Amena:
(silence)
Amena:
Last episode I talked with my friend Celita about the time in our lives where we experienced a breakup in our friendship, this episode is part two of that conversation. Celita and I talk about all the twists and turns our lives made during the time after our friendship ended and we discuss what happened that brought our friendship back together, check it out.
Amena:
Okay. Right here y'all while we're talking through the, I think they call it the black box when a plane has a crash and they go back and they listen to what happened here, if black box is what it's called, we're at the point where now we're at the friendship break.
Amena:
Yes. At this point we are both 24, 25 years old, we are going to get to where the friendship reconnects itself but a long period goes by before it does, over 10 years of time goes by of a break, which of all of the friends I've ever had in my life, that's the longest break that I can ever say I've had with a friend that the friendship actually returned. Most times when you have a friend breakup and I've had many and you have too, that's that, you don't see that person-
Celita:
Maybe that person doesn't hold enough value, if you're completely honest, you realize that prison ain't holding enough value first to really put any real energy into rekindling this. It was literally 13 years that went by and over that time, we had moments, little small moments all over that 13 year period where we were both reminded that this person means a lot to me.
Amena:
Yeah, like the feelings. Okay. Can you track for me and our listeners in the living room here? Well, I'm like wiping my little 41 years old tears.
Celita:
I don't know what that is, it's a little dusty in here.
Amena:
I swear it's so hard right now. We're tangentially on the very far periphery of each other's lives for 13 years, still like at this time we've joined Facebook, there were still some things I see there, we were still both in the Poetry Community in Atlanta, I would see you there sometimes, but otherwise a whole lot of life went by for both of us. Can you track from '04, '05, to us reconnecting around 2017 time, what is happening in your life during that time?
Celita:
Oh, my goodness. Well first, you cannot put all your friend weight on the remaining friend, you just can't do that. I just want to say, I don't think at 40, we're both 40 now, you realize you're mature now, you realize there's some things that, you've learned some things, you've seen some life, you've experienced some things and you don't realize how young twenties is until much later, when you are 20 something, you think that you are a grown and you think that you know things and you think that you are supposed to have known these things and that you're supposed to have known how to interact with your friends and how to create healthy, emotional boundaries and how to be a healthy and clear communicator. You think, "I'm 24, isn't that something I'm supposed to have mastered by now?"
Amena:
Yeah, I've been doing that since I was 15, right? Did I?
Celita:
Right. But once I hit into my thirties I look back and realize, "I was young, we were young." Just to give ourselves an opportunity to look back and be like, "We still had a lot of life to experience and learn." Part of that, one thing I hadn't learned yet was just not to overwhelm your friend. After you were out of the picture, I had one really close friend left that I had a natural rhythm with and everything went on her and that was too much, it was way too much and it damaged us.
Celita:
Now you have Celita age 25, all of my closest friends that I had in college, no more, and I don't know how to emotionally regulate. I don't know how to live my life, I don't know what it looks like because my whole Atlanta time has been spent with y'all in some way, shape or form. I went through a lot of things, like on the interpersonal emotional side I entered into depression, really bad depression for the first time, I went to therapy for the first time, I had to learn to deal with that, I went into a recovery program for a myriad of different things we'll get into. That was happening on the rebuild yourself as a human side, then professionally and ministry wise I felt like I was in my prime. Some of the most exciting moments of my life were happening in parallel to me disconnecting with you guys and then trying to deal with my own healing. I then became a full-time employee of that church, which is what I always wanted to do, full-time ministry, let's do it-
Amena:
We had talked about it so much when we were in college, that was my dream to be in full-time ministry.
Celita:
Yes, we were looking up to the people that were doing that or the people that were teachers but also trying to do full-time ministry and being like, "No, we're actually going to get paid to do ministry, we're not going to have to do another job."
Celita:
Being excited that I had fulfilled that goal, it was also an IT position, now I'm actually using my degree and my spoken word career also began to really take off, like as my poems became more vulnerable, because we went to that open mic together, were we in college or was it post-college? It was a little post-college, we went to this open mic and Cola Rum, amazing spoken word-
Amena:
Oh no, that was in college, when we saw Cola, that was early in our college time, yes. Shout out to Cola Rum too.
Celita:
Oh my goodness, and we went to open mic and it was dark and smokey and hazy in there, we got on the stage and did our poems thinking we were killing it, he came up behind us and was like, "When you get up on this stage, let me tell you something. Y'all young in college aren't you? Y'all in college? Yeah, you ain't lived. When you get up on a stage, you bare your mother bleep soul and you all did not bear your soul."
Celita:
Hadn't learned it, but post friend breakup, emotional turmoil, depression, recovery, I knew how to bare my soul. My poems were off the chain at that point, I was getting bookings... First of all, I was being asked to speak at that church which when we started in college, no one had ever heard of it, which was now a 6,000 member mega church by this time, being on stage was a privilege and I'm honing my craft and speaking to four and five services a day, and then speaking at all these recovery institutions around Atlanta, because they heard my story and heard that I executed my story via poem, they wanted to hear it so I was being booked for that and then being booked for more of that large white ministry [crosstalk 00:08:15] other churches redacted-
Amena:
Although the more we talk, the more I think that I don't want to redact, but I will for now.
