Night Thoughts
By: Chiara Bruzzi
*PROCEED CAREFULLY…this post contains a re-telling of night thoughts, which are incredibly messy and raw! You are encouraged to read with an opinionated mindset*
Thoughts are running through my head. I can’t catch them. I can’t stop them. No matter how hard I try, they clog my mind, one after the other, and just like that, I lose sight of them. Usually, I would relieve this mental turbulence with meditation or a night out with friends, but nothing feels right. It’s too late to meditate, and I don’t even know the meaning of friends anymore. Friends aren’t supposed to feel weird around each other. And yet I get anxious just thinking about social events right now. I don’t get it. How can a few months at home have such a significant effect on me? That question remains unanswered, and another thought creeps in.
How is it that my extremely loving family surrounds me, and yet I still feel lost and alone? I don’t understand. I am supposed to be strong… this is too sad to think… these are just night thoughts. I am sure that, to some extent, this is true. These ARE night thoughts, meaning they are shaped by a moment of weakness or perhaps of darkness. And yet, I can’t stop thinking about why I didn’t have these night thoughts before. Again, this thought ends unanswered, and another one begins.
Why is it that when I walk around my house, I feel confined by life? As if my house magically came to life and decided to limit the way I experienced growth. And then I think that if I could I be out there, then I would understand what was happening in the real world; what was changing. There is no way I can answer these questions without being around people. I guess that makes sense that I need to interact with others to answer these questions. After all, other people are all we have. There would be no society without people interacting with each other. This spider web of connections wouldn’t exist if we didn’t communicate, which is why these thoughts are so scary. They are scary because they show that the spider web is breaking. We are losing sight of each other. Society is disrupted. Swoosh, next thought.
The truth of the matter is that I am frustrated and annoyed because I need to grow up and mold into a young adult during these times. These are the years that I am supposed to be making my own experiences so that I can mature into the person I want to be. And now, those experiences are limited to the inside, in confinement. And then I think… isn’t that what all Black people have to go through in America? No matter how successful or privileged, they are limited to their skin color. Because in this country, skin color determines who you are and the way you are treated. Again, I don’t understand. Why did it take a Netflix series (All American) to show me how grave racial inequality is? It’s not fair. I’m so angry. No one should live in confinement.
I may be experiencing some level to the limitations of my experience, but at the end of the day, this is just a period in time, and I still have the privilege of experiencing life to the fullest once this is all over. However, for Black people, this isn’t an option, nor is it a period in time. It’s life. Everyday. No matter the where, what, or how.
Confinement for Black people isn’t what confinement is for me. It’s a whole different level of lost opportunities and limitations. The sad truth is that these attacks on people’s right to experience are true about all minorities. Some minorities experience it more than others; some get a pinch while others get a straight punch to the face, but they all understand it. They can all sense the lack of difficulty with which others judge them without attempting to understand them. As a woman, I have felt it before, and there is nothing pleasant about it. We need to do better.
It’s easy to set our problems aside and focus on the future rather than the present, but that needs to stop today. These human rights issues have been affecting people for centuries, and change is yet to happen. THAT IS IT. Let’s wake up. It shouldn’t take protests and black screens to send the message. A conversation should have been enough, but it was not possible because no one was willing to listen to such discussions. That is because these so-called controversial topics tend to expose the worse of people’s pettiness and selfishness. I have seen it lately, and I’m not too fond of it: the need for people to continually be better than others. The fact that other people’s lives matter does not mean yours matter any less. It’s quite the opposite. The problem is not that your life (somehow) matters less now, but that BLACK PEOPLES’ LIVES NEVER MATTERED before!
This movement is not the tip of the iceberg. That moment was a long time ago. Now the ice is melting, and we all have a decision to make. So what are you going to choose? Are you going to watch it all come down, or are you going to wake up before it hits the freezing cold water? I made a choice a long time ago to stay standing rather than sinking, and that is what I am going to do now. I am going to stand. And I hope you will stand with me.