i wish my momma would go sit down somewhere

On Rest

When I was little, my Momma and I used to watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I loved screaming out “MOVE THAT BUS!!” when it came time for the big reveal.

For the uninitiated, Extreme Makeover was a show hosted by Ty Pennington. Each episode would feature a person who was basically a saint, living in a house that didn’t match their angelic stature. Ty and the team—with an obscene amount of product placement from Sears and Lowe’s—would kick the saint out of their home and completely revamp it in a week. It was like Pimp My Ride, but with houses.

It was always my secret dream to get my Momma on that show, and outsource the cost of getting her a place that looks the way she deserves. And in my wildest dreams, she holds my hand, quivering with excitement, as I stand next to a white man with frosted blonde tips, and scream out MOVE THAT BUSSSSSSS!!!!!! And with nothing more than seven days and a little bit of Hollywood magic, I could give my Momma a gift that is actually worthy of her.

There is no end 
to what a living world 
will demand of you.
- Octavia Butler

I wish my momma would go sit down somewhere.

Honestly, I tell her that bout 3 times a week.¹

I think about how she’s always had to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, how there’s always been something—someone—demanding her time, her energy, her care. I see it in the way she wakes up before dawn to start her day, already thinking about the next thing, and the next, and the next. I see it in the way she never stops moving, never stops doing, as if the world will collapse around her if she does.

For her, life has always been about what she can give, about how much she can bear. There’s no end to it. No finish line where she gets to stop, to rest. It’s just one long marathon, and she’s been running it for 60 years, never slowing down, never letting herself sit down and breathe. How do you teach someone to rest when it feels so foreign? How do I teach the woman who taught me everything a lesson that runs counter to what’s ingrained in her very cells? The lesson that says, "keep moving, don’t let ‘em catch you slipping, sit still and die." And how do I learn it for myself if nobody ever showed me?

i.

As a child, I used to watch my momma in awe. She’d get up before the sun, moving through the house like a gust of wind—making breakfast, packing lunches, ironing clothes. She’d work a full day and come home just to start another shift—cleaning, cooking, making sure everything was in order. There was never a moment of stillness. Even when she sat down, her hands were busy—Momma used to bite her fingernails down to the flesh. Ten bloody stumps of pent up energy. Ten jagged bits of proof that she was anxious.

ii.

One summer, I took her on a girls trip to a little beach house. I was so excited to finally see my momma relax—really relax. I had planned everything to perfection. I booked a place right by the ocean, thinking the sound of the waves might soothe her restless spirit. I stocked the kitchen with all her favorite snacks and even brought along a stack of books I knew she’d been meaning to read but never had the time for. I had money now, and dammit, I was gon’ spend it on my best girl.

But even there, in the midst of paradise, she couldn’t stop moving. One morning, I woke up to the sound of her rummaging in the kitchen, pots clanging and pans sizzling. She was cooking a full breakfast. “Momma, sit down, we’re on vacation! We going out to eat!! I don’t even do breakfast like that!” I’d said, trying to pull her away from the stove, but she just flicked a hand towel and said, “Ain’t no vacation from feedin', your babies!”

iii.

It hit me one night, after a long day of juggling work, school, and trying to keep my own house in order. I’d just finished a late dinner, the kind you eat unfolded over the kitchen counter because it’ll take too much to go get a plate and sit down somewhere. I felt exhausted, like my bones were made of lead.

But instead of sitting down, I found myself scrubbing dishes with a fury, wiping down the counters like they’d never been cleaned before. I was moving so fast, my body aching, my mind racing. I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the microwave door. And suddenly, I saw her—my Momma. That same determination in her eyes, that same refusal to stop. I realized I’d been running on the same treadmill my whole life, thinking that if I just kept moving, I wouldn’t have to face whatever it was I was running from.

---

My mother and grandmother were the hardest-working women I've ever known. Growing up, I watched them both endure back-breaking labor, day in and day out. My grandmother practically raised my sister and me while my momma worked six days a week, holding down multiple jobs and still managing to keep a clean house. She had this way of moving through life, constantly in motion, like a river that never stops flowing. My grandmother was the same—steady, unwavering, a force of nature. They were the epitome of resilience, and their lives were a testament to the strength it takes just to survive.

We lived with my grandmother for more than ten years, and I saw firsthand the toll this relentless work took on her body. Her hands, worn from years of labor, told the story of a lifetime of hard work. Her back ached, her knees creaked, but she never stopped. She never complained. And my momma, too, bore the scars of her labor—chronic pain that became as much a part of her as the love she gave so freely.

It wasn’t just what she did; it was how she did it—with consistency, with urgency, and to aplomb even when she was running on fumes and in excruciating pain. She wasn’t always smiling. My momma has an attitude. But I admire that about her too.

There’s a flip side to that admiration, though. A shadow that follows close behind. For every moment of pride, there’s an undercurrent of worry, a knot in my stomach that never quite goes away. I see the toll her hard work has taken—the aches in her joints, the weariness in her eyes, the fact that we almost lost her… again. I see the price she’s paid. The price she is still paying, and it scares me.

There’s a part of me that wants to scream, “Momma, you’ve done enough! You don’t have to keep proving your worth with every ounce of your being! You’re worthy!” But I know she doesn’t see it that way. To her, rest feels a lot like dying.

Who knows how many of them demons she been running from are still nipping at her heels. Who knows how many items still linger unchecked on to do lists scribbled on scraps of paper in lost pocketbooks.

I’ve inherited her pain; I feel it in my own bones, as though all the labor and all the longing of those who lived before me have pooled in my veins. My flesh is sopping with it. Sometimes, I feel lazy in comparison to them. My work, even when it feels like too much, is a different kind of labor, and I find myself wondering if I am somehow letting them down by not being as strong, as unyielding, as tireless as they were.

But I’ve seen my mother’s bones, so it makes me question what kind of inheritance that really is.

---

Several months ago, my husband saw me drowning. I was so burned out that the thought of continuing on at my millionth dead end job felt unbearable—I was lowkey suicidal, and it was getting bad. So he told me to quit my corporate job, to take a break, to do nothing for a while. And I was so grateful. That’s what I wanted. I thought I needed permission to stop. But when the time came, when I finally had the permission to breathe, to rest, to let go, I stewed in anxiety every second of it.

Instead of slowing down, I redecorated my entire house. I enrolled in college, launched a Substack, and started a business. I filled every moment with something, anything, to keep moving, to keep the restlessness at bay. The truth is, I don't know how to rest. I’ve inherited that, too—the need to always be doing, always be achieving, always be proving that I am enough. I thought quitting my job would be the antidote to my exhaustion, but it turns out rest is not as simple as it seems. Rest, real rest, is a kind of labor all its own, and it requires a different kind of strength—the strength to sit with yourself, to face your own mind, to confront the silence.

Maybe that’s why Momma and I loved Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Maybe the allure was the idea that someone else would come in and do the work, that someone else would fix what was broken, while Momma can just watch, just be. It’s a fantasy, sure, but we always been Afrofuturist people.² Maybe it was also a cry for help. Maybe it was her way of saying she’s tired.

And maybe it’s my way of saying I am too.

Love yall. Mean it. If you love me back, buy me a book!

1. She called me the other day to tell me a long and involved story about how she redid her porch. and it looks LOVELY. and she deserves that. But I in my head I’m like …. who told you to be moving fucking furniture, babe?!

2. The concept of an outside force creating a different life is peak afrofuturism and I am making a literal note to write about this later. If you read the footnotes, and that sounds in any way appealing to you, please comment letting me know.