Celita:
I don't know, we'll think it through. Then other churches being booked at, and feeling what that's like, that was really cool. Then transitioning from the church while I was in my IT job, you realize something was changing, that's when it became clear... You had some notion years earlier do some other things but it was at that time that it was becoming clear to me that the leadership was not all that they had cut out to be, so I recognized that I needed to go.
Celita:
I had actually started getting my masters in professional counseling, because I was like, "Oh, I need to help people, I've been through a lot, I want to help other people transition through a lot and I'm going to quit this job. I don't have another job, I'm in school full-time, I'm just going to quit." I saved up all my money, paid off my credit card, paid off my car, had a friend of mine take over my lease at my apartment, partnered with another friend and said, "Can I sleep on your couch and I'm going to quit my job and I have an income," and she was like, "Yes, you can come live and sleep on this futon in my house." I severely lowered my financial imprint and got out of there, because it was becoming that unhealthy.
Celita:
But I'll just pause here to say, and this speaks to a way that you showed up for me later, part of the reason I was in recovery and part of the things that I was going to help other people deal with, with my counseling degree was dealing with your sexuality, dealing with how you interact with this world and your faith. At that time, I knew that I was attracted to women and also the message was, "That's wrong. I don't know what you need to do with that, but you cannot live that lifestyle."
Celita:
Here I was trying to navigate the fact that I knew what was inside of me but I couldn't execute it, but this was making me sad, clinically sad, and showing up in very unhealthy ways of my life and here I am going through all these programs, being asked to go to ex-gay ministry programs and work on that and fast that away and pray that away, write a spoken word poem about it. If I go back and listen to so many of my old poems in some way, shape or form, I was talking about this subject, but I was doing all that because I'm thinking, "I'm going to deny this part of myself and pursue my faith," but I recognized that there are younger people coming up after me who are same sex attracted, you cannot see my air quotes listeners but I'm putting up large air quotes, because I can't believe the language that we used.
Celita:
I feel like I need to be able to create a safe space for people who are Christian and queer and give them an opportunity to talk about how they're going to navigate their sexuality in their faith. That's why I became a counselor or was pursuing my degree to become a counselor.
Celita:
All of this is happening at one time, leaving the church and I had a friend who worked for Apple and got me a job at the local Apple store, just so I can pay my phone bill and gas in the midst of all of this. My career really took off from that, getting in the Apple store and becoming what they called an Apple genius and a certified Apple Mac technician, then opened the door for me to get a corporate IT Apple position. My professional career has really skyrocketed ever since that move, leaving the church, finally cutting my ties with that.
Celita:
I just want to clarify for anybody listening, when I say I'm talking about that physical building at that moment and not like the body of Christ, but that building at that moment, that environment became so unhealthy that it was the leaving that created so much freedom. From there, because I'm now out of this ministry that told me I couldn't date or didn't give a safe environment where I could date or didn't allow me to feel free to go out and meet people, now that I've left and am doing my thing, I'm thinking, "Oh, why don't I try online dating?" Because I've rejected my sexuality so I'm saying, "It's my responsibility to pursue heterosexuality in my faith but I'm also going to create a safe space for other people that want to pursue their queerness in their Christianity.
Celita:
I'm like, "I'm going to date a man," and I go online, I meet a guy who becomes my husband, I tell him everything, he knows everything, but this is part of that journey in that 13 year period, was all that transition away from that church, getting into a really good tech professional space, meeting my husband, getting married, having a baby, all of that is happening while you and I are not regularly communicating with each other. Buy my first house, all of that happens in my space. What's going on in your world?
Amena:
Y'all, this is why you don't bring your friends on your podcast, [crosstalk 00:13:44]. I'm over here in my my feelings just hearing you tell me this because some of it I knew tangentially because we still had so many mutual friends. There would be times that I might connect with them and that somehow they'd be like, "Yeah, I met up with Celita, and we..." and then I would be like, "Oh, she's working at Apple now, okay, that's cool." Or seeing on Facebook when you got married, getting to hear you fill in the blanks of what I was able to ascertain from a distance.
Amena:
On my side, after our friend breakup, while I was processing what to do that led up to our friend breakup, things were shaky with me at the church, because I got privy to some information because of other friends I had that went to church there and then had been going to church there much longer than me, I was privy to the back end of Disney World a little sooner. At first I was like, "I don't like what it's like back here, there's some things going on back here that ain't right," but I thought to myself, when I'm in the service or with other people in the community, this place is still helping people because the church we were going to was definitely drawing a lot of young Black folks, some who had grown up in traditional Black churches that had not been in church for a while, some who had never grown up in church or been around that and this was their first introduction to Jesus, to church, to anything. There seem to be a lot of good in that, the community seemed to be the saving grace for some people.
Amena:
I stayed even after discovering some things behind the scenes weren't right, I stayed because I was like, "Well, I can still do good in this little corner." I was working in the college ministry, I was the right hand person to the college ministry leader who was also a friend of ours that we had gone to school with too. I was like, "I'm just going to stay and just not go on Sundays and Wednesdays, I'll just stay and do only this college stuff," because I loved college students, I still do.
