over 20 years ago

 over 20 years ago, we lived in the same house

so let's get together twice  a year, here they call it holidays

to honor that we lived int eh same house 20 years ago

back then we didn't talk, and you spent most of your time out

you was a boy, and I was a girl. past tense because of the accuracy of time

didn't talk because maybe it wasn't interesting to be interested in your sister

in your life you have a pattern, and its called ignoring me

you've been giving me the silent treatment for more than 20 years

only say 'hi' or address me in a crisis

so I shouldn't be surprised that you called me the other day

you are honoring the fact that over 20 years ago

we lived in the same house, we had the same mom and

in layman's terms that makes us siblings

but in the terms of the heart, I am as close as a stranger

I hate when people claim they know you

when they never had access to your internal world

when they don't ask, they don't tell, your life has gone a different way

Everyone I have respected has in some ways, disrespected me

Its like the years erodes the constraint of friendship 

and I see now that the more time people have around you

the more they think they know you, the more comfortable they get

and then there is comes, the disrespect.

I am aware I am like Hannah, no, more like the servant girl

that was used then abandoned. Sent to the wilderness to die, her and her child

She did nothing wrong. When I read the Bible verses, this is what I was thinking.

There was nothing wrong, no fallacy that she did. She obeyed, she followed the rules

and here she was, unwanted in a foreign land. No provision. No man to say, here you go, 

here's some food, here's some shelter, HERE I CAN.

But God saw her, God had her in the palm of His hand.

God is the only one that cared, kept her son alive.

the Bible doesn't say the how, but we just know that it happened.

The Bible has a great ability to put a lot of life into a few words

and make sense of it all. 

On Sunday I saw the pastor, and I thought, I can do that. 

Last week I bumped into a girl twice, I said let's be friends.

haven't heard from her since. Maybe she didn't send the text.

I'm so used to rejection and who knows? maybe she didn't send it, I know wi didn't send it.

maybe we were talking so much we didn't go further.

I am 40, I am a mother to an 11 year old. It's so crazy to be here.

I am in this new city with no family. And years ago, that was, of course, my desire

but just like the lack of agency, I have few resources but somehow it's enough.

My brother called, the crisis manager. I guess for a conversation he would have been 

fake and pretended to care. I have fallen for this game before. To fall now is to be a fool.

Mom is into idol worship and she did witchcraft. the truth is, well, embarrassing.

That's why I whisper the truth out to you, in this page, in the privacy. 

I used the blog because after all the moving I'm afraid of losing our own the pages again. 

Over 20 years ago, we used to beat  family. it meant we had the same mom and lived in the same house.

Your mind and heart has always been far from me. Maybe because you are male and I already dint have a dad and very few of male presence. I miss that. I wanted you to be a brother. YOu didn't offer that.

SO for years I have found brothers in others. These relationships have no dissipated.

I was surprised in the book wolf of wall street, anytime the guy had a new goal

all he needed was new people to do it. he has drug addict friends then it was easy to 

normalize the drugs. when he got sober, the first step was getting new firneds.

people do to life with it seems. people idolize marriage so much.

I have faced the end of people putting up their nose at me.

How date I go to church. how dare I be pretty and single. 

I am a sentence without a period. A believer in God without a husband is its own

type of sin, you would think. a guy kept bring guys to the service. he was turning it

into a dating show service. and I was supposed to be cool with all of that.

I was seen as a problem that needed to be solved, and I hate, hate, hate being 

considered like that. Is my honesty wrong? my beauty inconvenient? 

am I much more than what I seem? and did we all fellowship and it all led to bullshit?

Endings are always hard for me. Its so weird to me the years that I have been at churches getting

close to people, supposedly 'children of God' and we are 'sisters and brothers in Christ'

and the truth is, i'm doing life alone. always have and always will

Life is like a race that you keep running and winning and getting the baton and everytime

you reach an end it keeps going. You have to hold on to the baton and each ending leads to a new beginning. Some seasons have audiences, and people will wake up early with you and show up.

Sometimes there are people next to us running the race with us, and we think they 

gonna be there forever and it sucks when we graduate and they stay stuck. They don't move

and you move and therefore that makes you somehow wrong. Your broke a contract you never agreed to,

to stay the same. and as you change, they slowly dip away from you.

I see now most of my friends shouldn't have been in my  life anyways. Yomeiry was an adulteress

that used men for money or whatever she could get from them. Alaka is kind and nice and wise,

I always thought, somehow our friendship turned into transactions that he could use me for free.

He manipulated my love like a rag that one squeezes to get all the juice out. 

