The Deck of Life (Life's Card Game)

2019 has been interesting, to say the least. Filled with ups and downs I wasn’t fully anticipating. I learned I still have a lot to work on in relation to what I try to control. I realized I still couldn’t help but try to control where, how, and when my happiness came. It’s mostly because it feels as though there’s too much happiness in the world that somehow seems to be missing me though.

I watched it everywhere. I saw all of the people in my life that are faring well. That have minimal problems (and truth be told. It’s always been that way for them). They were blessed to not have a certain set of cards in life. The shitty set. The cards from the shitty set. Those are the ones I’m talking about. They also were blessed to not have to play the shitty game. Their game is a little easier by default. It’s designed for them to endure minimal damage.

Those are the cards I want to deal out to my children. Mostly because those are the cards my parents dealt me. I don’t necessarily have a whole shitty set either. I have a shitty deck to draw from, yet somehow, I still manage to pull decent or mind-blowingly good cards. You see, I have a life that a lot of people can relate to. My parents did the best they could. They made their sacrifices to afford me all that I have. The shitty parts were the childhood traumas that came along. The ones that I don’t think they ever intended to have happen. For instance, my dad dying when I was 11. I don’t think he intended to only be around for the first 11 years of my life. In fact, he comes from a family of longevity, so I can see how he probably thought otherwise. Or my mother not being around much and missing out on events that were special to and for me. 

It’s taken me a long time to accept that fate and part of life was always meant to be, for me. Mostly because those are the parts of life that have truly shaped my character. How I dealt with the bad. What it made my life and attitude like after. For many years, I was angry. I was angry at the world, I was angry with my parents, and I was angry with other people for constantly misunderstanding me and my life. Then I realized, they only misunderstood it because I wasn’t open about what was happening. I kept a lot to myself. I didn’t want to let a lot of people in because it was too much to explain. How could I explain to them that my life was complicated, and it was mostly because I had a family that was anything but traditional? I was living two separate lives and I couldn’t and didn’t ever really know how to explain it. I didn’t ever fully relate to most of the kids I was around, because not only was I living two separate lives, I was living two polar opposite lives. 

One that took place in SoHo, on West Broadway between Prince and Spring. And another that took place in Clinton Hill, in the 90s and early ’00s? I didn’t move to SoHo until I was 9 years old. I left my Brooklyn private catholic school to attend a public school in Greenwich Village. The school is known as “The Hippie School”. We called our teachers by their first names and when you got to 5th grade, you could even go out for lunch. I grew up in two different areas. Leading up to that, I was living in Clinton Hill. My mom moved frequently, still within the neighborhood (like on the same train line). My dad had gotten a place close to my school so I could make it to school on time and have a sense of stability. My parents weren’t together. I couldn’t even tell you about a time that my parents were together. I don’t remember them being together when I was young. I remember living in separate homes. I remember helping my mom throw my dad out. I remember when my dad got his place on Clermont. I remember moving in and having my own room. I remember being down the block from my cousins and school friends. I learned a lot of independence in that part of my life. We had a park close to our house, but I actually wasn’t allowed to go to that one. It wasn’t the safest place for kids, ironically enough. I was allowed to go to PS 11 and Lafayette parks with my cousins though. They were down the block and our parents trusted us and the neighborhood enough to let us go by ourselves once we got to about 8. 

I also got to see what racism and prejudice were like firsthand because of the dynamic in my parents’ lives. My parents split up and my dad rekindled a former flame, with a white woman. I come from a Black and Latino neighborhood in Brooklyn. A neighborhood that wasn’t necessarily the pits of the ghetto, but white people weren’t interested in those parts of Brooklyn – yet. They frowned upon my old neighborhood. Imagine being a young black girl and moving from your black neighborhood, to a white one, in SoHo. I stuck out. I was the only black kid in my building. I was one of very few black girls in the neighborhood, I think there were maybe 3 of us. I’m basing this off of the kids that I’d see at the park with me. We lived around the corner from a park on Thompson street. That park I was allowed to go to. I could even go by myself. My dad’s favorite restaurant, Bistro Les Amis, was on the corner across the street from the park. So, he’d sit outside or at the window to keep an eye on me. 

