Six Ten AM

I have to warn you, I’ve never been this cheesy before, I’ve also never really mourned a place like this. Maybe except Nice. Carry on. By the time you read this, I will have already fully moved out of my apartment. It’s been a rushed process — exhausting, bittersweet — and seeing it slowly get emptier and emptier has made my chest ache in ways I didn’t expect. It’s funny how a space can fill up your life so much that even empty, it feels heavier than when it was full. I moved into DD4 just before my 22nd birthday. At the time, life felt like walking across a tightrope blindfolded. I was a law student, still unsure of her career path (still kind of am), in a new relationship after spending a year mostly catatonically heartbroken…or numb? Honestly, I can’t even tell the difference anymore. I had friends I tried to bring together like scattered puzzle pieces that never really fit together.  Everything was shifting. Everything was fragile. And under all of it, I carried the deep, silen...

It feels like it’s been a minute since I wrote anything mommy-related, but the motherhood chronicles are back, guys. Some big changes have happened — and even more are on the way. We’ve been going through the motions lately. We moved recently, and I can’t say my daughter has taken it well. It reminds me of her first trip to Zimbabwe. That trip was doomed from the start with our accident, but when I tell y’all that for nearly two weeks straight my girl was  borderline inconsolable  trying to adjust, I mean it. Same story here. She’s sleeping poorly, eating poorly, and doesn’t want to be put down. It’s a movie. It’s  been  a movie. And if I’m being very candid, I haven’t been my best self since we got here either. I’ve been wound up and tense, and I know my girl senses that. I’m trying to mellow out my negative energy — keyword  trying . It’s not easy. Survival mode is a mask I wear to get through the day, but having an 11-month-old see right through that has its ...

To some extent, I’m a coward.  It’s kind of dizzying to admit. Anyway, for context—I came across a post claiming that non-confrontational people are the worst, and I let out the biggest  yikes . Let me explain. There are people who think I’m confrontational—and I guess that’s true, but only when I’m defending someone else’s honor. When it comes to standing up for  myself ? Regardless of how deeply something affects me, you won’t hear a peep. And honestly, it’s getting embarrassing at my big age. Is this my frontal lobe finally warming up? During my pregnancy, I had a spine of steel. Anything remotely negative could impact my baby’s well-being, so I had to be firm about what I let in. I set boundaries. I enforced them. I didn’t entertain nonsense. But now, that version of me feels far away, and in her place is someone who walks around with a lump in her throat—too full of unsaid things, too afraid to say them out loud. I keep trying to suppress my anger, my hurt, my disapp...

I’ve never forgotten the day I started numbing my pain. I think I’ve shared this before, but given my current state of mind, I’m not sure of much lately. I was about eight or nine, home alone with my—for legal intents and purposes—siblings. The older of the two, the one they’d call my twin brother, decided it would be a brilliant idea to put a doll on the lightbulb. Naturally, it burned, singed the synthetic hair, and filled the room with that awful smell of melted plastic. I didn’t do anything. But apparently, that’s why I was getting punished.  Equality  was the bullshit mantra. At first, I hid under the dressing table—where the stool usually goes. As my name was called, I closed my eyes and swore I wouldn’t cry. Not over something I didn’t do. By the time I reached the sitting room and saw the belt waiting for me, I had steeled my resolve. I would not cry. I wouldn’t give that angry man the satisfaction of thinking he’d hurt me. Of course it hurt. But I didn’t cry. I dissoc...