Amena:
I was in that weird place where I was disconnecting from the church, and I knew that we were all so invested in the church that I felt like as my friends, I wasn't sure if it was right or okay for me to tell y'all what I knew, because then if I told you what I knew, I knew that it would have tarnished your view of the leadership. I didn't know if that was my responsibility to tarnish it for you or if I needed to wait for you to see it yourself. Of course, the way a lot of us grew up in traditional Black church, you don't speak against the leadership, you even telling the truth about what a leader has done could still be misconstrued as you're gossiping or you're talking against the man of God or the woman of God, I grew up in that space.
Amena:
As I realized, some things were shitty under there, I didn't know who to talk to about it because I didn't know if it was good to tell you all, and that also made me feel lonely and made me feel like, "Well, how can I keep kicking it with them and if I know this." That was a part of my distance.
Amena:
I kept doing my college ministry stuff and then some other things went on behind the scenes that also happened in public spaces at the church and it was in those moments that I knew I was going to have to leave, and that I knew when I left I still wouldn't be able to tell my friends exactly why I was leaving and because the church we were going to was unhealthy, it meant that when you left, whatever your reasons, it was going to be construed to people that something was wrong with you, that you were living a life of sin, or you were going through something where you weren't trying to be close to God, you was trying to be rebellious, you was whatever.
Amena:
I knew that was going to happen and I knew that that meant, because I had watched other people leave our church and we were indirectly being told not to be connected to them, that it would be bad for us spiritually to be connected to them because they weren't trying to be in line with the church. I anticipated that was going to happen in my friendships too.
Amena:
Then I left, probably it had to be within the year that the friendship breakup happened. I left and it was a very hard time, I remember almost being like, "I don't know who I am and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to have a relationship with God, without all these other people's voices and hands in it." We came from this Christian type tradition where it was like, you're supposed to be having quiet time every morning before you go to your job, you're supposed to wake up early and read your Bible and pray this prayer and make these notes in your journal, I don't say that to minimize the spiritual practice of folks, I say that to say it wasn't as important that moment be authentic always, it was really like, you needed to have this routine and after a while, I didn't even question, is that what I really want to do? Is that the only way? Do quiet time be in the Bible because I don't even remember that phrase.
Amena:
Being in there, sometimes people pray in the morning, sometimes they pray at night and sometimes they ask God to kill their enemies, I don't understand it. I feel like that first year I was wrecked, I was wrecked that I felt like I had to leave my friends and that I couldn't tell them why I left and that I couldn't even defend what they might be told about why I was leaving, I was wrecked about that. I was wrecked that I felt I had given some good years to the church and the ministry and I had missed out on a lot because of that, I had missed out on dating, I had missed out on a whole city of arts because my ass was too busy in church to actually experience the city.
Amena:
I also went to therapy for the first time during that time and dealt with all this. You'd be going to therapy for one thing, your therapist be like, "Also, we need to talk about this and this and this," you'd be like, "But I came here to talk about this," and she like, "We can talk about that, so we also talk about these things." It was like, "Let's talk about the church, let's also talk about your dad, let's also talk about..." It was a lot of healing, like what you were experiencing. I was out about in the world as a grown adult who could drink for the first time, that was also a thing in our church ministry thing, if you were in leadership, you weren't allowed to drink and really you weren't allowed to drink publicly or around other people-
Celita:
It's probably what it really was.
Amena:
Yeah. I remember being in conversation with people where they would name redacted pastor of the church and they would be like, "You wouldn't want to be at the club and pastor so-and-so see you there, you wouldn't want to be drinking wine at the restaurant and he see you there," and I never questioned, first of all, why he in the club? Second of all, why is it important if he see me? God literally be everywhere.
Amena:
A lot of it was me realizing that in our unhealthy church structure, the opinions of the people who were in leadership at the church had grown more important to me than actually what God had to say or what God thought about anything. That was a whole like, "What am I doing?" I remember going out to happy hour for the first time and being like, "Wow, everybody at the table is drinking but me, because I'm scared to have a drink." I remember being out with friends that I thought were Christians and they were drinking out of a pitcher of margaritas, and I remember being like, "This is terrible, I got here to eat dinner with y'all and there's a pitcher, not just one drink a pitcher on the table, this is wild."
Amena:
I feel like there was a lot of adjustment in my relationship with God and to church. I started going to a very well-known white church in the city after that, mostly because it was a place you could go and not have to be talking to anybody, you could go, sit in the back of the church or you could go watch it online, you only have to interact with folks. I was definitely going through a spiritual shift right there, that sent me on a tailspin.
Amena:
Professionally, I had decided that I was ready to work in my field too, and I couldn't see that becoming a full-time artist was going to happen. I thought, "Well, I need to work corporate and do this." I got my first corporate job writing for a big Fortune 500, discovered within six months that I hated it so bad, oh, I hated that job so bad, I've talked to y'all about that on the podcast before. I worked that job and really that job is what made me discover, I want to be an artist full time and that means I have to do some different things financially, went through that same thing that you did of like... Well, actually, I went through the same thing you did, but I didn't do the things you did. I went through the life, "I need to quit," so I just quit and got my Christmas bonus. I hoped that everything was going to open up and you know it didn't.
