Scorpio Sun and Forever Moon
I remember how the soft click clack of my heels found its match in the cacophony of sounds coming from your computer when w first met. The click clacks of your long acrylic nails atop your keyboard sounded like each of my footsteps. I like to imagine we’ve been in sync from the very beginning, perhaps our whole lives.
I came to know you in the way I came to know myself. I’ve refused the title of mentor or role model- partly because I feel the heaviness of my own mess, but mostly because I have come to grow into the possibilities of my own proverbial shoes... filling them with confidence under your own tutelage.
I came to know you in the way I came to know myself - in long conversations on the kind of women we wanted to be and were too afraid of becoming, over too many cups of bubble tea, and in the quiet sadness that enveloped us after more Black and Brown people became hashtags. I processed the messiness of my mangled family tree and soothed your worries as you worked to prune the branches of yours. We got lost in aisles of makeup and finally found our melanin in overpriced glass bottles. There were times you felt the sharpness of change and I strained my arms to push you harder. I helped you confront biases wrapped up in respectability and you explained to Jesse what redbone means (💀). I watched you transform from Cindy to Cinderella (you thought I forgot) and demand the kind of love you deserve from everyone lucky enough to call you friend. I Meredith cried at your graduation - my heart filled with so much joy and pride. Watching you traverse your graduation stage assuaged some of my own fears and regrets that peppered my undergraduate experience; looking at you triumph over so many barriers was such a rich reward. I came to know you in the way I came to know myself. I sometimes will look at your effervescent spirit and find comfort when I find pieces of myself. We have been in sync from the very beginning.
Happy Birthday Anndrekía! May this new season of your life bring you nothing but abundance - in health, happiness, love, and comforts. I hope you are comforted by the same deep love you share with the world and look upon your reflection with only pride. How beautiful it is, to have such kindness matched only by your selflessness. I have loved you from our first meeting, through the tribulations of [redacted], in moments where I felt so deeply inadequate, and through the times you had me losing my baby hairs. I am so proud of all the moments you chose yourself, turned inward and demanded better, asked for help when I surely didn’t model the way, and moved aside to make room for other Black women as you climbed. I came to know you in the way I came to know myself, because I’ve carried the gift of our friendship in the soft click clack of my footsteps and in the steady beating of my heart.
