this is such a beautiful read—and also an eye opener. i got the opportunity to develop friendships recently where they center around community, and it frightened me how much they were willing to care for me. sharing food with each other, buying things when others can't afford, being able to cry in front of someone and not feel judged. and yet, i still find myself holding back SO much because of the fear that i am going to let my walls down and rely on people that will choose to not be that net for me anymore. and that's happened a lot. simultaneously, i also wouldn't be where i am today without the past safety nets of friendships. revolutionary love is scary, because it is a love that a lot of us haven't seen in full action before. thank you for sharing that that fear will be present regardless. i think we all lie to ourselves when we believe the fear is better felt in isolation vs. in community. isolation is just what we are taught and the most familiar with
I am screaming. I am screaming with your politic. I am screaming. Sorry I haven’t even finished it yet. But I had to scream with you. I just had to. I am screaming. 🙏🏾🙏🏾
ismatu—i am sitting with, “What kind of love would it take for you all to look at me disheveled and uncurated and not coach me toward sanity or regulation or self-reliance?”
i’m 24 and an aspiring “counselor”... i haven’t even applied to grad school and i’m already screaming. i’m screaming at the self-reliance and regulation and the image of “sanity” that i am coaxing myself towards. because it is so deeply Not Me, and my body has BEEN beyond the point of feeding myself adderall and buckling up to get this shit together. a white psychiatrist who had never met me before last week was perplexed by my body’s sensitivity and exhaustion. she thought MORE adderall would cure me. i felt my body and heart tense up in protest. she sat in front of me with her paternalistic eye and heard my reluctant goals to Progress™ and then assured me that she would work with me to achieve them. but inside, i screamed at the cop she was and the cop i would become were she to successfully police my nervous system enough to get me into grad school. inside, i screamed at how alone i was in a white, conservative city, sitting in front of a cop instead of loving community.
i am sitting with you in rejection of the pathology of the insanity and the screaming. i will keep screaming with you. we need to scream. we all need to fucking scream.
Hearing your screams made me hear my internal screaming a little better. Thank you, Ismatu. Adonai, have Your rage in us -- how we've stripped down and sanitized the imago Dei, You in us.
i dont mean to sound dramatic, but this has changed my life. genuinely, with all sincerity. my blood is throbbing and my heart is aching at the pure HEART that your perspective and practice has.
i have read this and listened to the audio version over and over and i am just floored by the simplicity and beauty of it. THIS is what radical love and community looks like. you are DOING IT. i love to see the love and humanity that you pour into your work again and again, and it is profound and inspiring and encouraging to see you so unapolegetically aligned with your values. i am floored and stunned and crying all at once at how beautiful this is and how beautiful you are. THANK YOU for your brain, your soul, how you show up in the world. "i didn't know i could love the world so much." i love you. you are a gift. i am so inspired and motivated to live my life with this spirit. i am scared i am scared but i feel lighter. thank you thank you thank you for showing us what we could be. i feel privileged to live in the same timeline as you.
Ismatu, you are so incredible. I keep listening and reading over and over. Your words, your rage, your heart, your politic, your LOVE-- SO unimaginably impactful and inspiring. I feel so motivated by and connected to your passion and vision. Just hearing how much you love the world in your voice makes me want to cry again and again. That love inside me feels safe to show itself. Thank you.
“accept that i am wild and untethered and insane then look again” the amount of times that i’ve said i’m insane and people think it’s loving to reject that is wild. thank you. i have never been motivated by money either and i’ve been struggling to reconcile with that fact. constantly trying to figure out how to “depend on myself” against my own internalized knowing that it’s bullshit. i’m so relieved to hear someone else say it out loud. thank you
Thank you for sharing Ismatu. Thank you for being the embodiment of what we can all be. Someone always has to take that uncomfortable, terrifying first step and mean it. It gives me so much hope that there is a sincere wanting to be connected, to feel seen and loved and to do the same for another. I don't want to participate in a world that encourages isolation and not community and collaboration. Since following you it's become apparent how much willingness and work it will take, but it can't change until we really see where we are, how painful it all is, and move.
As I was listening to your words this morning, I felt the love you were exuding. Because you write with such conviction and grace, I have been reluctant to write you back. BUT I respond to yelling, apparently.
Even though I felt like I was being directly yelled at, I also felt as if someone was yelling alongside me. Oh how nice it feels to not be screaming at the void in solitude.
I am studying social work currently, and you have validated so many of my recent thoughts. My dreams of communities fully seeing each other and learning how to live mutually and with radical love does not seem too far away. I know we can create these dreams by starting them steeped in community.
Thank you for your radical love, imagination, and drive towards what you really want out of life.
