I Don’t Have Room for Fear

This summer has been one of the most trying in my life. Some of it is my own fault—who starts a business in the middle of summer?—and some of it seems to have fallen out of the sky—my spouse starting a new job, one of his dearest friends dying, and an incident at my church that could easily have been perceived as racial profiling.

The third thing—the event of my church—has been most difficult because church is where I go to escape negativity. I know people have lots of criticisms, fair and unfair, about the church as a whole, but over the course of my life, it has been better to me than bad (and I say that having had the father I had, a man my great-aunt called a “jackleg” preacher). But this time, it was a slip-up that was quite painful.

Two Sundays ago, while we sat listening to the senior pastor’s sermon, an older Black man came into the auditorium. He was clearly homeless, which isn’t an issue—lots of homeless people come to my church, and that’s part of why I love it. He walked with a cane in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He made his way down a side aisle, presumably to find a close seat. It was distracting, but I wasn’t bothered by it otherwise. But suddenly, three rather large dudes came into the auditorium and two of them spoke with the gentleman before walking out with him. There wasn’t any drama, no yelling or physicality, but it didn’t look good at all, especially since, maybe three minutes before, the [white] senior pastor had just spoken about how moved he was when he watched When They See Us.

Of course, I wanted to know what exactly had happened, but I couldn’t help but to be upset. It is 2019 and I live in Washington, DC—white supremacists have rallies to encourage each other (and their comrade in the White House) to continue perpetuating hate. I can’t help be a little on guard, you know?

My spouse and I were both shaken by it, so we sent emails to the pastor and a few other people in leadership. But the responses were hurtful. They didn’t insult us, but they’d basically said that we’d misunderstood the situation, which is the same as insulting me, if I’m honest. The explanation drove the point home—our church isn’t comfortable talking about uncomfortable things, but leadership went out of its way to avoid a warm, safe place to have this conversation. My church touts its position in the marketplace—we own a coffeeshop and a movie theater, both of which we use for community events, etc—but when it came to the people in that marketplace, the conversation was pushed into the woods.

Since the event in Charleston in 2015, when nine Black people lost their lives after opening their doors to a white psychopath, I’ve thought a lot about the place of fear in my religion. Countless scriptures—many out of Jesus’ mouth itself—tell us not to be afraid, fear not, have no fear. But we seem to be incapable of following these commands. Fear drove us to assume an old Black man with a cane and a cup of coffee would cause the pastor harm. Fear drives us to walk around uncomfortable conversations instead of being healed by them. Fear could have saved the lives of nine Black people, but look who actually obeyed the commandment. How ironic that we sing the song, “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”

What I’m saying is, this, one of the most difficult summers of my life, is showing me that I no longer have room in my life for fear. If I’m to build a successful business, continue writing to my heart’s content, expand my family at some point, I don’t have time to be afraid. I think the point of the commandment isn’t to make us feel inadequate, but to give our fears to God, who, once we do that, plows us through the crazy. I don’t know why terrible things happen, and I wish they did not at all, but until we’re in a place where they don’t, we have to go all in and listen, knowing that He’s got our backs as we do what He’s asked of us. Well, that’s the case for me, anyway.

No Need to Hide

I’ve alluded to starting a business, and I can now give some specifics about it since I’ve more or less formally launched (if updating my LinkedIn and Facebook jobs counts as having ‘more or less formally launched’). My business is called Vonetta Young Advisors LLC—my brand is me!

Since I was a little girl, I’ve woken up every day with the desire to help people like me—women and people of color—our fair share of the pie. I’m living that out in my business, as I advise women and people of color who are starting their own investment funds in private equity, venture capital, and real estate. I help them articulate what they’ve done in the past, what they do now, and what they want to do in the future.

This couldn’t be any farther from writing, in a way; so much so, that I was concerned about potential clients googling me and finding my writing website before my business one. I admit that I felt that I had to hide my creative self. Financial services is not an industry that’s always kind to creative types. In business school, I was told to focus on the “clear communication skills” I acquired from being an English major and to remove from my resume that I studied abroad for Creative Writing, and I became afraid of people knowing this aspect of who I am outside of what it could do for my corporate career.

In talking with my life coach, I’ve come to embrace both sides of myself. I am not ashamed to have a creative talent, so I don’t have to hide it. Hiding it would participate in someone else’s fear—this fear that creatives will bring diversity of thought to an industry well-known for groupthink.

I think about Carla Harris, a Vice Chairperson at Morgan Stanley (so really high up and important at an important entity) and board member of Wal-Mart. She is ludicrously smart and tough and inspiring. AND she is a singer who has made several gospel and Christmas albums, and has performed sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. BECAUSE SHE DOES OWNS HER CREATIVE ABILITY (yelling at myself, not you, reader).

And I have to be my own brand of this. I’m the woman who is an investor, who advises investors, and writes darn good literary nonfiction and fiction under her own name. If someone has a question about it, I have an answer: it’s who I am.