Amena:
I was dating for the first time and I had made this commitment that, of course the way we were raised up in church and all the normal sheets, I was trying not to have sex until I got married, dating as a grown woman and doing that, especially not dating dudes... Not necessarily that because you date dudes at the church means they going to, because they're not always... Y'all know what I mean, but I was dating guys from all over, from all different backgrounds and stuff. Even explaining to them that, was weird to them, they were just like, "Really? That's you? You're 27, still? That's you still?" And they're like, "Could it be me though? Could I be the first one?" I'd be like, "Yeah, you have to marry me," and they'd be like, "Oh, no, I'm good, but I'm going to go ahead and pay for dinner and I'm not going to see you again, [crosstalk 00:24:09]."
Amena:
Figuring out all the dating and for me getting more comfortable with the fact that I am also a sexual being that I have the opportunity to make these sexual choices because I want to, navigating all of that, the dating, quitting that job too soon, going broke, moving back in with another friend of a friend, then actually making a successful run of being a full-time artist once I got into my early thirties, then dating this man I really loved, and then being like, "This ain't going to work, me and you can't, no," and experiencing that first like, I'm like ridiculously in love with someone and I also have had my heartbroken, all of that helps you bare your soul to and then finally getting to Matt and being like, "Okay, now, this is the thing I'm looking for, here he is."
Amena:
Getting married in my early thirties and then us going into business together and experiencing Christian space together and all of that and which we'll get into in a minute, also experiencing thinking that having kids was going to be easy for us and discovering in the middle of the first few years of marriage that it wouldn't be right. On the friends side, I had maintained one friend from high school, very close friend from high school, then I was meeting all these people out on the art scene, so I gained those friends. I did have also the friends that I met traveling who were also speakers and stuff like that.
Amena:
Then we arrive to 2017, we're now in our late thirties at this point, you're in this sweet spot in your career, my career's going super great, although now I'm like, "Man, it could even be better, who knew about that?" And you are too though, now we're like, "I'm in the sweet spot," but I'm like, "Is this the sweet spot?"
Celita:
Right, we didn't know it was coming.
Amena:
Okay. It's late twenties, and when do you start your podcast? You start, "I'm Simply Artistic," is that 2017, 2016?
Celita:
I do start it in 2017 and I'd run it to 2019 and do it for two years, yeah.
Amena:
What was the idea behind it when you wanted to start the podcast?
Celita:
My mission for I'm Simply Artistic is to use psychology, creativity and technology to help others live healthier lives. At this point I've had a good spoken word career run, I was able to do the artist thing, yes, I was working full-time as an IT person with it, but it was like I was able to have both, to make decent money professionally and be a professional artist and get paid to do that. With the exploration of that spoken word ministry that you and I helped start and not having regular stages to put these spoken word poems out too that I know helped people, I was like, "Let me start a podcast where I can release my spoken word on the podcast so that it's there, it is always there, people can go back..."
Celita:
I did release one album, oh, my gosh, there's a Phantom spoken word album on Spotify, but it wasn't good, it was the first joint, no one's first phantom album is amazing. In lieu of not having an album, in lieu of not publishing a work, let this be my publishing, to put these on the podcast. In between me releasing the poem and breaking it down and talking about how it could help and encourage and support somebody, I'll do interviews. Then I started lining up all the artistic people in my life so that I could schedule you all for interviews for the podcast. By this time you and I had had maybe four or five genuine interactions over the years to where I thought I could probably reach out to Amena and ask if she would be a guest on my show, you were in my earlier ones.
Amena:
I will tell y'all, I feel like because we still had a lot of mutual friends and because we were both involved in poetry community, I would see you out and I always felt like even though I knew that you were pissed at me for how I did that breakup, I knew that you were pissed about that, but after being in therapy and going on my own healing journey, I really didn't feel defensive about the fact that you were pissed about it.
Celita:
You did not, you never came off as defensive.
Amena:
I really felt like, "Yeah, she's pissed off at you and understand if so." However her pissed off feelings come out this time interacting with her, you need to accept that-
Celita:
You just got to deal with it, you genuinely came with open-heart and arms every single time, you initiated conversation with me during that period.
Amena:
I felt like you were never like, "Don't talk to me," but in the first couple of interactions, you were definitely being very clear to me that this conversation is only going to last for so many minutes and it's only going to involve so many subjects and there's certain subjects that I'm never talking to you about, period. I was like, "And you got to respect that," because I feel like when you do have a friend breakup, you can't go back into that person's life. It's like, when you're close friends with someone, it's like emotionally, they're giving you the keys to their house, where they're saying like, "Hey, you can walk in. Other people can come in at the house saying clean, if I didn't feel good or whatever, but you could come in." When you break up with a friend, you can't take the house key, the locks has changed. Even if the locks ain't changed, you can't take the house key back to the door and just be like, "Boop, I'm here. I was in the neighborhood," because they're going to be looking at you like, My neighborhood? What?"
