Being in love is easy. It’s sharing your life with someone that’s hard.
 

I often forget to consult Halo about my decisions before I make them. I really never gave any of my exes that kind of sway with me. Then being dominant, though I consult with subs about their limits and interests, the decisions are in my hands for the most part.
 

My relationship with Halo is egalitarian and a whole different ball game. He has worked his way into having a stake in most of the things that I do. We’re a unit, but it’s not natural for me to think like I’m part of a unit. I wonder if that’s why he put a ring on my finger. We’re not into marriage, except in the event of having a kid, so there really was no reason for him to insist on getting me an anniversary ring. We even moved our anniversary to the day after my birthday, so that I would be more likely to remember. He knows me. He knows I’ll forget.
 

Yesterday, I was talking to my friends about get-togethers and travel plans, and I sent him an email saying that I wouldn’t be going to Europe in September as planned, but rather in November. There’s a musical opening in London that I want to see. I told him that he didn’t have to go if he didn’t want to, because he’s not crazy about London or musicals, even though he did enjoy Memphis when I took him to see it.
 

Today, Halo called me as usual, and when we got onto the subject of the email, he gave me a “Sweetie” with a lot of sigh in it. First he said that if I was going to London, of course he was going as well because he wasn’t going to lose any time with me. He was surprised that I would even suggest otherwise.
 

When he put it like that, I was surprised too.
 

He went on to remind me that I’d promised to spend New Year and his birthday with him. He was not about to get cut out of the holidays together, or seeing me sooner than the end of the year. “What, after summer you think I’m going to wait five months to see you? Don’t make me come get you.”
 

And then I was like, Shit, I am in a relationship, and it’s serious as fuck.
 

He gingerly put the smack down on my change of plans, and said that he was surprised I was taking it so well. He said, “When I got the email, I thought, ‘She’s not going to like what I have to say about this.’”
 

I laughed because this motherfucker knows me, and it was a bit amazing to realize that I was being known and loved for exactly the person that I am. I mean, he could hold it against me that I don’t remember anniversaries, or that I’m not the kind of girlfriend who dotes on him and factors him into every thought I have.
 

Instead, I remembered that for our anniversary, I’ll be getting a new ring. That was the deal that he made with me, when he put the first one on my finger. Every year, he’ll choose a new ring that reflects what he knows about me and where we are in our life together. The one I have right now is an amethyst because for some reason he thought purple was my favorite color last year. Every time I look at my hand, I remember his face when he put the box in front of me. “It was the only purple one in the shop,” he told me proudly. I remember how I leaned on his shoulder, when he took me to the jeweler to get it sized. I remember how in love I was.
 

His mother even gave me a purple key-chain, to carry the key to Halo’s house eventually. It sits on my nightstand on my side of his bed, waiting for me to be ready to live as part of a unit. Obviously, I’m not quite there yet, but every time we have these moments in which he reminds me that I’m with him, I also realize why I’m with him. More than one man in my past has tried to buy sway over me with promises of a wedding and a ring, but I’ve always turned away from being held down.
 

With Halo, I just feel held, like he’s always meeting me where I am and loving this moment with me, not some idealized future me in a white dress or with his last name. Every year with him, it’ll be a different ring for the woman that I become. He loves me in light of the fact that I will always evolve. He loves me with the expectation of keeping up with me and arranging a life around us, instead of just keeping me in his life.
 

So I think I need to be there in September to hold this man of mine and tell him that he is aces.
 
 

A couple days ago, I was talking to Halo about the weather. It’s been warm here, and it’s getting warmer in Rotterdam. He loves the sunshine, which is where we differ. I’m apparently part vampire because I catch hives every spring and summer when the UV level starts to go up. Sunlight only brings out the blond in his hair and the honey tones in his skin. Sometimes I think it’s a throwback to the summers he spent in Spain with his abuelos before they passed. A warm person at any rate, the sun brings out Halo’s heat. He already has a high libido, but sunshine makes him want to fuck like sex is going out of style.
 

With us being in a long distance relationship, sometimes he complains about other bitches pushing his button. Like girls at his college who show up in short skirts and heels, and sit next to him in class. He never understands why bitches sit right next to him, or have been hitting on him since he’s been with me.
 

Halo: A girl told me it’s because I’m in a relationship now.
 

I told him that it’s because he looks relaxed. Single men always look hungry. A man in a relationship, especially one like Halo who is charming but chill, attracts women who enjoy masculine energy but don’t want to deal with all that fucking leering and sexual aggression.
 

He seemed to grasp what I was saying, but then wondered if being relaxed was working against him. He said that a woman at work had told him that another woman, half Dutch and half Ghanian, fancied him. Halo said that he hadn’t much noticed Ghana. “I don’t pay attention much anymore,” But the other day, he went out for a cigarette, and Ghana went out to join him. When he mentioned that he would soon be in the U.S. to visit his girlfriend, she didn’t take the news very well.
 

Halo: She got an evil look, and said, ‘Oh, your girlfriend is not here?’ Like that meant she still had a chance. Evil look, sweetie. Can’t trust it.
 

I reminded him that bitches hit on him all the time, so what does it matter? A little flirtation is good for one’s ego. And anyway, I’ve put an open relationship up for negotiation but he always turns it down, I think because he doesn’t want me having a piece on the side. Point being, I’m not worried about him cheating. We’ve crossed that bridge already, so I couldn’t understand what he was on about. I asked him again if he wanted to invoke the license to fuck other people, but he gave me a face like I was missing the point.
 