As I embark on this journey of entrepreneurship—a journey I never thought I would be on because I wasn’t all that attracted to it—it’s allowed for a lot of personal and spiritual growth already. I was supposed to go to a symposium in Chicago last Friday, but my flight was cancelled, so I missed it. I was disappointed, as I thought it would be a great chance to network and get some clients in the door, but it didn’t work out. When I walked back into my house with my luggage, my spouse was waiting with open arms, then said, “Oh, you’re not as upset as I thought you would be.” And that was because I have this sense that my authenticity and God’s love for me are colliding in the best ways, and if a door doesn’t open, it wasn’t for me. If someone doesn’t want a published author helping with them with their communications, I cannot help them. But God is honoring my being true to myself. All the more reason not to hide who I am.

Farewell to a dear friend

I’m blogging a week and a day late because I’ve had quite a lot going on, some good and some unfortunate.

The good is that my business is taking shape. I’m in talks to sign my second client already and I’m attending a conference in Chicago on Friday that I hope will open some more doors for me. I’m breathless and excited about all of it, even if I’m a little afraid because this is uncharted territory for me.

The unfortunate is that one of my spouse’s best friends, Suzannah Jones, passed away over the weekend. She texted my spouse two weekends ago to tell him she was going into hospice care, and we were absolutely devastated. Then the week went by and I was anxious about when we would get to see her. We did on Saturday, around noon; she passed away that night. She was 36.

Suzannah was, perhaps, the most joyful person I’ve ever met in my life. She’d had her ups and downs, but she came out of everything laughing. Two years ago, her husband noticed a mole on her arm that looked weird and encouraged her to go to the doctor. She did, but by then, the melanoma had metastasized to her lungs.

She spent two years in treatment and if she ever had a down moment (and I’m sure she did), I never saw it. She called the cancer Frank, mostly, “F*cking Frank.” The times we met her for dinner, she was joyful as ever, laughing that loud, unabashed laugh whose sound I pray never leaves my auditory memory. A “ha-ha-haaaaa” that swung up into the air and stayed there.

Suzannah and my spouse worked together at his first job out of college, a healthcare consultancy in DC. She was his cube-mate and quickly became his first work wife. She even hemmed his pants and replaced buttons, for the love of God. She was selfless and so damn funny. She sidehustled at the DC Improv because she loved to laugh so much.

I’m cautious to say that I have regrets in life; sure, there are things that I wish I’d done differently, but I try not to regret anything because I believe everything happens as it should (not “for a reason,” per se, just, as it should). But I get so close to saying I regret not going to coffee with her because she was so pleasant to be around. My answer to that feeling is that, if I’d gotten closer to her, I’d feel even worse about her absence. That’s probably a terrible way to think about it, but it works for the state that I’m in now.

Her family will be sitting shiva for her for a couple of days. No, they’re not Jewish, but she liked the idea of loved ones getting together to laugh (and do Fireball shots). When her brother said this, I immediately thought of that awful Associated Press misquote:

“I’ve been to their homes where they sit and shiver,” the AP quoted the sheriff as saying.

But what he actually said was “I’ve been to their homes where they’re sitting shiva.”

So, we’re gonna sit and shiver for an amazing woman who was taken away entirely too soon. And I can hear her laughing now.

(The PSA portion: Please get annual or semi-annual skin checks at a local dermatologist. Wear sunscreen and avoid excessive sun exposure. Cancer is no one’s fault, but please be vigilant about your body.)

My reading at Writer’s Center LIVE!

Friends, I write this post to you from the comfort of a lounge chair on Bethany Beach in Delaware! I should confess that I’ve never used a laptop on the beach, and it’s a little odd, but I look really relaxed in the reflection of this screen, so it’s not all bad.

Anyway, last week, I gave my third public reading! I was a featured reader at Writer’s Center LIVE!, a literary variety show held at, well, the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. I’ve taken a couple of classes at the Writer’s Center and have gotten to know some of the staff. One of them attended my last reading and asked if I would like to read at this one, and I said yes.

Though, when I saw who else would be reading, I had to laugh. Tyrese Coleman, Philip Dean Walker, Stephanie Allen, and Kayla Rae Whitaker have all published at least one book; Kayla was the truly featured reader of the night as the winner of the center’s first novel prize. On the Facebook invitation, it called us, “nationally renowned authors,” and I actually wondered if they’d made a mistake by inviting me.

And then I realized that impostor syndrome is a son of a gun.

They hadn’t made any mistakes. They knew I haven’t published a book. They asked me to read because they wanted me to, because they believed that I’m a good enough writer to read with folks who have published books because they know I will one day. I sometimes wonder why I can’t have as much faith in myself as other people have in me.

The reading went wonderfully. I read my flash piece, “To Be a Real Teenager,” my most recently published piece in DASH journal. It’s hard to describe the way it felt holding a book (well, journal) that included my work. It was weighty and substantial and felt important in my hands. This must be what it feels like to read from a book in front of people, I thought. And that was exciting, impostor syndrome be damned.

Photos by Josh Powers