Amena:
Every time I would see Celita, I would always spend an extra few minutes just saying hey, we have a little couple of exchanges, then when I had the time and healing to realize how hurtful that breakup was to you, then I would try... Along my healing journey there were layers of things I was realizing. When layer one, when I would see you I would be like, "Also, I just wanted to let you know that..." and then I would realize layer two, so the next time we saw each other and we could talk like that, I would be like, "I know we're at the corner of somebody else's party, but I also wanted to let you know that I realize it's not okay to blah, blah, blah," and I didn't even realize I was doing that so many times.
Celita:
Yes. Before the ultimate apology, I received at least two or three many apologies in the small interactions that we were having. It always caught me off guard because you were initiating all of this, which is your responsibility too, which we'll discuss, but it was just like, we're at a slam competition and we might connect about something, not friend or heart-related, "Oh, did you see that score creep?" "What happened?" Then like, "That position added up a one." Then like hand on shoulder maybe, maybe a little pinch and look me in my eye and I'll know, I'm like, "A moment is about to happen. We are about to have a moment. You said it to me last time, I don't need it again." "I know we haven't talked in a while, but I just want you to know that I still see you, you're still my homie," something like that. "I'm sorry that things went down the way they did, but I just want you to know that I still see you, I still be paying attention and I'm proud of you."
Celita:
Stuff like that that you would say, and it'll be a quick moment and I would just be like, "Okay, holding the lump in my throat," no hug, I'm just going to walk away.
Amena:
Okay, no hug for you.
Celita:
Who's going to walk away, hugging is a big deal.
Amena:
So wild to think about that now, but yes y'all, I tried to... As I was figuring out like, "You could have done that better," then every time I would see you I'll be like, "I just want you to know, I know I could have done that better. I know that now that I realize I could have done it better doesn't mean that we got to go back today, but I just want you to know the vibes." The first couple of times you were like, "All right," then you would go get something to drink and be like, "Okay." But after the third time, I could tell you were like, "All right. Okay. So that mean we kicking about, okay."
Celita:
Right. Yeah, but I receive it.
Amena:
When you reached out to me about the podcast interview, I was excited that you were doing a podcast that I thought it was just a very dope idea and the lens from which you were doing your creative work, that made perfect sense. I was excited to get to be a part of that, I was really honored that you asked me and I was looking forward to the recording. You came here to the house and recorded and then after we...
Amena:
First of all, the recording, I do feel like when we use chemistry we're often talking about sexual chemistry between two people, which we know is a real thing, but I think we don't talk enough about friendship chemistry that can happen too because when we were in the recording, it just felt like it was filling up the room the fact that we had all this friendship chemistry between us and then when the recording was over, it was like, that was your first time being in my first house and being in my office and everything, we were chit chatting and that was the warmest our interactions had felt in a long time. I was like, "I wonder... Maybe we're going to... Okay." Not ever going to do that every Friday thing, but maybe a Friday sometime.
Amena:
From there, after we record the episode for your podcast, then we are approaching our college reunion coming up, right?
Celita:
Yes. Same month, the podcast was earlier in that month and later in that month was going to be our 15 year Spelman College reunion. We had such a nice and natural, there was nothing forced, nothing held back, laughed and cackled like we had been doing it for years, it was so natural whatever that you and I planned to do reunion together, to meet there and to hang out together and having our white dresses-
Amena:
Because this is Spelman tradition, y'all, that's the thing.
Celita:
Yeah. I was like, something is different here, this is different than these other little small little moments we've had over the past 13 years, there's something sustaining that feels like it's in motion at this time. Then we had scheduled for our cohort, our class of 2002, just our little small group of people to go out to dinner that night so I asked you, "Hey, after reunion, can I just come back to your place and hang out and change and then we'll go have dinner?"
Amena:
Y'all, here I go trying to have another emotional conversation with Celita, I just really... Maybe because I felt like it's different when we were meeting up at poetry events because there's all these people around, you can't really get into it, but also the interview for your podcast was the first time that I felt like I really think maybe there's still friendship here for us but I would love to move into that really respectfully and I wanted to know from you the vibes, if you felt like that, or if you were like, "No, it's cool with us, it's cool, but I'm good, I don't need us to do this thing that you're trying to do," even though I felt the vibes from you, I felt like maybe you were open to that and I was like, "I feel like a lot of healing has happened, a lot of time has gone by, maybe this could be a thing."
Amena:
Then I feel like we had the big conversation where for the first time we like, we're walking through with y'all we actually did that day much more in depth and Celita was much more blunt with me about how that moment actually felt for her, what she felt I did wrong in the way that I communicated that and the way I handled it, how it brought hurt to her, like you said to me, I wasn't supposed to have my wedding without you, I wasn't supposed to have my first child and my pregnancy and my baby shower without you, I get home with my baby and I'm looking around and I'm thankful for everybody in my life, but I'm looking around thinking, "It's not supposed to be that my kid doesn't know you, and doesn't know who you are, that's not how this was supposed to be." For me to have to hear you say it to me and take it because it was true.
