic masculinity, while present in him, weren't necessarily present in our relationships. 

If I told him I was queer I'm sure he would have accepted it. It would take some getting used to, just like it is for me, for my mom, for my other family members, but I would have had to have told him eventually. 

I know he definitely wouldn't like the mouth I have. 

He sure as hell would've beat me down for the things I've said to my mom. 

But I don't think that's toxic masculinity. 

I hear stories of the times that he's fought. 

According to my Uncle Chris, they called him the "Sleeper" 

Because someone's talking mess? Let's put him to sleep. 

When my Uncle told me this story, I retorted "I don't think that's something to praise someone for."

Why did I lash out like that? Why am I so angry? Why am I so sad?

I think it's funny. I think it's something I would want to be known for. 

This, surely is toxic masculinity. Right?

I know he hated hospitals because his parents died there right?

But did he just give up because of this?

Is that a reason to give up on two teenage sons?

I am broken for many reasons, but also this. 

I have broken ties with my brother, my flesh and blood. 

I have broken ties with my cousins. 

My aunts. My uncles. 

None of them reach out to me and I don't reach out to them. 

The phone works both ways. 

Do I invite them to my college graduation?
It seems weird to do that after not seeing some of them for 4+ years. 

Is it?

Would I be who I am if he were in my life?

Would I be more abrasive?

More quiet?
Less myself?

More myself?

What did he do for those months that I didn't see him when I was 8 or so?

What did he do in general? Like, what was his job?

What was his purpose in life?

What was he striving for?

He had love. He showed love. He loved love. 

But I wanted to change my name to Noah Williams.
To spite him

To have a biblical name

To share the names of the rest of the people I lived with 

Because my mom was feeling spiteful 

Because I was feeling spiteful

Because neither of us recognized how he showed love

Did he recognize how he showed love?

Is it in a similar way to how I show love?
Why couldn't saying "I love you" be apart of that?

I don't have many regrets in my life, but my biggest one is not telling my father "I love you" on the last day that I saw him.

I have so many more thoughts and questions to discuss with him. I know I'll do it- one day relatively not soon (hopefully).
I can, but I also can't wait to see him again.

More and more I joke that I'm becoming my mother.
We have similar mannerisms, coping mechanisms, insecurities.
But I know I share more than just a name and a face with my father.
How am I becoming more like him?
Would he like the man I am? The man I'm becoming? The man I'm trying to be?
I think I do.

Much love from Jr. to Sr.
I love you, dad.
Thank you for being with me, always.

Thank you for reading.