Few days ago, my sister said to me, I want you to be better.
You can be better.
And I know she's right.
The truth is I am a singular person.
You can probably tell from the way I process the world and the things that I share.
It takes a lot of solitude and comfort in that seclusion for a person to be able to hear themselves so intimately and so deeply.
I find it necessary, even unavoidable, for self-awareness.
But perhaps somewhere along the way I got too comfortable.
I know a lot of people, many of whom adore me in some capacity and of whom I feel the same about.
However, I have a history of not sharing much of myself at all, not as a defense mechanism or a trauma response, but innately.
I find myself forever oscillating between visibility and retreat.
I was recently on a call with a friend of mine and she said Pearl, you know, I'm just so happy you're finally sharing yourself with us.
Before we got nothing.
It was funny, we both laughed, but I felt a bit convicted.
She's my friend, someone whom I've spent hours with exchanging hearts, and yet here she was, reflecting this tendency back to me, calling to the parts of me that still prefer the shadows.
Honey darling, Turn on the light Honey, baby.
I put on my first play in London last year and got the most pleasant surprise.
Two of my uni friends were in the audience, people I barely kept in touch with since graduating seven years ago.
But they had travelled from their cities to come see me doing what I love.
It was so touching.
I felt held by them.
And as I closed off the run of my show, There was this feeling again.
There it was again, that little tug in my chest.
While I had carried on seemingly oblivious to those connections they had remembered and they had gone out of their way to honour that remembrance.
I am incredibly good with people.
I am like a chameleon, yeah.
Even when there's anxiety and unsureness, I'm the kind of person who can insert myself anywhere, with anyone.
If I come across as unfriendly or aloof, it's simply because in that moment I do not care to be anything else.
I am someone whose presence people tend to not forget.
I can't tell you how many times someone has said you know Pearl, you said this to me years ago and I've never forgotten it.
And usually I don't even remember.
It's the space I've always occupied.
The one who breathes and speaks life.
I am the kind of person who will sit with a stranger and speak to them, like our souls have yearned for each other across lifetimes.
And yet I am also the kind of person who will leave that interaction never to be seen again.
I value community deeply.
I do.
And this is where the dichotomy arises.
There's a deep, deep clash with my wiring.
I was born this way.
Yeah.
Pondering, questioning, feeling, floating. deconstructing what it means to exist in this form.
I'm forever connecting the dots, learning new things, and he always leaves me in the same spot, completely out of my depth.
The more I learn, the less I seem to know.
And while I have come to accept that I know nothing, the knowledge that finds its way to me, the things that have been whispered into my being drive me into solitude.
Simply put my way of processing the world always keeps me hovering a little apart.
That's the reality.
And I think the balance I'm trying to find is how to honor and respect my innate wiring, my brain and my body's way of existing, while also making the effort to build this muscle, this muscle that might help me drift less.
I don't think I can ever stop floating, no.
But the goal is to build and nurture a kind of community that feels tangible, tactile.
That's what my sister was trying to say to me.
That's the tension that's been growing in my chest lately.
A week ago I sent an email to a girlfriend of mine, a friend who has made my heart warm in small and big ways.
It said, I have a wish.
I would like to spend more time with you.
I want to be more intentional about community and I want you steady in mine.
That's the extra layer of intentionality I must imbibe.
I must practice.
I use a calendar to remind myself, to do all sorts of things to eat, to change my sheets, to wash my hair, to keep life ticking.
So maybe I can use that same calendar to reach out every now and then.
It doesn't have to be every day to my wider community, whom I love, just so they know that I want them here with me in my life, in my space.
I want them deeply.
I do not believe I owe my fullness to everyone whom I come across, no.
But I do believe I do to those who have shown up with curiosity, intentionality and kindness.
Those whom I love, those who dare to love me fully.
Ask my nearest and dearest what it is like to be loved by me, and whatever they tell you will reflect this.
It's something psychedelic, it's visceral, and yet i am not one to tighten my grip around another.
Never have i felt the need to possess anyone, internally or externally.
This is the kind of love i offer and the kind i accept, even when it's not an offer.
I believe this to be good and very healthy.
People are experiences, not possessions.
But sometimes i wonder, I do, I worry?
That maybe I've held on so gently, so loosely, that those people I care about haven't even felt held at all.
The most accurate description of myself I've ever received was from another friend who said Pearl, for someone to love you truly, they have to be willing to let you go.
You're a free bird.
You come and go as you please.
I wasn't sure if she meant it as a compliment or if her heart was breaking.
I didn't ask.
I never want to be restricted.
When I die at the age of 99, I want somebody to gleefully, joyfully spread me into the ocean or hand me to the birds so they can carry me into the sky.
The thought of being confined in a box in a dark hole makes me want to weep eternally.
Oh, but even as I shared this, I am catching myself.
Community has never been a burden.
In fact, it has kept me alive.
I do remember.
I remember all those people whose lives I've passed through and who have crossed through mine.
The lady who, following the years of physical and psychological torture I had endured at the hands of mean girls, let me know that women were indeed my friends know the way she paused when i said women hate me, and there wasn't any judgment in her face.
She was quite older than me and she said pearl, do i hate you?
And she mentioned a few other people that we knew.
Do they hate you?
And i went no, and I realised I was holding on to this belief, this limiting belief, because of how awful my experience with girls and the women around me had been.
But she unlocked something in my 17-year-old brain and I walked home that night without the terror I had shown up with.
I remember the friend who adopted me in my last two years of uni, who was more interested in caring for me than in taking from me.
He was the first man who treated me like a person, like an equal.
I remember the American guy who, surrounded by blatantly racist and prejudiced Germans, went out of his way to translate for me, walk with me, stand in the gap for me as I navigated 30 days of being the only black person in sight in Mexico's Cholula.
And the co-worker turned friend who, instead of questioning my peculiarities or judging me, she just ran all the tableware under boiling hot water so I could use them.
Who showed up one day with a brand new glass mug and said, Pearl, this is for you.
You can have hot drinks now.
You don't have to share with us.
All these people passed through my life.
And while I have packed my bags over and over again from city to city, it was people like this who kept me afloat.
While I am singular, I've never truly been alone.
It's people who have helped me fix what others have tried to break.
So isn't it time I invite them along for the ride?
On my flights, in my ponderings, in my retreat, in my play.
While I don't know what this will look like for someone like me, I know that people aren't set in stone.
So yes, I will never be a person who disappears into others.
Quite frankly, I never want to be.
No one should be that way in all honesty, but I can expand to allow my loved ones space beside me.
I want to be better.
I can be better.
This is my confession.