Amena:
That day was good for me as the person that did the breakup in a not good way to have to hear how that actually transpired in your life, not just the moment that I said it, but all the other reverberations to come after that, and then having a little bit of a moment to get to know... I don't think we did all the, what you've been doing in 13 years, I don't think we did that, but it was like, here's where I'm at right now as a woman in my life, and I think you did the, here's where I'm at now, and we did talk that day to say, what does this mean to us as far as-
Celita:
Right, what does it look like going forward.
Amena:
Yeah. We both agreed, I don't think we need to set any, every three Tuesdays [crosstalk 00:38:11]. Nobody has time for that, but just, let's hang out and kick it as it feels organic to us and let's communicate in the ways that feel organic to us and let's see.
Amena:
That was May and I have to say that that year you came to my house for Thanksgiving, it was that year.
Celita:
It was that year, yeah, that same year.
Amena:
You came to my house for Thanksgiving, Maya was there for Thanksgiving and might've been another friend of ours, but I remember, normally I have a house full of people for Thanksgiving, but that was the first time, of course, that all of us had Thanksgiving together since college and twenties and everything. For me thinking about the fact that I had had a miscarriage a couple of years before around the time of Thanksgiving, and so sometimes the grief would be very overwhelming, sometimes I wouldn't want to see nobody, sometimes I want to see everybody, sometimes you don't know how you're going to feel till you get to Thanksgiving day or whatever.
Amena:
I remember looking around at my house and you and Maya being in my house and just thanking God, because there's a lot of layers of friends you'll have that you'll have reasons you appreciate them, but I realized in that moment, it is nice to have friends you have history with that knew you when your haircut was ugly or-
Celita:
We had that first natural, couldn't appreciate.
Amena:
Yeah. I knew you when you was wearing your jeans way too baggy for your body or whatever, you know what I'm saying?
Celita:
Yes.
Amena:
Looking around and being like, we weren't even close enough at that time that any of you knew I'd had a miscarriage, but the comfort that it brought to me that y'all felt like home to me and that I felt like that was a gift to have you returning to my life at this time that I'm trying to grapple with this and figure this out, as well as having upheaval in my career, feeling like I wanted to leave Christian space at that point. To me the friendship returned at a time that I really needed it, what were those vibes like for you?
Celita:
Was that the Thanksgiving was also my birthday that landed on Thanksgiving?
Amena:
Oh my gosh, I think you're right, because we baked a pie, we baked an extra sweet potato pie, just for you.
Celita:
You look at how 2017 started and by the end of it, I'm celebrating my birthday with one of the closest people I've ever known in my whole life. Somebody I've done so much with and I've done a lot with a lot of people and I do involve with people in my life, but we were so concentrated in what we executed together. There has not been, and I don't know if there ever honestly will be anybody that I've ever done so much concentrated executed work with, and you were out of my life for so many years and then here we are in this moment kicking it like nothing happened, but also fully aware that something had happened and being completely different people in that moment than we were when things ended 13 years earlier.
Celita:
I really want to commend you because you really took the chance to put yourself out there, when I asked if you would be a guest on my show, graciously accepting, but then not only that, as we sat down to think about, what are we going to talk about on this episode, you trusting me with the real story behind TV sitcoms poem.
Amena:
Yeah. That was the first time I've ever said that publicly and I don't think on anyone else's show that I would have felt comfortable to say it, but because it was you and because I knew the lens from which you were wanting to do the show and how you were using that lens to do your poetic work, I honestly think that that had been anybody else's podcast I never would have said that, but I felt comfortable doing that because I was with you.
Celita:
That's crazy, we hadn't been talking, communicating, and here we are and you in that moment are saying, "I still see you as somebody that creates a comfortable enough environment for me to be my full self." In recognizing that, that's why I felt safe with whatever the next steps were for this new chapter of our friendship, because I was like, "Wow, I was literally trusted with that moment. We're still connected, we're still bonded after all this time." That really helped prepare my heart and my mind for when you did initiate the full apology later at a reunion where I was able to receive all of it number one, and also release all of the past. I sobbed, I don't know when's the last time I sobbed like that, just listening to you and giving you an opportunity to talk.
Celita:
It was such a release, it was like palate cleansing. Then from that moment on it was like, "We good." That was 2017, that was four years ago, the years have melted by, we never established how often we needed to talk or nothing like that, but we maintained a pretty consistent connection over this time, pretty genuine, and I've come to Thanksgiving every year since then.
Amena:
Multiple times and we love to see it. You said this when we were preparing for this episode and I love being able to close with talking about what we feel like this experience taught us or what we feel like we learned from having had close friendship when we were younger at this very developmental time, and then in what are the middle years when you're developing your career and some of your early relationships and for you this journey into motherhood, not having those years together but somehow some way returning back to each other at this time where we both had no idea how much we're going to need each other like-
Celita:
Showing up for each other.
Amena:
Yeah. Talk to me about that and talk to me about any other lessons you can think of that you feel like you've learned or that we've learned together through the process.
Celita:
Yeah. Well, first I'll just say, you talked about how having us at Thanksgiving was what you needed at that moment and not even realizing the degree that you needed it. Then I didn't know that within a year's time of that, I was going to really need my friends and the friends that I had made at college, us reconnecting in that moment, life was about to take some turns for me where I had no idea how important and vital you guys were about to become.