Moving to SoHo however, didn’t mean that my life in Brooklyn was suddenly over either. It just started a whole new life for me, that would run parallel to my first one. My parents had an agreement where I would return to Brooklyn, every weekend, and holidays would be split. Oddly enough, I still lived on the same train line. My dad moved from the Clinton-Washington station to the Spring Street station.  So, once I was deemed old enough in my dad’s eyes, I had to have been about 10 years old, I began taking the train by myself. It was about 6-7 stops and he rode the train with me a couple of times to make sure I knew how to do it. Then gave me my MetroCard and sent me on my way. Here I was traveling between two different worlds. Where somehow, someway, someone was going to say something disparaging about the other life. Usually unintentionally.

In my life in SoHo, most people didn’t know what was going on. People would ask my stepmom where she got me from. Inquisitive about my country of origin. They’d compliment my parents on how they were raising such a well-spoken and articulate child. The surprise on their face always made it clear that they weren’t expecting a young Black girl to “be so bright”. The stares and overall looks of confusion on people’s faces when they’d see my family together. Or the assumption that I was my dad and stepmom’s mixed child. 

It never confused me. I was raised to know and be proud of every single thing about my cultures, except for the colloquial tongue from my Black Brooklyn neighborhood. My father was strict and wouldn’t let me have an accent, of any kind. He deemed it a setback in communication. I didn’t get it when I was younger. Truth be told, I hated it. It was the reason my family made fun of me. It was the reason white kids felt like I fit in more with them and would try to comfortably erase or omit my Blackness. I “talked white”. It made living in two worlds that much harder. My two worlds didn’t even speak the same language. 

It confused other people too. They didn’t know how to “figure” me out and they would all make their own assumptions. Eventually, I got tired of explaining it to people and just started letting them believe whatever they came up with. I became the ultimate troll. You could tell me something about myself, and depending on the degree of it, I’d probably play along with your story and then go home and laugh about it later. I grew up as an only child, but that’s solely because of the age difference between my siblings and me. I also didn’t share with people anything about my life in Brooklyn.

