First, we were taught that “yes” was our only option, an unquestioned compliance woven into the fabric of our girlhoods. Then came a quiet revolution: you can say no. So many of us have become accustomed to the idea of empowerment as simply saying no that we’ve forgotten the sound of our own voices when they speak without prompting—when they create the prompt themselves. But what if there’s more? What if, in the vastness of our being, we hold more than two choices—more than a simple yes or no to conditions set by others?
It’s one thing to say no. It’s another, entirely, to have the audacity to ask for what we want— in our actions, in our declarations, in our day to day life ethic. To do so, we first have to identify what we want.
But, to know, with or without a doubt, what we desire requires a deep intimacy with ourselves. It asks you to be close enough to remember that you love the sound of rain but despise the heat of summer; that your favorite meal is not at the table but in bed at 11 p.m., when the world is quiet and the sheets cradle you like a secret. That the scent of lavender tickles your nose with something that feels masculine— too bent on overpowering to be described as calming. That you love being in motion, soaring through the sky or gliding on a train, but like clockwork, there comes a point on the first night of every trip when you find yourself desperately scanning flights to go home. That your best writing occurs at that sweet spot in the still of the night when feelings masquerade as words, flowing out like molasses—slow and thick, filling the quiet spaces with meaning.
How many of us know ourselves closely enough to identify what we like, let alone what we want, separate from the ‘shoulds’ of those around us?
Asking for what you want requires you to first find the courage to be still with yourself, to unlearn the ways you’ve been told to fit into the world, to mute the voice that tells you to smooth out your edges. It’s about realizing, like I am constantly, that the banal clichés we so easily dismiss often hold the greatest truths: before we can claim what we desire, we must know ourselves.
I spent years distancing myself from what made me different, trying to stamp out the very things that were mine—my hesitations, my quirks, my body, my always-feeling-too-much, my gripping fear of the unknown. I’ve learned, though, that these pieces have their purpose; they are meant to be examined, sat with, and held with curiosity. They are guides, pulling us closer to understanding who we truly are. It is through this self-knowing, the soft return to our own reflection, that we begin to grasp our worth. From this place of worth, we can declare, without shame, our desires.
I’ll be real: after the turmoil of navigating boarding school halls to Ivy League walls—high pressure, predominately white spaces (that never seemed to have the space for me in all my [un]complicated truths)——I woke up at 23 unable to tell the difference between my anxiety and my intuition. I couldn’t distinguish my own voice from the noise—not just from what people expected me to achieve, but also from how they expected me to fail.
I, like many of us who were raised by old school fire and brimstone type Black folk, grew up with the mantra that I had to be twice as good. This meant I had to convert everything—even other’s hatred and diminished expectations of me—into fuel to keep going. In spaces where there was no positive reinforcement, all I had to be driven by was the need to prove ‘them’ wrong.
I can acknowledge the usefulness, truth, and valor behind this mindset, passed down by Black folx who were ‘the first’– who willed their success into being while facing unimaginable hurdles designed to keep them out. I can hold space and a sort of reverence for that mindset, while also holding space for my truth: that if I live solely to prove those who count me out wrong, I will be forever tethered to them—orbiting around their judgments and centering their monochromatic lack of vision in my own worldview.
At 26, I am deciding to do more than say yes or no to others’ expectations. I am choosing to (re)turn to the sound of my own voice. I am affirming, by honoring my unique desires, that my life is not a constant plea for recognition from begrudging spectators. I let go of the ritual of responding to other’s ideas of desirability and to being driven by their inability (or unwillingness) to see me. Instead, I cultivate the ability and consistent practice to see myself. To show up for myself. To choose for myself. To choose myself.
I refuse to think that my existence is just an answer–a reaction– to someone else’s prompt. In that, I choose to exist as more than a quiet triumph in the face of those who couldn’t see beyond their biases. I exist for slow mornings steeped in quiet joy, for sunsets bathed in the glow of soft blankets, nose-scrunching laughter shared over cups of tea, and the gentle purr of a cat resting in my lap. For moments that are wholly mine.
To truly ask for what we want requires us to untangle ourselves from the webs of expectation and reaction, to stop wondering what might be someone else’s thought of our every move, and instead turn inward. How do I feel? Are my shoulders tense? Is my jaw clenched? What do I need in this moment, and, maybe even, how do I want to feel?
This journey is not about learning to say yes or no. It’s about daring to ask new questions, bold questions, the kind that demand more than a binary response. The more I push myself to ask—sometimes politely, sometimes quietly, sometimes fully, sometimes brashly—the more I realize that the power is not in the answer I receive but in the act of asking itself.
To have the language to articulate desire is to claim space in a world that so often tries to shrink us. And tonight, that is my revolution.
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