Celita:
Even after that, I had the opportunity to show up for you, which I'm just so grateful that we were able to reconnect right at that moment, but then I realized my marriage is ending, I'm about to get a divorce and you showing up for me in that moment was everything. You saying that, "I love you no matter what, I standby you no matter what, you'll never be judged by me," was what I needed. Because of our history, there's not another person I can think of that could've have showed up in quite the same way as the core friends that I had in you guys.
Celita:
Then after divorcing and now I'm facing single life again, it's just like, "How am I going to do this this time? How am I going to live my life and making the decision that I'm going to be my fully fabulous gay self? I'm going to do this. It is time, I'm ready." You fully standing by me in that as well, when I'm prepping my coming out video and you're texting me the night before like, "I just want to make it very clear, if anybody's in your comments and they say something crazy, I'm going to be right there, I'm going to [inaudible 00:46:34] immediately."
Amena:
Okay? Y'all already met my sister. My sister knew Celita was doing a coming out video, we both was in the comments, my sister was like, "I wish somebody would."
Celita:
If somebody go low, I'm going to hell.
Amena:
Y'all heard her say on this podcast, y'all heard my sister say it so you know.
Celita:
That's right, yes, I love Keda, oh my gosh. God's timing is perfect, because exactly what I needed and you were right there. We talked about so much in our friendship and what we've learned, but one thing that I think we both learned is just, friendships are built in the showing up moments, and it's still showing up moments that really show the authenticity and the depth of the relationship you have with the person, is your ability to show up and not just to show up but to show up when it is taboo, to show up when it is unpopular to show up, to show up when the Christian space that you came from pegs and puts their finger on the exact thing that you have to walk through, that that is the most abominable topics and you saying, "No, I've known you your whole life, I've watched you your whole life, I am not surprised, you do you, yes it's about time actually."
Celita:
Then another thing is, in re-evaluating our friendship and then also looking at how I've been able to navigate my friendships post our breakup, first of all, I learned to diversity, one person can't fill all the things, you going to have your cycling buddy over here, your spoken word buddy over here, your cooking buddy over here, your talk about a documentary or a song over here, all these different-
Amena:
People that work in your field or your industry over there, yeah.
Celita:
Right. That's okay, we don't have to be in each other's pockets for everything all the time. There is space in all of my friendships because you only satisfy one part of me and then there's another part I'm getting from somebody else and the part am getting from somebody else and learning and understanding those boundaries and that dynamic relationship has really helped to create healthy, long lasting friendships.
Celita:
The last thing that I remember talking to you about was, I was listening to this podcast called The Life Kit Podcast, and it talked about recognizing when your friendship is going to change, and a good healthy friendship is built on three key components, if you think of a equal lateral triangle where all sides are even, one side is consistency, one side is vulnerability and one side is positivity, those three things have to be balancing each other out in your friendship. Oftentimes when you feel like it's changing, it's because one of those is off-kilter, there's too much vulnerability and not enough positivity, or there's a lot of positivity but you aren't meeting consistently, you aren't seeing each other on any cadence, and a lot of times when a friendship has changed, it's one of those three aren't quite at the level that they're supposed to be.
Celita:
I can identify in us, we were in each other's pockets a lot, we had the consistency but lacking in vulnerability, lacking in positivity, that just creates an atmosphere where your friendship can't thrive. These are some of the things that I've learned and tried to apply in my adult relationships going forward.
Amena:
Yeah. I feel like one of the things I learned especially in this season of our friendship was showing up for you in the way you needed me to. I don't know if this is just a weird thing that was at our church culture thing, but I feel like sometimes there was this attempt to go overboard in the ways you were going to celebrate or show up for someone, we used to have very lavish birthdays, we were planning for everyone, if you were turning 25, then we got to do a surprise thing for you, and a scavenger hunt during the day that leads you to the venue where we're going... If that person loves those things, okay, but maybe you've done a big old thing and they would have rather a little small intimate thing. You would rather us go to Topgolf than go to the Mac counter and do... You don't want that?
Amena:
I do think earlier on it was like, we need to establish these friendship rules that work for everybody all the time and you'll have different seasons of your life, and we're all different people, what you might be doing for this friend, you might not do that for the other friend. I even remember after you opened up to me like, "Hey, I think my marriage is ending," and of course we had some times we would meet up and talk about that and then I decided to ask you like, "Sometimes do we be on your nerves that we talk about it, sometimes would you rather do something else?" You were like, "Actually I would, yes. Sometimes I would rather just go do something." I was like, "I got these free tickets to this random cartoon from this PR company I'm working with, you want to go see a random cartoon or something?" You were like, "I would love to see a random cartoon right now."
Celita:
We went to go see UglyDolls.
Amena:
Yeah. You were like, "I would love to do that and not have to talk about this all the time. I know you here if I want to talk about it," and even when you looked at me and said, "My marriage is ending and I'm pretty sure my marriage is over, it's women for me." I look back at you like, "Word up. I don't know you since you was 18 years old, I want my friend to be free, I don't care, word up."
