Hey friends,

Chris here again, and I’m processing. I just might cry sharing this. This is Profess, something I made in 2020 when I finally had to face where I came from. Every note isn't correct but all the words mean something, and now you'll understand why.

https://soundcloud.com/christourfer/sets/profess?si=fb54cead1aa04c3c80c97b61886b3190&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

I've been working on something I'm calling the transition resume. Not for a job, not for anyone else, just for me, a document that maps every major shift in my life like a job history, because I've noticed that the self critic doesn't show up when things are hard, it shows up when things are changing. I got through two entries and then I stopped. The first years were easy to write, I had the music, I had Profess, I had a container for all of it. But 16, 17, 18, those years are packed in a way I don't have words for yet. So much life happened and how I dealt with it all, I'm still figuring out. I stop at the edge of those years like there's a door I'm not ready to open.

The critic showed up right on schedule. It said what it always says, these are your thoughts, they belong to you, nobody needs to hear this. And I recognized the voice this time, because it's an old one. It's the same voice that told me, at seven, at thirteen, at sixteen, that what was happening to me was mine to carry alone. That the value of my life could only be seen and appreciated by me. I used to believe that. I crumbled under it. But I talk back now, and what I say is this, the things I've survived and learned and felt are worth something to someone I haven't met yet, and if I stay quiet to protect myself from being seen, I'm doing them the same disservice that silence did to me.

Long story short. Im tired of living like Brittany, a slave for you, I won’t be. My black queer identify does exists, and not only does it exist, it matters.

My experience matters. It doesn’t mean that, the world is still loud and I'm still figuring out how to be in it without shrinking. What I know is that the practice of writing this, even when it scares me, even when the critic is in full voice, is the work. Not the polished version, not the resolved version, the actual sitting in it and looking around version. I've got to grieve this past, love this past, find a way to be okay with the fact that some of it still doesn't have words. I'm not hiding anything. I'm just still learning to look.

This month's question:

Do you have a critic that bothers you sometimes, and do you know where it learned its voice?