I remember when I was younger and I was at basketball practice. I was nervous pretty frequently, and so I would laugh to diffuse the tension within myself. My dad was there supervising or being an assistant coach or something. Idk. But—and I remember this very clearly—the coach told me to stop smiling because “it makes you look weak.” I looked to my dad for some sort of support and he just shrugged. Fortunately, I didn’t internalize that message.
But I always remember that moment as someone trying to crush some of the boyish joy I had in life. Like, yeah, I was nervous, and laughter seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution. But my father and the coach had grown up in a very, very different environment where moments of happiness weren’t nearly as abundant as they were in my life.
For reference, my father grew up in Atlanta, GA during the Civil Rights Era as an African American. So, it definitely wasn’t all snips, snails, and puppy-dog tails. My coach (also an African American and about my dad’s age) and my father’s emotional self-mutilation was an act of survival. I get that.
But still, looking back, it sucks a lot that they reinforced that sense of danger they’d internalized over the course of their lives and tried to pass it on to me. What sucks even more is that, while I didn’t internalize that particularly patriarchal message, I did internalize others.
I just want to be happy and feel safe. Why is that so much to ask?