There is Mental Load™. And then, there is me trying to figure out — in all seriousness, no irony — why I was not born into the brand of generational wealth that empowers me to be stuck in St. Barths right now without any real concern for...anyone?
Yet, it was almost impossible to type that sentence. Because I do not enjoy gratuitous fantasies as I did in the 90s or early 2000s. Now, I disgust myself at the dream of being an oblivious, wealthy Black girl, born of the Talented Tenth, dressed like Whitley or Hilary — or more realistically, Ashley — completely satisfied with the business of hosting a brunch for my Sorors as a networking fundraiser for my husband’s new socially-conscious tech startup that promises to clean the world’s water.
So, I’ll pick up my cross and tell you what I am really focused on and how I really got here, on Substack. I will tell you in no particular order. Here is the mind of a millennial Black mom in 2025 — oops, 2026.
Fuck, I am almost 40. (Shit, I have to stop cursing. I love Jesus, and I love to curse. I get it from my mom and her mom.)
My mom. My grandmothers. They’re all gone now. Two of them lived to see their 90s, but my mom… she haunts me. Forever 44. Thanks to a reckless cancer. The older I have gotten, the more I have become her. Sometimes I love it, but most days I absolutely fear it. Reckoning with the way she was too overwhelmed with too many kids and too few tools to survive her own selflessness. Seeing her in myself every time I stretch to host another family event, offer another financial sacrifice, take another pregnancy test, or anxiously beg my doctor for another biopsy.
I cannot allow my trauma to continue to be my personality at 40 years old. At some point, you do all the therapy and have to accept that you’re way bigger than the trauma. You’ve intellectualized it, accepted it, and now… you have to leave it there. Walk away and do not turn into a pillar of salt. Toughen the
fuckup.On a lighter note, I need to financially afford to go to Korea for 2 weeks and get my entire face lifted (Black does not crack, but it does melt a bit). Who would babysit my kids for 2 whole weeks? Lord knows, my husband will want to come, but if he came, he would be outraged by the idea of me scaffolding my face. I’ll figure this part out later.
Are the girls wearing wigs or sew-ins now? Decades of bleaching my hair and perimenopause are catching up with me. My mom always had thick, lush, wig-like hair. And so did I. But, as I fell deeper into the victimhood of an obsessive love for all shades of blonde, I succumbed to sew-in life. And now I’m being gently nudged to consider wigs. But ugh, as Tenika B says… that screen door (or lace, as you girls call it). I’ll come back to this. For now, sew-ins. But by summer, I need a plan that does not include those deceptive ass protective style goddess braids. Jesus, release me from those braids!
A white woman died yesterday. Shot in the face. This country is the country that I have been fighting for since the day my mother died. On that uncharacteristically warm day in 1999, I was catapulted into a future that revealed entirely too much too soon. I knew, spiritually and cellularly, from 12 years old, that this country — this place of white supremacy and class war and otherness — would aim to tear down every facet of humanity and art that it possibly could before taking its last breath. America, a reckless cancer.
Oh, maybe that is what Beyoncé will name Act III? Can I afford another act? I’ll think about this later. Maybe I’ll sell a bag on The Real Real and get tickets in Paris.
My baby will start kindergarten in this country soon. I consider sacrificing the already worn-down, neglected elements of my soul to find a way to earn a little more corporately. That way, I can send him to a private school. I hate the thought of it, but the thought is up and stuck, anchored by fear that the neighborhood public school is too accessible to deranged, gun-wielding men. The same neighborhood that, on many days, I feel like my husband and I fought for our lives to get into. One of the nicest neighborhoods in America, they say. But what’s nice when you can shoot a woman in the face in Minnesota?
Dishes. Laundry. Housekeeping. Text back. Network. Start a side gig. Reach out to that sick friend. Duplicate. Check out that new album. Call family. Thank my Dad. Schedule more therapy. Sign up for my own dance class. Fuck, start saving more. Stop shopping. Be inspired by my son. Multiply. Couples trip. Summer plans. Sleep train them, again. Am I pregnant? See my doctor, get blood tests. Expand. Is my mind the epitome of uncontrolled thoughts growing and growing?
I’m not done. I am nowhere near done. Because there is something, above all else, that I cannot stop thinking about and have been dying to talk about.
I want to talk about the political and economic state of the world. I do. I want to talk to you about how it started. How we got here. How we became people like this, with uncontrolled chaos inside and out. I want to start from the beginning.
I want to talk about when the water broke.