I was the only black kid in my secondary school of two thousand strong until my younger brother arrived eighteen months later. We lived in a market town in Oxfordshire. It was 1975. Black folks were scarce on the ground. One family was Jamaican and my dad decided they were too common for us to play with. The other was from Ghana and they looked down on us. Oh HEEYYY colonialism! My parents are from Barbados. Dad was an aspiring preacher making ends meet by working in the local factory.
Mum in The Seventies. What.A.Beauty.
Mum was a housewife bringing up four young children whilst struggling to deal with the double whammy of hitting motherhood in Middle England and far (so far) away from home.
I knew I was different. The kids at school never let me forget that. But I was resilient and my mum told me that their name-calling could never break me. Why wouldn’t I believe her?
“...millions of women whose wealth of experience and decades of knowledge is being ignored simply because we’re considered pass our sell by date.”
I was always the one at the back of the class giggling and cracking jokes. We had a system of Green merits and Red demerits at secondary school. They’d be counted up at the end of the week. Prizes given to pupils for accumulating the most merits. I was a bright enough student. I excelled in many subjects, particularly Art, Athletics and Dance. But I was always getting demerits for talking in class. The reds cancelled out the greens almost every month.
Fifteen, feather and ‘fro. Oh my!
Further study beckoned. Staying at the local vocational college did satisfy my itch to see more. So I moved to Leicester polytechnic (now De Montfort University). New to a multi-cultural city yet at odds amongst my ‘own’ I quickly found ways to survive. I studied Performing Arts as a Dance specialist but I was most at ease on the dance floor on the club scene where my ‘moves’ gained admiration from the local club goers. In my classes, especially Ballet and Arts admin, (too much sitting) I felt dumb. So I resorted to eleven year old Karen giggling and cracking jokes.
I made a few black friends on and off campus. Often I didn’t understand what they were talking about. It wasn’t just the accents at times. I had no frame of reference from my upbringing. My parents were too busy trying their best to make ends meet and assimilate among our conservative, English neighbours, to pause and consider what I might be missing. I don’t blame them. There was no manual. And I didn’t see anyone like me on TV or in the papers. By the time my mum wanted me to learn about her home it was too late. I didn’t want to be different.
So I practised fitting in by masking my real feelings, suppressing my fears or joking around. Because I thought that fitting in was important. I didn’t know what I was trying to fit in TO exactly. Perhaps that was the problem. I carried this self-made recipe into womanhood. I thought I was doing fine.
Don’t act too ‘white’.
Don’t act too ‘black’.
Don’t dress like a slut.
Don’t act like a prude.
Don’t let on.
Suck in your stomach.
Smile and wave.
Stand straight.
Giggle. Crack a joke.
After 28 years of secondary school teaching, it took a break THROUGH to help me see that being honest is the only way of fully living.
“Are you ready to order ma’am...?”
“Yes please. I’ll have Anxiety for my starter, followed by Depression. Does that come with Menopause? A whole plate? Fab”
There I go trying to be clever again.
Giggling and cracking jokes.
Honesty is not easy. I mean being honest with yourself. Busting your own BS. Like, who’s going to know, right? You have to be sick of your constant crap to want to be honest. I wasn’t exactly that sick yet. I just wasn’t listening to me. So the menu above was the only way things could change. I was literally stopped in my tracks.
How did I do it? Mostly by slowing everything right down and getting comfortable with the silence. Yes that did mean quitting my relatively well-paid job (and everything I’d known for almost three decades). But I wanted to get better and to curate the next 50 odd years of my life doing what I wanted to do (despite not knowing exactly what that was). Drastic changes were necessary. It wasn’t easy and it was scary AF (it still is, four years on) but I wouldn’t change any part because it’s brought me here. Writing this. For you.
I’m not done yet. Life is a process, isn’t it? We’re all learning something even if it doesn’t feel that way at the time. In the past few years I’ve had experiences I’d never even have considered had I continued along my expected career path. But encountering Menopause and letting go of societies expectations of me has freed me in a way I didn’t anticipate. It lifted a fog I didn’t know I was wading aimlessly through. Yet I’m simply one of the millions of women whose wealth of experience and decades of knowledge is being ignored simply because we’re considered pass our sell by date. We’re supposedly surplus to requirements.
“Not ‘young and sexy’? Can’t have kids anymore? Join that queue over there behind the big bins will ya? Yep. Just sit on the floor.
Cheers love”.
I found my voice JUST when I’m expected to be quiet and wait for my grand kids.
* Holds up large card with ‘UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER’ written in bright pink permanent ink.*
So who am I?
57. Menopausal me. Image credit: Bunny Bread.
I am a black woman.
I am a talented creative.
I am the mother of two grown ass women making their own way in the world.
I am a new grandmother.
I am fully menopausal and I won’t shut up about it. Because you need to know that it is not the end. It is the next part of your glorious life. I try to lead by example. And I believe that every time I am open, honest and truthful about my journey, somewhere on the planet another woman gathers enough courage to step out.
Is it you?
K x
Written submission for Rebel Crones Rising first posted in September 2019.
Find out more about my new membership group, Wear Your Happy THRIVE. Coming soon.