Piss and Sovereignty: Happiness and Success in Life

I dialed #4E on the deceivingly shiny but certainly filthy chrome keypad on the intercom to the right of the huge red door. As the dial tone came on—which always reminded me of an old fax machine—I waited for the triple beep, signaling that Aunty had pressed the appropriately named "door" button on her end of the once-cream, now-gray intercom, unlocking the door for me.

Entering the hallway, I was greeted by the familiar faint buzzing of the long, bluish-white fluorescent light bulbs that filled the lobby. The sound reminded me of those neon blue bug zappers I saw in movies, except this buzz was constant, without the satisfying zap of a dead fly hitting the ground.

Ohhh, the familiar and consistent smell of arroz con pollo, fried chicken, and weed welcomed me into the building. Some things just don’t change. I hoped the fried chicken was coming from Aunty’s house—she put her foot in her fried chicken. We all used her recipe as a base, adding our own little sumtin-sumtin to make it our own. The key was the yellow mustard we used as a binder. I liked to add a little adobo or sazón to mine, but Cousin Meeka added a little lemon pepper seasoning (that’s just because she’s bougie and got herself a white husband). Who the hell eats lemon pepper in the projects?

I glanced down at the tan linoleum floors, littered with Associated supermarket circulars, and made sure to avoid touching the cinder block walls as I walked. I always thought they were gross and treated them like the cooties—partly because who knew what the fuck was on them and partly because my mother would spaz whenever I touched anything in this lobby as a kid. Funny how, even in death, Ma still had me trained.

I looked up the stairs to my left on my way to the elevator, checking to make sure no one "interesting" in a bad way was waiting for me to turn the corner. Then, I yanked on the heavy metal elevator door (you gotta put your back into that shit).

Time for the shuffle—two steps to the right, a giant step backward, and a reach forward to press the button for the fourth floor, all while avoiding the inevitable pool of piss that always seemed to grace the floor of every project elevator I’d ever been in. The overpowering stench of piss mixed with the roach spray the Department of Housing used on the elevator walls was almost unbearable. As a kid, I used to hold my breath the entire way up to the fourth floor. That's kind of a metaphor when you think about it. Are you holding your breath on our way "up"?

When the elevator doors opened, I shuffled back the way I came, making sure not to get any of the greasy roach spray on my fly new cream-colored cape. A bitch was doing her Olivia Pope shit today! At least, that’s what my staff called it. I’d take it—who wouldn’t want to be likened to Kerry Washington? I knew they, least of all, would understand how I came from this, why I came back to it over and over again, and why I always would.

Raising my hand, I lifted the square door knocker connected to the peephole on Aunty’s door. As she opened it, a waft of fried chicken from the big cast iron pot on the stove hit me in the face. There’s nothing like home.

As I entered the apartment, I wrapped my arms around Aunty’s warm, voluminous body, embracing her in a hug. As wrong as it might feel to describe a person as "squishy," it’s oddly appropriate for those of us “carrying a little extra juice”, as I like to say. I remember the first time my son Jah called me squishy—he must have been four or five. I was like, ummm, not exactly my favorite adjective, my son. To this day, he’s still drawn to burying his head in the soft bulge of my war-torn abdomen, covered in stretch marks from the three spawn I gave birth to, hanging from the front of my body like most women my age. I’ve learned there aren’t enough crunches in the world to get rid of a mother’s FUPA.

I see women in the gym putting their bodies through agony on that mat, hoping for a flat belly. Hopeless. I don’t know what Jah’s fascination is with my belly, but he still loves to press his soft little cheek against it. It’s sweet—and tickles a little. It’s about the only sweet thing about that boy.

I planted a kiss on Aunty’s soft, wrinkle-free cheek. Even after 13 surgeries, losing all but her front teeth, and turning 76 last year, you still couldn’t tell how old she was just by looking at her. Black don’t crack for real! And the new phrase Carla taught me the other day—what her and her Latina friends say—"Beige doesn’t age." That shit was hilarious!