Beautiful writing. Beautiful spirit. Thank you, thank you, for sharing all this. For keeping that eight-year-old safe in yourself. In talking about how she’s kept alive, you keep the child in me alive, the child who felt like they were in the wrong for thinking the people around us could be much much kinder.
thank you for putting into words your ideas and hopes for a better more connected future - It feels like you're giving voice to hopes I've been afraid to hold for the exact reasons you state here. We are so willing to accept the limitations that mitigate risk but ultimately we've got to risk it for the biscuit - I admire your ability and conviction in so doing, I'm excited to learn to create an equitable world alongside you.
this is such a beautiful read—and also an eye opener. i got the opportunity to develop friendships recently where they center around community, and it frightened me how much they were willing to care for me. sharing food with each other, buying things when others can't afford, being able to cry in front of someone and not feel judged. and yet, i still find myself holding back SO much because of the fear that i am going to let my walls down and rely on people that will choose to not be that net for me anymore. and that's happened a lot. simultaneously, i also wouldn't be where i am today without the past safety nets of friendships. revolutionary love is scary, because it is a love that a lot of us haven't seen in full action before. thank you for sharing that that fear will be present regardless. i think we all lie to ourselves when we believe the fear is better felt in isolation vs. in community. isolation is just what we are taught and the most familiar with
I am screaming. I am screaming with your politic. I am screaming. Sorry I haven’t even finished it yet. But I had to scream with you. I just had to. I am screaming. 🙏🏾🙏🏾
ismatu—i am sitting with, “What kind of love would it take for you all to look at me disheveled and uncurated and not coach me toward sanity or regulation or self-reliance?”
i’m 24 and an aspiring “counselor”... i haven’t even applied to grad school and i’m already screaming. i’m screaming at the self-reliance and regulation and the image of “sanity” that i am coaxing myself towards. because it is so deeply Not Me, and my body has BEEN beyond the point of feeding myself adderall and buckling up to get this shit together. a white psychiatrist who had never met me before last week was perplexed by my body’s sensitivity and exhaustion. she thought MORE adderall would cure me. i felt my body and heart tense up in protest. she sat in front of me with her paternalistic eye and heard my reluctant goals to Progress™ and then assured me that she would work with me to achieve them. but inside, i screamed at the cop she was and the cop i would become were she to successfully police my nervous system enough to get me into grad school. inside, i screamed at how alone i was in a white, conservative city, sitting in front of a cop instead of loving community.
i am sitting with you in rejection of the pathology of the insanity and the screaming. i will keep screaming with you. we need to scream. we all need to fucking scream.
Hearing your screams made me hear my internal screaming a little better. Thank you, Ismatu. Adonai, have Your rage in us -- how we've stripped down and sanitized the imago Dei, You in us.
my politic is alive!!
i dont mean to sound dramatic, but this has changed my life. genuinely, with all sincerity. my blood is throbbing and my heart is aching at the pure HEART that your perspective and practice has.
i have read this and listened to the audio version over and over and i am just floored by the simplicity and beauty of it. THIS is what radical love and community looks like. you are DOING IT. i love to see the love and humanity that you pour into your work again and again, and it is profound and inspiring and encouraging to see you so unapolegetically aligned with your values. i am floored and stunned and crying all at once at how beautiful this is and how beautiful you are. THANK YOU for your brain, your soul, how you show up in the world. "i didn't know i could love the world so much." i love you. you are a gift. i am so inspired and motivated to live my life with this spirit. i am scared i am scared but i feel lighter. thank you thank you thank you for showing us what we could be. i feel privileged to live in the same timeline as you.
I feel this so much my eyes are watering.
We do not know each other.
But if I hear what you are saying correctly,
I would like you to know I want to be in community with You!
Peace, Love, & Respect,
Xes
Ismatu, you are so incredible. I keep listening and reading over and over. Your words, your rage, your heart, your politic, your LOVE-- SO unimaginably impactful and inspiring. I feel so motivated by and connected to your passion and vision. Just hearing how much you love the world in your voice makes me want to cry again and again. That love inside me feels safe to show itself. Thank you.
“accept that i am wild and untethered and insane then look again” the amount of times that i’ve said i’m insane and people think it’s loving to reject that is wild. thank you. i have never been motivated by money either and i’ve been struggling to reconcile with that fact. constantly trying to figure out how to “depend on myself” against my own internalized knowing that it’s bullshit. i’m so relieved to hear someone else say it out loud. thank you
Thank you for sharing Ismatu. Thank you for being the embodiment of what we can all be. Someone always has to take that uncomfortable, terrifying first step and mean it. It gives me so much hope that there is a sincere wanting to be connected, to feel seen and loved and to do the same for another. I don't want to participate in a world that encourages isolation and not community and collaboration. Since following you it's become apparent how much willingness and work it will take, but it can't change until we really see where we are, how painful it all is, and move.
Ismatu,
As I was listening to your words this morning, I felt the love you were exuding. Because you write with such conviction and grace, I have been reluctant to write you back. BUT I respond to yelling, apparently.
Even though I felt like I was being directly yelled at, I also felt as if someone was yelling alongside me. Oh how nice it feels to not be screaming at the void in solitude.
I am studying social work currently, and you have validated so many of my recent thoughts. My dreams of communities fully seeing each other and learning how to live mutually and with radical love does not seem too far away. I know we can create these dreams by starting them steeped in community.
Thank you for your radical love, imagination, and drive towards what you really want out of life.
xoxx oPaige
Beautiful writing. Beautiful spirit. Thank you, thank you, for sharing all this. For keeping that eight-year-old safe in yourself. In talking about how she’s kept alive, you keep the child in me alive, the child who felt like they were in the wrong for thinking the people around us could be much much kinder.
thank you for putting into words your ideas and hopes for a better more connected future - It feels like you're giving voice to hopes I've been afraid to hold for the exact reasons you state here. We are so willing to accept the limitations that mitigate risk but ultimately we've got to risk it for the biscuit - I admire your ability and conviction in so doing, I'm excited to learn to create an equitable world alongside you.
So much love,
Piper
Thank you for trusting us to be your community. ❤️