Dear Mum,
 

My sister just told me that she received theater grad school offers in London and New York, including Columbia. I have three things to say to you:
 

Fuck you.
IN. YO. FACE.
I’ve ordered a “My kid goes to Columbia” sweatshirt, because I’ve earned it.
 

When my sister stood on stage for her shining moment, she was wearing clothes that I’d put on her back, shoes that I put on her feet, and a necklace that I gave her. I gave her performance tips, advice on styling her natural hair (which I also groomed her to do, because you gave her shit about it), and she even took herself out for a celebratory dinner with money that I put in her pocket.
 

I have successfully undone all the bullshit you dumped into my sister’s life, and she is a shining star. Know what the best part is? I don’t have a hole in my heart, so it is full up of love and pride right now, whereas you will probably feel nothing much when you hear this news, if you even grasp what it means.
 

It sucks to be you. Too bad you don’t realize that.
 
 

Mum beat up my sister, in front of my niece. Mum’s in her fifties, my sister is in her twenties, and my niece is less than ten.
 

I’ve said it all, when it comes to my history with the Rents. I’ve only had the same story to tell since I’ve been keeping a blog. Hell, since I was four and had to live with these motherfuckers, it’s been the same story. The only surprising thing is that it hasn’t changed. Don’t people get too old to be abusive, at some point?
 

What really kills me is that when my sister called, she was bawling her eyes about the fact that my niece had seen it. Because my sister was a child when she saw me getting fucked up, so she already knows that this is how the cycle of abuse starts.
 

What really, really kills me is that I let Mum meet Halo. A year ago, I was like, Fuck that bitch. She didn’t deserve a piece of anything good in my life. But then you get soft. People with good mothers, like Halo and my Dad, convince you that you can’t ever actually hate your own mother. “She’s making an effort; you should try too.” I’m the dummy who started believing again. The bitch was good to me and Halo for half an hour over lunch, and I let myself hope. I went up for Christmas, and felt like I had a mother again for half a day.
 

If you’ve always had a mother, you don’t understand what I mean. Imagine if she was dead, and then came back to life to spend a holiday with you. That was how I felt. It was the highest of hopes to think that she had changed, after everything that has gone down.
 

And then I got another phone call, children. Do you know how much of my life I’ve spent getting THESE FUCKING PHONE CALLS? With someone I love crying and bleeding on the other end of the line? I’m sick of this shit!
 

I don’t have a mother because the kind of person who does these things can’t be one. Being a mother is more than spawning someone, and these vicious things she does don’t fit the definition.
 

I don’t know what I’m gonna say to Halo tomorrow. His mother makes soup for him still; mine didn’t even teach me what a birthday is. My dad is the same; his mother was the greatest. And I really can’t listen to one more optimistic motherfucker who doesn’t have attachment issues, telling me that it’s going to be okay someday, and I should lighten up. Tell that to my scarred sister, who finally had it beaten into her last night that she doesn’t have one decent parent to lean on, because both of the Rents have told her to her face that they don’t want her.
 

I’m ready to erase the Rents from any kind thought of mine. I wish a bitch would tell me that I shouldn’t.
 
 

Woke up to the following from Halo:
 
 

I get a call from an unknown number, and realize that it’s the Gent. As I’ve said, he does things for the government, and was on a plum assignment in Europe, after a dangerous stint in Iraq. Now I find out that he volunteered for a temporary assignment in the Middle East, hence the strange number. This man can never seem to stay in any of the cushy office jobs that he has earned, after spending most of his career in the armpits of the world, trying to make things better.
 

You know, bitches write glam-romance stories about how they’d love the most honorable men among us to go to dangerous places and do amazing things. But I can tell you from experience that it’s terrifying in real life. I love this dude with everything, not the same as Halo, but the Gent is my oldest friend and my ace. My heart. Me and the Gent are damn near the same person, and for years, I’ve been the one that he calls to have a wee whiskey while bombs are falling outside wherever he is.
 

And my heart breaks for him, every fucking time, because he volunteered for that shit.
 

I just wish bitches would start getting their minds right, instead of waiting for guys like the Gent to get it right for them. I wish bitches would see past their grievances to what we want the world to be like, to what we can each give up in our pride to make the world better, so my friend can fucking come home.
 

We spend so much time pointing fingers and talking shit. Even when we have a right to do so, what does it matter? Accusations sow bitterness, which sows animosity, and then there we are, in a cycle of hate. I’m not an optimist exactly, but I do a lot to avoid stirring up negative energy to no purpose. Unless I really need to defend myself, it has no purpose beyond turning weak people into Fury!zombies who just want to be mad at everything. And that’s how we end up in nation-sized situations that my friend has to go in and solve.
 

If we all just paused long enough to think about when it’s the right time to keep the peace, the Gent could come home and be with his family and friends. I could take him out for a milkshake and a walk like we used to do in college.
 

I’ve been blessed to have known four hardcore gentlemen in my life, my Dad, Halo, Hubs, and the Gent. God forbid I have to lose one. God forbid.
 
 

When Halo recently came to meet the family, I noticed that he has a green ring around his eyes. In over a year, I’d never noticed that before. All shocked, I blurted out, “Dude, you have a green ring around your eyes!”
 

He made a You so crazy! face. “Yeah.”
 

I’d been telling myself that his eyes were whiskey brown, but they are in fact mostly hazel and some green, which apparently he has told me before.
 

“Sweetie, I’ve told you this before.”
 

“Oh. Well, I think it’s because the light is directly shining in your eyes,” I blamed it on the blinds in HotROD’s guest room.
 

After we got out of bed, I mentioned the fact to HotROD herself. “Halo’s got a green ring around his eyes,” I confided, like I’d just found out that he has a sixth toe.
 

HotROD laughed at me. “Yeah, I know,” and she’d only just met him.
 

This is why I’m not winning any girlfriend awards.
 

The eye thing is kind of like the blonde thing. When I was convinced that Halo had brown hair and light brown eyes, I was reminded that he was part Spanish, and somehow in my mind, that made him a step closer to people of color and less White. It doesn’t make sense, I know this. The Spanish were the White folks who came over here and started fucking shit up. I know. I’m not writing about history here, but about emotional non-logic. It’s just funny, the things we hide in our brain to make us more okay with our choices. Some of those things have to be examined and rooted out.
 

Like for example, Halo’s dubious blonde-ness freaks me out because I’ve always had an aversion to blonde guys. In general, they don’t attract me, because I couldn’t see myself walking around with a really White guy, as though being blonde makes them Vikings or something. And that’s just wrong of me.
 

Or the other day, I was watching a TV special about fitness in the South. Three fine Black guys were promoting their gym, and of course, they were all ripped and deliciously plum and young. And I thought, They are selling memberships like hotcakes right now. If I lived in that town, I’d be up in there all the time.
 

And then I realized, I’m love with a White guy. In my mind, that realization always sounds like, “I’m In Love With A Stripper.”
 

The silver lining of these little epiphanies is that I don’t have them often, which means that most of the time, I don’t see color between Halo and me.
 

But sometimes, I’m terrified of waking up next to a green eyed blonde. Just sayin’.