Death Before Dishonor: Drowning Inward to Elevate
2020 C2C PROCESS NOTES I used to fear asking questions.
Since age 9, I remember feeling scared, isolated and fucking crazy due to things I felt and thought. The questions that were developed from those thoughts/feelings lead me to produce truths I could NOT speak. This was the inception of knowledge being a trap for my Black body. I could always find sanctuary in my head, leaving my body to deal with the world. This was a consequence of me asking for therapy due to stress. My muse, my mother, swiftly and quickly shut my request down. Why I was stressed is a whole different and other debacle. At that age, my mother’s rejection had me VEX. The way my inner child sees it, I showed vulnerability and it was disregarded. I felt disregarded and stupid. NEVER did I want to feel or look stupid like that again. It’s said that experience is the best teacher. That moment, for a long time was one of my greatest life lessons: keep shit to yourself. Currently, I’m experiencing the deja vu that arises when you realize hindsight is really 20/20, suffering in silence isn’t what I would call smart... however, suffering in silence in exchange for survival is what I had been taught and that hurt protected me.
When preparing to be a vendor at the 2019 debut of the C2C Open Studio, I was challenged (it felt like a challenge, let’s be clear I was mortified more than ANYTHING) with the question of: What’s not working? Who the fuck wants to WILLINGLY think about that? Answering that question, as it pertained to the life, I was literally breathing in at that moment was unnerving! My nervous system had taken a stray bullet. My ego, Anna, was not happy the night I received the text message containing that question. However, considering how much I loved the person it came from and knowing their love for me, which is: maternal, nurturing and thought provoking, I put Anna in timeout and I asked myself “are you not happy with the question or are not happy with what’s not working?” I answered that night and multiple things about, in and of me have died since. An internal, eternal slaughter of survival and self-betrayal. As a 2020 cohort MEMBER, (yup, I’m geeked and grateful AF! our inner child is twerking and the track she’s dancing to is Juvenile’s “Back That Ass Up”) when asked this year: what are you willing to do? Immediately, the answer was death. I, Perpetual Anastasia Adjowa Baiswa Hayfron, am willing to D.I.E (Drowning Inward to Elevate).
Drowning is just one of many ways to die. I’ve been dying for a while now. Unconsciously, killing myself softly, piece by piece, since I was a little girl. As a child I was old enough to be wise, yet too young to be heard. The age of 9, was also when I first starting questioning my mother’s longtime boyfriend... Jesus. The sanctity of the Catholic Church was also in question and the truth of religion not being my ministry was unavoidable. I KNEW better than to ask any questions or say how I felt. If I did, I’d be questioned by her on who and where I received the nerve to ask such questions. Growing up, I had overheard my mother say to others “Perpetual got nerve” when she was annoyed with me. As we got older, she began saying it directly to me. By 14, we moved out (how’s that for nerve, sis!?). The part of me that was worried about what my mother thought about me and the fear of her reaction had died. I was more fearful of what we would do if we stayed. Writing this, I realize that there was no fertile ground for us to bear fruit from at that time. For 14 years, I had unconsciously gathered and weaponized our mother’s words, fears, stories, and experiences in preparation for us to navigate the world outside our home. I was determined for us to not to be like her and was prepared to wield my weapons accordingly. The determination of my ego, solidified my mother being a four-year chip on my shoulder, until I learned the toxicity of pride and the power of forgiveness at 18. This was when my ego specifically, began to die. But not without a fight, my ego hates death.
As previously mentioned, my name is Anna. I store knowledge as weapons of mass destruction and I am “technically” never wrong. Everything is personal to me, I’m very sensitive and I can spin a false narrative (that you will believe without question) faster than you can say “boo”. When I deliver an argument there’s no sense in attempting a rebuttal. My mother despises me (apples don’t fall far from the trees sis!) and I despise her right back. I forgive but I never forget. Aside from my skin, Anna is the darkest part of me. Being old enough to be wise, yet too young to be heard became dangerous when I was a teenager. Anna always fiercely protected me from being completely enveloped in those feelings. She ensured I stayed on the survival track by any means necessary, and that I looked flawless doing it. After protecting me for so long, co-existing with my love and light isn’t a favorable accommodation for Anna. Presently, my intuition and my DIVINITY want her dead.
C2C is fertile breeding ground for the rebirth of my divinity. One of my many horcruxes. My ego was the seed I chose and NEEDED to plant. Technically, you could say I’m a 1st degree murderer. By definition, I premeditated and KNOWINGLY buried Anna alive. In the words of one of my favorite rappers from childhood, Jadakiss:
“Wise has awoken
And you know they say that you deserved it whenever you die with your eyes open”
Welcome to my resurrection. Rest in power Anna. I’ll always love you.