Generational Curses: Breaking My Invisible Chains

Generational curses - 5/15/21 ( 16 weeks pregnant)

When I first wrote down this topic my intention was to write about all the things that I would do differently. I planned to talk about how I will educate my child, to discuss money from a position of wealth and continual abundance not poverty and misfortune. I planned to discuss the nuances between single-parent homes like the one I grew up in and two-parent households, I even planned to discuss the differences between being in my 30s and not my 20s having my first baby.

Then this past week I had a breakdown that had been bubbling at the surface for weeks. The sobs that wrecked my body late into the night let me know that my biggest generational battle wouldn't be poverty, education, or wedlock. It would be worthiness. Let me explain, my husband and I are best friends. We laugh and roast each other without fail. Any given time in any given location we poke fun at each other. Since getting pregnant my insecurities have been attempting to swallow me whole. My every fear has been front and center and my ego nonexistent. This became an issue when my always joking husband took a shot at my weight. Now I know what you're thinking,” please tell me he wasn't cracking fat jokes with a pregnant woman!”Welp! yep, he was and it sent me into a tailspin. My daily pics of myself while he's on the road felt like proof that I was an unattractive Michelin man, my two brownies felt like eating my feelings instead of satisfying cravings, and the baby bump I am now sporting felt like a chastity belt. I was crushed. He assured me through my tears that it was a joke but the fact was I was damaged by it. It brought out inadequate feelings I didn't know I had and prompted unhealthy behavior in an attempt to control the growth of my body and the most uncontrollable time.

Then came his objections to our babymoon. His logic was sound as I won't work for quite a while so lavish vacations aren’t smart but coming off the heels of "belly gate" it felt like rejection. Sprinkle in his joke about me not being a “real” mother on Mother's Day because the baby isn’t born yet and my fertility issues and prior loss had me verbally saying, “I am not worthy.” I felt like a fraud in my happiness, unworthy of any compliments, love, affection, or well wishes. I felt embarrassed by my every post, smile, and hand on my belly photo. He apologized and said he didn't realize his jokes were cutting so deep because we always say rude stuff but more than his comments these situations and my body nearly breaking down let me know that the curse I had to break before bringing my daughter into this world was the cycle of unworthiness that I currently find and have found myself in.

From watching the women around me deal with mistreatment from men to my own father never showing me that I'm valued and important, to my abusive first marriage where I was reminded daily that love absolutely had conditions, and if I wasn't willing to absorb all of it I was weak and undeserving of care, I realized that the biggest curse that I can pass on to my daughter would be the idea that my worthiness was up for debate. The idea that other people get to dictate what I'm deserving of and the absorption of those ideas into the fabric of who I am as a woman. The worst thing I could do for her is show her through my own actions and lack of healing that she needs permission to feel good about herself in any situation. In this break down I realized I have to put down the weight of my grandfathers’ lack of respect for my grandmother, shrug off the abandonment of my father with my mother, overcome the damage of my sisters, aunts, and friends and heal the wounds of a society that tells me only at certain times with certain permissions am I elevated to a place of deserving love, care, and basic respect.

I have to do this for my daughter or she will carry the bags that I am so desperately trying to put down. I have to break the ties that bind me the version of myself that cries in a corner waiting for someone to say I matter and daily choose to put the me that is smart, beautiful at ALL sizes, caring, funny, determined, and healing on display. I must show my daughter what an empowered, black woman looks like when she puts the love she has for herself first and demands nothing less from those around her. Generational curses leave us stuck in the dark and like my beautiful baby girl-to-be’s name (Meira ) I must give an unending light for her to follow every day of her life. I will be healed FOR her not BY her so that I can stand strong with her as she faces challenges of her own. I will not leave my traumas at her feet and proclaim her my saving grace. Instead, I choose to face those hurts so that she may never know my traumas as her own burdens like so many little girls that look like her. I won't bleed my experiences and biases into her as much as I will pour abundance, and self-love into her. I'm fighting for myself so that she never has to fight for us both and I'm determined to win.