I’ve done it. I’m officially an adult.
That’s right folks, I am the dog that caught the car; watch as I lose myself to the unfamiliar feeling of getting exactly what I’ve worked toward. Don’t take my word for it, this certification came from above me. Through disciple and a lot of burns, I’ve mastered the recipe for Grown.
The Original List of Grown:
If I missed anything let me know. But these are the 9 essential spices that must marinate for a few years/ decades in order to mature that melanin.
- Pay your own bills
- Buy your own groceries
- Having the ever intangible “McDonalds money”
- When your parents start telling you to relax.
- Your friends are no-longer called “your lil friends.”
- You’ve heard “oh you think you grown” but there was no whoppin after.
- You know your way around the kitchen.
- You measure time by the last time cried 😂
- Whether you’re the Secretary of State or a tech millionaire, your value to family has flattened until you’ve had a child/ gotten serious about marriage.
Awareness of these 9 spices has kept black children alive, physically, for centuries.
Parents, grandparents, older siblings, n!gga on the street have invoked the language of Grown, as shorthand; a protective spell, meant to coat innocence and curiously with thick layers of inter-generational resin.
Resin thick with protective doubt, that distorts your greatness, camouflaging the bite of your courageousness, softening the scent of your bold imagination and sealing the contents of your soul inside you.
I perfected the original, it took til adulthood, but I mastered this recipe, spellbound, I lived determined to protect my inner child!
This recipe, this delicacy of the Diaspora, my soul untainted — and unrealized.