Shit… if all us folks of color have these colorism remnants left over from colonialism, what the hell do white people say? Oh yeah, they supposedly set the standard for beauty—which I find hilarious, because white women (poor babes) start aging faster than any woman of color.

As soon as I sat down on the plastic-covered Victorian-style couch, Aunty launched into what was going wrong with her health—and in the same breath, how blessed she was by God. I reached my dirty hand for some of the golden fried chicken on her plate, and she smacked the top of my hand.

"Go wash your hands, nasty!" she said, giving me a disgusted look.

"Oh yeah, my bad, Aunty. I had to touch those elevator doors," I said while making my way down the hall of her three-bedroom apartment. Her house had seemed so big when I was a kid, when me and my little cousins used to play here. It’s crazy how “big" the important people and places in your childhood seem until you grow up and see them through a new lens. They become small and lackluster. Life is funny that way, or maybe not that funny because a lot of things start feeling small and lackluster as you grow older. Primarily life itself.?

I had so much riding on my future as a kid, pushing all the evidence of not having enough into a container on a shelf and instead anchoring all my "hope for a better past"—as Jack Kornfield calls the act of not forgiving what has happened to us—onto the bullshit American ideal that if I worked hard enough, I could have everything I wanted. Well, from one hard-working Black woman to another, how’d that work out for you?

[In my best The Color Purple rendition] "I’ve been striving all my life!"—and all it has gotten me is a therapist. I genuinely believed that little Black girls from Harlem like me could make dreams come true if we were willing to do the work. Two degrees, a divorce, and an empty savings account later, I know now that it takes far more than striving and hard work to "make it." In fact, it takes reinventing what the hell "make it" even means to find some kind of peace and happiness in this world that can seem like it's rigged against us.

I’ve finally realized that success is not a destination where you arrive and then get to rest. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s always moving, pushing us to return to the truth of who we are, to source. We spend our lives kicking and screaming, trying to hold on to some kind of security or ideal in order to "feel" happy—only to have that sense of accomplishment replaced by wanting something else. Clinging to ideas, beliefs, desires, and aversions is literally the antagonist to our peace. And peace is really the only form of lasting happiness, because life is full of challenges. If we can learn to remain unshaken, firmly grounded in the peace of non-reactivity to the BS, that’s the source of unending happiness—unlike that fleeting Disney World happiness that comes like a lightning bolt and disappears just as fast.

The newest bag, the hottest dude, the biggest house, the tightest body, the highest-paying job—all these shiny worldly things can be taken from us in an instant. Have you ever been curled up in a ball on the floor, reeling from the loss of one of your shiny things? I know I have. The feeling is unbearable. The self-criticism is relentless. And the happiness is simply gone. Striving to "get" things only brings temporary happiness—and almost certain pain when they are lost. Peace, however, is yours. No one can take it away unless you give it to them.

Peace is my power. Being able to look my failures and mistakes in the face, standing on peace instead of running toward the bottom of an empty wine glass, is the greatest power I have yet to experience. Meeting myself with kindness and understanding in times of loss instead of anger and blame feels infinitely better. The peace we can cultivate in the face of any challenge gives me more hope than the promise of a better future. Why? Because I can’t control or guarantee a better future, but I can incrementally grow my peace on the inside, day in and day out, so that it shows up for me when it matters most.

I can reclaim my sovereignty by choosing the intention not to react to life as if disappointment, pain, or lack is personal. Notice I said I can choose the intention not to react. This gives me room to fail sometimes and not beat myself up. I just keep leaning into that intention, moment to moment—to not react with wanting things to be different or rejecting what is. If I fail, I can still love me. If I succeed, I can still love me. I’m loving the me that is these days, not striving for the idea of what I must become to be enough. ?Defining one's own life's success and happiness is a powerful decision!

Reclaim your sovereignty. Let go of the striving. Understand that sometimes, you just have to step over the piss in the elevator, its not going anywhere. And for the love of God, accept what is—because it’s already here.