I think it’s because a place where I once felt like home, suddenly felt foreign and like I didn’t fully belong. I felt that way in both places I grew up. Mostly because even though I was supposed to be spending time with my mom, I wasn’t. My dad would drop me off at one of my Aunt’s houses and that was the place where my mom was supposed to pick me up. She seldom came. I’d spend the entire time at one of my aunt’s houses, which had lots of perks. I have a very big family. I grew up with literally a gang of cousins, as my mom is one of twelve. My siblings didn’t always know I was there waiting. They were in their late teens and early 20s navigating through the waters of their own lives. Trying to find a way to make it big and take care of the family. So how do you explain to other kids that your mom is around, but you don’t have a relationship with her? How do you explain that kind of dynamic without painting a shitty picture of your mother to strangers? How do you protect her name and character to kids who see their mother every single day, and if not see, speak to? You don’t. You simply say nothing at all. I opted to not speak about her or my life in Brooklyn at all. It was easier that way. It was so much easier to just let people think what they wanted than to even open up that can of worms. It was also partially because my feelings were so hurt and crushed by not spending time with her. Some people assumed that my mom lost the custody battle and that she was a danger to me, and those things I always challenged. It wasn’t a true narrative at all. My mom decided on the custody agreement between my parents and she’s very loving and generous with a huge heart. Her priority was making money. She made her money the best way she knew how coming up in the hood. Which meant I didn’t get to see her much, but I never wanted for anything material-wise. I was spoiled and had any and everything I had asked for. No matter what it was, except for a pony, and a baby born. My parents explained the pony wouldn’t fit inside of our apartments and that was reason enough for me. The baby born was more of a fiscal principle my dad had. He refused to spend $50 on a fake baby that peed. Looking back at it I can’t blame him. My family never did anything to make me feel like I didn’t belong intentionally. I don’t think they realized that telling me that I talked white was ostracizing. I don’t think they realized I had frustrations regarding the way that I talked. Coupling the way that I talk with my stepmom being white, and my calling her mom as well, made it that much harder. I don’t think they realized that I had asked her if I could call her mom after she and my dad had gotten engaged. It wasn’t like I wanted to call her mom because I didn’t know who my mother was. It was the opposite. I wanted to call her mom because of the way she loved me. The way she fiercely showed up for me as if she did birth me. Similar to the way that my mom was with me when she was around. It was a strange place for my mom’s family to be in as well. I think this was the first time there was a white woman, that meant well and no harm in their lives. They didn’t know anything about her except this narrative that she had stolen my dad from my mom, which is another long and complicated story, but let’s just say that this isn’t all the way true. However, I hope by now you all get the picture I’m painting. Things weren’t easy. They were difficult. So, when I say I was picking from a shitty deck, I am referring to the parts of my life that were destined to be problematic. The parts that made growing up difficult. Having to explain to White people that they knew nothing about the people in my neighborhood or the everyday struggles and triumphs that took place. They knew nothing about the circumstances that led certain people down the roads they were on. They had a superficial knowledge of life outside of their own world. Having conversations with white adults about why they shouldn’t speak about my neighborhood in Brooklyn disparagingly, or mock Black culture wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing as a kid, but there I was, doing it. Telling adults that they couldn’t view me and overlook my Black Brooklyn upbringing. That they couldn’t praise my confidence and charm without acknowledging that it started at home in Brooklyn, in my Black and Latino neighborhood. That they couldn’t erase my blackness in exchange for my Latinidad. Or vice versa. Then my dad died, and I remained with my stepmom. Which meant I was still living two different lives. Except now, there was no middle ground between the two worlds to help me navigate. I was the middle ground. I was the piece that merged these worlds. Initially, when my dad was around, it was a little easier. He confidently spoke to me about the beauty of my cultures. He made sure I knew I was both Black and Latina. He didn’t ever separate the identities. Once he died though, I had to deal with people separating them, trying to make it seem as though one was better than the other. At 11 how do you explain to people that they’re misidentifying you? That you don’t just fit into one box and have them take you seriously? How do you explain to people that your life isn’t what they think it is? That your cultures aren’t separate? That although you’re capable of assimilating with White culture, you are not White, nor do you or have you ever felt like you wanted to be white? That you don’t enjoy speaking the way you do, because of the reason that you “have” to. There’s that shitty deck rearing its ugly head again. Just grinning at the cards that I have picked up, not recognizing that my mother, while she was seldom around, had taught me how to play.

She taught me everything that I know about making something out of little to nothing. My family has always made a way for each other, with or without money. There’s a certain love that exists in our family that is based on survival. It’s one that I haven’t seen anywhere else in my life and I cherish it so much. It powers every move that I make as an adult. It’s something that I eventually shared with my stepmother, especially after my dad passed away and we found ourselves in survival mode trying to make life work as smoothly as we could. 

I was given a tricky deck, and my parents gave me the best cards in the deck for me first. So while it wasn’t the worst, it also still wasn’t the best either.

When it was time for me to play my hand without their help, I knew how to avoid the shittier cards. I had even learned how to move up to the next game and play my hand in bigger leagues. I know how to hold my own because I watched my mother do it. When I say my mother wasn’t around, I mean that she wasn’t at school plays or basketball games. She was around the streets hustling. Turning lint into gold and dust into diamonds. I watched her move around the streets and swim with big sharks, beating them at their own game, time and time again. 

I didn’t tell people about my mother or what she did for a living. I knew they wouldn’t have understood. It was easily my strongest card in my hand. A card that no one was ever prepared for when I decided to flash it. It gave me an advantage in both worlds. 

My life deck isn’t all bad. Some days it doesn’t feel that way though.

Some days it’s hard to feel like your deck is getting better and the shitty cards are falling out when you can’t see it. When you don’t see them leaving in exchange for good cards, you feel like it’s not happening. Like you put down the shitty card you had to pick up one that’s just a little bit less shitty than that one, but it’s still not great. Those days are normal, and they will pass. 

This piece is to highlight the ways that our lives aren’t all what they seem. That most of the time behind those perfect on social media posts are real-life events that aren’t always easy to share or talk about. Don’t lose focus on what makes your life great because you’re stuck in the social media rabbit hole of someone else’s highlight reel.