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“The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.”
I hemmed myself in with shame, and also with the fear of not being chosen by men. I remember the moment I realized I was free, looking in a mirror and saying, “I choose my motherfucking self.”
I began to stop avoiding memories that triggered emotional flashbacks, and I chose to embrace them as revelations.
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway.”
“You were fly, dope, and amazing from birth,” I would tell that girl now. “From the second you took your first breath, you were worthwhile and valid. And I’m sorry you had to wait so long to learn that for yourself.”
I resolve to embrace my sexuality and my freedom to do with my body parts as I see fit. And I will learn about my body so I can take care of it and get the pleasure I deserve.
There was a whole period of time in high school where I would do this weird thing with my face to create the illusion that my nose was thinner. I’d curl my upper lip under itself and do a creepy smile to pull down my nasal folds.
“There’s a lot of money in that one,” she said. It was the card Dad used to finance his life with another woman.
Omg
My sister and I examined the dates, realizing he had been lying to us for years about his whereabouts.
FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF THEIR MARRIAGE, MY PARENTS DID NOT speak to each other. Not to say “Excuse me” in the kitchen during the morning rush, or even a reflexive “Bless you” after a sneeze. This was during my senior year of high school and into my college years. My mother slept on the couch in the living room, like a boarder. My sisters and I all led separate lives.
Omg
The lady described the house, and also the other woman. She had been standing next to Dad, acting as if our house was her house.
Wtf
My parents divorced my senior year of college. The divorce was final in early June. He married the other woman on June 9. I graduated from UCLA on June 16. Dad skipped my college graduation, because Toni insisted on an immediate Hawaii honeymoon. I don’t blame her. My graduation was going to be a family moment shortly after the family had been dismantled. But of course I had to go to Dad’s wedding.
Wtf
NOW, OUR BOYS CALL TONI NANA, AND SHE IS A LOVELY GRANDMOTHER. She and my dad still take their trips to Hawaii. People move on.
Heck no
When the Jaguars cut him in 2000, my girlfriends told me that I should, too. But I couldn’t kick him while he was down. I also believed he had a real skill set that would be attractive to another team.
We married in May, and at the end of August he got cut from the Raiders and never played football again. And for the rest of our marriage, never had another check. From a job. Ever again.
I started handing him ways to make me happy, gradually making them simpler and simpler.
He upped his game, however, as a prolific cheater. I was resigned to it, more annoyed by his moping around than his cheating. I’d hear the garage door and tense up, not sure what mood he’d be in. I distinctly remember yelling, “I don’t care who sucks your dick, just come home and be nice to me.”
If you are feeling humiliated and broken by the weight of pain over someone trifling, be Tina. Let yourself be forged in this fire.
There is an epidemic now of people “being real” when they’re being anything but.
In all the times I spent with Prince, I wish I’d just once had the balls to ask him, “What is it you see in me? That maybe I am not seeing in myself?”