Amena:
But to ask you how you want me to be here for you and not assume even though I love you and I'm close to you that I know, because I might not know. I feel like that's one lesson, I will say for those that are going to have to be a person that does a friend breakup, I feel like first of all if I could do that all over, I would have said the things that I said here, I would've said, "Here's where the rub is for me and here's what's going on with me. I want to kick it with you and I want to have this space over here. Is that cool with you?" Maybe Celita then would have been like, "Thank you, that's all I want to know what you doing, dog, fine, go to your salsa classes, I'm not going, but go to your salsa class. Whatever that is, have a good time, we can kick it at a different time when you're done doing that."
Amena:
Our friendship would have potentially been able to handle that, or if it couldn't have, then we would have known, "Well, then we do need to take this break," but it wouldn't have felt as abrupt and it wouldn't have felt as hurtful. It would have been hurtful to have to break up or have space anyways, but I don't think it would have felt as abrupt and hurtful as it did to you because then we're mutually deciding this is what we need to do.
Celita:
Giving the other person the opportunity to rise to the maturity level of the conversation that the two of you are having, maybe you can mutually decide, you never know where the other person is and whether they'll even be able to hear it, but finding the correct language is very crucial. Sometimes it is necessary to initiate a friendship breakup, I really think that had we gone on we probably would have created something that would have been even more devastating and that we couldn't have come back from, sometimes it is what it is, but being able to be honest with yourself about what is actually going on inside of me, why am I having these feelings and having the courage and the wisdom to articulate that to your friend is going to be crucial.
Celita:
Friendship breakups happen just like relationship breakups happen, it's a thing, but then also friendship rekindling can happen just like you can get back together with an ex, a friendship has that same amount of weight, if not more and requires that level of vulnerability and conversation and honesty.
Amena:
It's dope about friendship being different from romantic relationships in the sense that I feel like you're more likely to possibly have some friendships that would rekindle. You may date somebody and break up and discover, "Ah, we could get back together," but the percentages of, you might have some friendships that would be in that category would be higher because you'll be able to keep multiple friendships in your life. I do think a part of the reconnecting is not assuming the time commitment or the closeness, or whatever that was before the breakup, not assuming that it's going to return, the hope is you're going to create a new thing that's for, who the people are now and where you are now and giving each other that space and respecting if the trust has to be rebuilt, not assuming now you just get to know all the secrets and all this stuff going on, maybe that person ain't ready to talk to you about that, maybe they're going to take their time figuring out what to say to you and what feels comfortable.
Amena:
But if you're the person that did the breaking up, let them, and follow their lead on that, you're not the one who gets to decide. I feel like there's too many relationships situations where the person who does the hurting walks in like, "Okay, well, I said I'm sorry now and I'm ready for this to be over, I'm ready for you to not be dealing with these emotions now, we need to move on." It's always the person that did the hurtful shit that's like, "We need to move on," you don't get to decide. The person who got hurt, you did the hurting your job is to be like, "I'm sorry, I'm here now. What are the vibes?" If you're the one who got hurt in the process, then it's your job to decide how comfortable do you feel with the person, how slow do you want to go, how does the trust get rebuilt, but we are a testament that it's possible.
Amena:
I'm thankful that you came on the podcast and that we told these people a little bit of our business and we hope it helps y'all, but I'm thankful for you in my life, man, it's forever for us now, you're literally never going to get rid of me now. You might regret that a couple of times, you might be like, "Man, why did I have that conversation with her? Now she's always around here. [crosstalk 00:57:27]." Because I'll leave you the long one, I'll be like, "You know, but check in where you can. All right." I just love you girl.
Celita:
I love you too, Amena.
Amena:
I really appreciate you being open to us, unfolding some of this in a public space. You know where my heart is girl, always, I was never apart-
Celita:
Lets do that, color purple [crosstalk 00:57:54], Yes.
Amena:
[inaudible 00:57:56].
Amena:
Y'all, I love a happy ending, but you know what I love even more, a healthy beginning. Sometimes the relationships in our lives don't arrive at happy endings, although I'm so glad my friendship with Celita did, but even more than a happy ending, we were able to give a healthy new beginning to our friendship.
Amena:
Special shout out to my good friend, Celita Williams for joining me in this episode. You can follow Celita at 11locs on Instagram and you can follow her podcast and poetry at imsimplyartistic on Instagram. To learn more about her creative work, visit imsimplyartistic.com.
Amena:
I know friendships can be challenging, our friends can be the ones that hold us up when times are hard and sometimes our friendships can be a place that can break our hearts in the deepest of places. I hope listening in on this conversation with Celita and me is helping you to assess and evaluate your own friendships. Ask yourself this, do you have any friends in your life that you need to reach out to reconnect with, to see how they're doing, to have an honest conversation, to let them know you're thinking about them, to apologize to them and make things right when possible, how can you show up for your friends? Have you asked your friend lately how they would like you to show up for them or hold space for them? Lastly, how can you show up for yourself?
Amena:
My therapist reminded me a couple of years ago that I am my own best friend too. If you are a person who doles out all the care for your friends, how can you make sure you're showing that same care and gentleness to yourself? Thanks for listening.
Amena:
HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.