My Name Is Jezebel
A Black Eyed Story
Mickalene Thomas – This Girl Could Be Dangerous
Find an (imperfect but heartfelt) audio reading of this Black Eyed Story above.
PART ONE:
BEFORE I WAS A JEZEBEL, I WAS A WIFE WHO WAS AN OUTSIDER
Three Christmases ago, my sister-in-law sent me a text asking what I thought about forgoing traditional gift-giving and instead having a white elephant gift exchange for our family celebration. Now, I knew the expected response needed to be “I love it!”
But y’all, as I said to my husband, “We’re grown. They’ve been through some things and we’ve been through some things. Plus we’ve all been through a whole ass pandemic. I don’t want to keep of the natural order of obligatory nonsense. I’m just going to be honest.” To which he said, “Okay… okay… but just know it’s not going to go over well.”
I didn’t heed the warning.
For the first 14 years of our marriage, I’d heeded every one of his warnings and held my tongue and went along just to get along. But not this time. This time, as a grown-ass 52-year-old woman (and might I add, pandemic survivor), I no longer wanted to waste time being untrue to myself or others. I would text my truth with clarity and kindness:
“Hey there—it’s been a hard year. I would love if we could maybe take the money we would spend on gifts and spend it on a fun family outing. Our kids are all grown up. I really don’t feel comfortable buying a gag gift for your girls as it’s been a minute since I’ve spent any real time with them. Plus, god knows, I have enough stuff as it is and I’d love a break this year. But let me know what you think.”
Welp. She didn’t let me know what she thought. Instead, she called my husband and went on a 45 minute tirade about how I was breaking up the family like I’ve always done. I won’t go into all the details that followed except to tell you Christmas was cancelled - correction: my husband’s family cancelled us for Christmas. The gathering that was supposed to take place at my sister-in-law’s home just an hour away from our home would now be hosted by my in-laws in Texas. We were “invited” to join them, but they’d “forgotten” that in September we’d already told my husband’s mom and dad we couldn't travel for the holidays which was the whole reason they’d planned to come north in the first place.
Okay… okay… so this story is all true and like most family dramas, it’s a saga. We don’t have time for all the he said/she said, we said/they said. All you need to know is that from this one bumpy moment, my sister-in-law hasn’t spoken to me since then. I’ve sent emails, texts, voicemails. I’ve been told my attempts are stressful and unwelcome. My endeavors to understand her side of things and explain my own have been called manipulative.
Inevitably, my husband’s parents got involved, hearing out my sister-in-law’s woes (we suspect she called them as soon as she hung up with my husband). Over the phone, over text and in emails, they told my husband that my sister-in-law, whom I hadn’t spent more than an hour alone with in over 8 years, had a long list of valid grievances against me. Not only did they side with her, proving blood is indeed thicker than water, but my beef with her plus our kid’s recent coming out, made them question my theology. When my husband asked his parents if we could just FaceTime, as we had been doing throughout the pandemic and our recent move, they refused. My father-in-law feared I’d attempt to “brainwash” them just as I’d “brainwashed” my husband. Hard to believe that a week prior to the debacle, we’d virtually watched The Great British Baking Show with them – cracking jokes via text, each of us signing off with “Love you” and “Goodnight” and “Miss you.” Now, all of a sudden, there was all this animosity towards me hatched from that one cracked text exchange over Christmas gifts.
My sister-in-law and I had never had a problem before this. Quite the opposite. I met her brother, soon-to-be-love-of-my-life, after joining her bible study group. We clicked. I was her Anne Shirley, fanciful and carefree. She was my Diana Barry, sensible and demure. Her kids were like cousins to my kid. Our apartments were within 10 minutes walking distance, so we saw each other almost daily. We became like family. It was only a matter of time before I met her actual family. One sunny October afternoon, I met Simon, who’d come up from Texas to visit her for her birthday party. It was love at first smile. Within a year, and with her blessing, her girls were my bridesmaids and my kid (pre-coming out as trans) was my maid of honor.
When I moved to Texas, her family became my family which was great. I felt it was genuine except for a niggling thing my mother-in-law had said to me: “I don’t see color.” I tried to tell myself that she meant well, but just in case, I quickly learned how to turn down the most blackety-Black parts of me in order not to offend the most stiff-upper-lipped-British-English parts of them. I knew what those words meant: they could be 100% English and I could be… well… I should be 100% grateful just to be part of them.