I gave due to love, he took due to free labor. It's very sad to see this truth now. But truth is

sobering. and its good to be aware. The people that I loved genuinely that just used that love

to take. The love I gave over the years hping it would turn to loyalty.

But it never did. beacause when you are going through the things, no matter how many people I call.

Its still me going through the things and no one offers any relief.

I used to vent a lot, now i'm trying to write it all out. I write it out to chat gtp. 

seeing my words on a page makes me feel seen.

Pour out all these things out before God. Can I have a place to rest? 

Can I have a home, a sweet ambode? can I meet my own old lady in Hawaii

that will cook for me and be nice? This lady flew in for an adventure and made a long time friend.

Oh how I love the old people in Hialeah. When I told these things to Latoya,

she got quiet like she didn't want to listen. I didn't know what to do with the silence

so I filled it as you are supposed to do in a phone conversation.

When I as in Georgia my mom would say the same 3 questions or topics. 

conversations with her were so boring because no matter what happened din the world, 

she was constantly saying the same thing. and they were all wrong. and I kept telling her

how her assumptions were wrong. but the truth wasn't interesting to her.

She wanted to be in a world where what she said was truth, and her assumptions were right,

no matter how many times I told her otherwise. 

Now, I don't have the patience. YOu stay over there with your delusions. Didjnt know

spirits and Satan was using her all this time. she was catholic, supposed to be a nun but she

was pulled out of the covenant and she had us kids. which for me, I know for a fact that I wasn't warned. 

My soul wants it.

But when you have been taught your whole life that the things that you feel down in your soul

are all lies. that the lies that they are feeding you are actually truth and they feed it to you everyday.

You learn to stop listening to yourself. Angel wanted to feel validated, to think that someone still wanted him. This is why he reacjhd out. he pretended he cared about the baby. how sick is that? 

Andre, he wanted to tell me some fuck shit to hurt me all over again, 10 years later. I thought it was cruel. he was emotionally not even aware of his actions. 

Years later he begged to give me a ride, he never has any shame. he will beg if he has to and ask the same question 20 more times until he gets a yes. (Pattern recognition?) I feel because my no was not respected and I just wanted for the questioning to stop. then i'm there and he does some fuck shit. I got so mad. I expected him to do certain things and he didn't and I got really mad. 

I think no one should be forced to spend time with their abuser. as much as I cut him off he will spend the entirety of his life not listening and like a weasel, keep trying to sneak back into my life. he will wait until I have no one, well that is common.

I didn't plan this, God. to be so alone. I didn't plan today to wake up at 330am but look at this! this are writings, all the things that are inside my soul. I always did have a lot to say. in the morning I finally don't have class. but the day goes on and its hard to be still. Thinking of a future and thinking of a drill. No matter how much I prepared myself and all the books I read, life still swpet me up. I was still a victim of all the things they say girls without dads do. ITs a trick of the enemy the people say.

Well, its a good trick. Maybe that's why he keeps doing it.

Redemption! there is redemption! I'm alive! I survived! i don't have a cookie cutter life. 

Lately at times I feel so bitter. I got trained. I know how to clean, how to maintain a house, how to foster a family. now that I've been a mom for so long now I know because I have done it. and I have no one Lord. No home to call my own, so for years I helped in other people's homes. Alaka said in the chess piece there is the queen or the maid. He was trying to say I have no position to take up in his life. He said it indirectly. I didn't get what he was saying but he is all logic and when I started playing chess, hell no I still don't understand because now that I learned chess I don't recall a piece that is called the maid. 

Bad analogy, Alaka. but he did use me like a maid. I helped them once and I guess they thought that was my role in their life. a free helper. fuck that. 

Love is not love when its used, manipulated, turned into a transaction. But that's what people do.

When I go to world trade center, when I take those pictures, oh God how great I feel. when I think of all the photos I take and I wonder how to monetize it, then it stays a thought because then I go back home a di start being a caretaker of my son and what's for dinner and is there homework and those things take up my mental space. Then I don't think of the thought and there is no continuum.

Lately I have been so afraid to be present, mostly to disturb the intrusive thoughts. and I ask questions and I am vocal, and this is sometimes too much. case worker has said like 3 times that I am loud. I know it, get over it.

I didn't know I had so much to say. its been a lifetime of moments. I saw shaquana she said there will be a reunion. I wonder if I didn't bump into her if I would have ever heard of it. 

If I see train conductor girl again, I would give her a big hug and tell her thanks. thanks for getting on the phone all those years ago, speak hope into a girl that had no idea how it was all gonna go. My son is the biggest blessing to me. Alaka made the connection. See? he wasn't all bad. He was plenty good.