My Achilles Heel

I am a super laid back person who enjoys having peace in her life and practices patience to the extent that I am not easily angered. That being said, I am human, and I have my triggers like everybody else. One thing that really gets my goat is people who feel as though they have some right to challenge my authenticity as... ANYTHING... but mostly as a New Yorker.

Now granted, I spent a great deal of my life in upstate New York, but I am from the Bronx and I am proud of my roots. I am a NATIVE New Yorker and I rep it to the death. In fact, there is a song by that title that makes me really emotional to this day, though it isn't played much anymore. People everywhere take pride in their heritage or where they are from and it pisses me off when someone feels like they can take that away from them. Who gave you the authority to validate or invalidate somebody's existence?

I appreciate my time upstate and the lessons I learned while there but the reason I left - the reason I always knew I would eventually leave - is because I identify with my roots and have always felt a pull to return to them. You wanna piss me off? Challenge that. Challenge my recollection of the fire hydrants exploding in the summer.... cuchifritos on the corner.... pizza slices as big as my head. Challenge my recollection of the walk to P.S. 53 or the afternoons I spent with "Mother" or my mom's friend whose house smelled like moth balls. Tell me I didn't fall on the decline from the Boys n Girls Club where I skinned my knee and the scar is still there to this day. Tell me the pics of me and my family skating in central park aren't real and I didn't have coconut icees that froze my teeth.

You cannot invalidate my authenticity. I wouldn't care if I was born on January 1st and we were on the first flight to Rochester on January 2nd - I am a REAL New Yorker and your insistence otherwise does not change that these are my roots and this is my history. I don't owe anybody any justification and you can't take it from me. But if you want to piss me off, just try. Try. I promise you will see a side of me most people never do. I don't see it any different than people being proud to be black.... or italian... or military. It's part of my story. It is what it is.

A guy got me so upset today behind his "real New Yorker" commentary, I probably would have fought him if he were in front of me. I might need to sit myself down and have a talk with myself, but I felt so disrespected. One thing you will not do is tell me who I am.