This Week's Opening Thought: July 29, 2024 — The Official Website of Pharoah Bolding

This week's opening thought: I recently turned 42.

I'm not one to celebrate birthdays, achievements, or milestones. It has always felt wrong. For decades, I thought I disliked celebrating little moments because I felt they weren't worth the time and energy. Real talk? I walked across the stage for my high school graduation and ran to one of my two jobs without fanfare. I graduated from college and was like, "Meh," when my wife wanted to celebrate my achievement. I stopped celebrating landing jobs or opportunities long ago, looking at them as blips in my timeline.

I have spent most of my life lumping these situations into not being worth my time. "I've got sh-- to do" is one of my favorite lines to mutter when people want to celebrate me. But as I get older, wiser, and healthier, I've unearthed why I don't celebrate birthdays, achievements, or milestones.

I'm Black in the United States, and everything feels like borrowed time.

I didn't start embracing joy until my 30's. I didn't start doing anything for my birthday until my mid-30s, and I'm still reticent to do more than some meals at cool restaurants. There's a trauma that I've spent time unpacking over the past few years, one that is deeply embedded in my soul. At its root is a simple yet complex question:

Do you celebrate today if it always feels like there is no tomorrow?

I find it hard to celebrate much in a society that allows police officers to walk into my home and murder me without provocation. It's difficult to tap into joy when I could be lynched at a moment's notice, and my family would get no justice for my Black body. It's unsettling to know that for every high, racism and white supremacy are dangling over my head like the sword of Damocles waiting to "take me down a notch."

I'm learning that I don't want to live that way anymore.

White supremacy does not get to dictate me taking a victory lap every now and then for how awesome I am. (Yeah, I'm feelin' myself.)

I've embraced joy. Now, I know I need to embrace that regardless of how dangerous the world is around me, I deserve to be celebrated. My achievements deserve to be honored and acknowledged.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I deserve a fresh huckleberry lemonade.

To all my Black people: celebrate you, your people, and your achievements. Don't let this "white-a-betes" that systems of pallor want to inflict you with take away from honoring your family, friends, and your achievements in the face of a system that has never believed we should exist.

Enjoy your lemonade.

[Image description: This is a picture of me at Solstice Restaurant in Hood River, Oregon. I'm making a whimsical face while holding a freshly made huckleberry lemonade.]