Holding My Identity in Liminal Space

I don’t mind living in a liminal space within the diaspora.

In fact, I’ve come to cherish it. There’s a certain freedom in refusing to flatten myself to fit the definitions offered by others, whether those definitions are handed down by people who look like me & claim the same ancestral root, or whether they don't. Living at the crossroads — of culture, of identity, of experience — can feel destabilizing, at times. But with the right grounding, it becomes sacred terrain.

What I do mind, though, is when others project their understanding of this liminal space onto me as if it’s law. When they take their version of Blackness, spirituality, womanhood, grief, or resistance and assume that I must move in kind. As if my story doesn’t count unless it echoes their worldview.

So I’ve placed my boundary firmly there, and I’m good with keeping it. People are welcome to interpret their own worlds, but they are not entitled to overwrite mine.

For me, epigenetics and lived experiences will always outweigh theories and assumptions. That’s not just a philosophical stance — it’s a scientific one. My body remembers what my ancestors survived. My nervous system has been shaped by generational echoes and environmental truths that most textbooks don’t account for. And what I’ve walked through personally? It can’t be debated or redefined by someone who’s only watched from the outside.

(Thanks, SECME. 👩🏾‍🔬😆 You taught me the joy of science and the necessity of observation. You taught me to test theories, not turn them into gospel.)

So, no — I will not be adding syllables to, nor altering how I define, my lived experiences for anyone else’s comfort. I won’t shrink, code-switch, or contort to make my journey more palatable or legible to those who are unwilling to listen with care. I don’t need to be universally understood to be valid.

IDGAF who tf they are, nor what group they belong to. That includes systems, that includes subcultures, and that includes any collective that treats rigidity like safety, and treats divergence like betrayal.

I have learned to trust the pulse of truth that lives in my chest. To choose softness when it serves me, and steel when it doesn't. To hold joy as both resistance and refuge. And to treat my presence — in any room, culture, or timeline — as inherently meaningful.

So, here I am: a whole self in a shifting world.

Just… being: deeply and unapologetically.

And, honestly? That’s enough.