What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young

I want her to be too empathic to bully and humiliate people she’s bigger or smarter or cooler than, but if she ever has to compete - in sports, in school, wherever - I want her to possess the killer instinct that her dad never had. But sometimes this reluctance to ignore my reservations and worries paralyzed (and still sometimes paralyzes) me, where my reticence and doubt congealed (and still sometimes congeals) into a lack of assertiveness and I ended (and still sometimes end) up not doing things I wanted (and still sometimes want) to do because I just couldn’t (and still sometimes can’t) find the will to be fearless. It’s an attribute that has served me well. I want her to regard new things with a healthy and safe skepticism that allows her to stay true to her convictions and not be as susceptible to peer pressure as many of her classmates might be.

I want her to be observant and thoughtful, but not so thoughtful that she gives herself, as I have, acid reflux from the stress and anxiety that come from overthinking. But I don’t know how to pass on the good things without also passing on the bad. I am also hopeful that her journey to accept and appreciate herself doesn’t last as long as mine did. I presume that as she grows older, the parts of me that are in her may grow more noticeable. Although it would be wonderful if all the world’s angst and nervousness and restlessness and situationally inappropriate daydreams existed in one person, I am just not that special.

Sitting in my car that day with my wife and sleeping daughter, I wondered how much better that first year and a half of being a parent would have been if I’d allowed myself to remember that other people are scared too. I’ve grown progressively more confident that I am exactly who I’m supposed to be, but the belief that I’m somehow defective unmasks itself at inopportune times. I’d allow myself to feel - not believe, but feel - that I wasn’t who I was supposed to be. I’m supposed to be cool, and that cool should be as effortless as Tracy McGrady jaunting back on D after hitting a hesi and laying a lefty jelly. Because I’m black and male I’m not supposed to feel anxiety.

They’d convince me that I was the only one who experienced the doubt and angst I lugged around, tricking me into believing that my self-consciousness and the familiar diffidence it cultivated were singular. Throughout my life, the myriad anxieties and neuroses I carried would converge, aligning with each other to conspire against my common sense.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young