He went on to say that a few weeks ago, an ex-lover of his had called, asking to drop by his house. Halo maintained a network of women between his long term ex and meeting me. This particular girl used to drop by to smoke a joint and fuck, so when she called, he knew that was all she was after. Halo told her flat out that he was with me.
 

Halo: She didn’t sound happy. I think she crossed me off the list. That was the last one, sweetie. No more network for me.
 

Then I understood what he was on about. I asked him, “Wait. Are you trying to say you just retired from the game for me?”
 

Halo: I’ve been retired. These girls are just now getting it.
 

I was touched. Bitches, I was done. No matter when a man starts to act exclusive, admitting to other people that he’s out of the game is a fairly big deal. It’s a matter of pride, and I get that. I went through the same process with my ex last year, and me and Halo argued a lot about me needing to make my peace with it on my own terms, and not on Halo’s schedule. So it means a lot to me that he has also come to terms with his bitches on his own, because I’ve never pushed him. A lot of women fuck up with men by trying to rush that evolution. Halo has been adamantly exclusive with me from last year, but he presented the fact that he’d chosen me, over anybody that he could have at his convenience, as though it were an offering.
 

Halo: I feel like you’re right there, when I talk about you. How can I see anybody but you? These girls can’t stand in your shadow.
 

That’s what your man said, straight up naked-voiced on the phone like he was reciting a Shakespearean sonnet.
 

I was at work, so we didn’t talk long, but he called back later. Then he got me on Skype even later. His hair was an endearing mess, fresh from the shower and standing up kinda like a cross between Morrissey and Elvis. He’d been growing it out for me for months, but he was ready to cut it, and hoped I wouldn’t be displeased. Still, he said he’d wait until after his impending visit so that I would have something to yank while he loves on me in a couple of weeks.
 

I asked him to sing some Elvis for me, and he tried. I laughed. Then he got all dreamy-eyed and piercing, saying that he’d never felt a stronger love than right at the moment, and that he wouldn’t trade a network of bitches for being on videophone with me and my smiles.
 

My heart broke a little because he gives me those smiles. They don’t come to me naturally. He makes me more beautiful.
 

He said the same: You make me better looking, sweetie. That’s why these bitches are on my jock.
 

I wish I could have gotten a picture of how he looked, saying all that. The finger-yanked Morrissey hair, the green Adidas jacket, the dreamy eyes, and the restrained smile. The way he leans in toward the computer screen like that will get him closer to me. The way he looks like he’s aching, and I know he is. He doesn’t always sleep well, doesn’t always eat, when he’s missing me. He’s obsessive.
 

Sometimes I feel like life already isn’t long enough, or I’m not smart enough to hold these moments in my consciousness. Sometimes I wonder if what I had before him was even love or just the idea of it, because what I feel for Halo is so fucking fundamental. It has the gravity of a planet, turns like a universe that will never end despite supernovas and black holes. This love feels so essential that it will reinvent itself, and that scares the shit out of me in the best possible way.
 

That’s why I have a hard time writing about it. I mean, what kind of paltry words do you wrap around everything?
 
 

I woke up from a dream in which I was dreaming.
 

The major part of my dreaming was already over. I dream in full plot lines, maybe because I’m a writer, and had gone through some unrealistic ordeal that had to do with fucking around with a celebrity. ‘Cause in real life, I wouldn’t hang with a celebrity.
 

Then at the end of the dream, all that nonsense got sucked into a laptop screen, as though the first part of the dream were just something I’d read or written. And I got into my own bed to go to sleep.
 

I smelled my favorite red sheets, and they were fresh out of the laundry because I did wash them yesterday in real life. For some reason, I got into bed the wrong way though, feet toward the headboard. And the sheets were already messed up, as though I hadn’t made up the bed after I’d put on the sheets, even though I always do. Nevertheless, I crashed and awkwardly pulled the covers over me.
 

While falling asleep, a girl got in the bed with me. I didn’t see her, but I knew it was a girl because she had little hands when she touched my hair to see if I was awake, and she was soft when she curled up behind me. It was one of those drunk after a party in college curl-ups, where you both crashed on a bed and the other person wants to cuddle, only they want the cuddling to seem like an accident that happened while you were asleep.
 

So in the dream, I didn’t really react. I was like, Aw, she’s sweet. I kinda thought she liked me.
 

Then I was like, Why is there a girl in my bed? Halo is gonna be pissed.
 

Then I freaked out like, WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE. WHERE AM I, ‘CAUSE I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANY GIRLS LIKE THAT RIGHT NOW. IS THIS EVEN MY BED?
 

But it was my actual bed in my actual room, and I was falling asleep with some girl in the present tense. So I thought, Dude, you’re dreaming. And I was, but I was also falling asleep to dream. Either way, I was doing the same thing, so both situations felt equally real. And for a second, my brain lost its shit like, Okay, which one is the dream? Me and the girl in my bed and Halo being pissed, or me waking up with just Halo?
 

So then I was like, Don’t wake up. Play it out. But curiosity killed the cat. When I tried to turn and see who the girl was, in case I didn’t want to be living a life with her, and I woke up.
 

Still though? That was totally my parallel universe self, pimpin’ as usual.
 
 

A week or so ago, my sister called me from Manhattan. She’d gotten an acting graduate school offer from Columbia, and had to go for a final audition after completing her application. She was incredibly nervous, having scraped together just enough money to get there, and still only having the same cobalt blue dress that she’d worn to her first audition. She had put everything on the line to get there, not just academically but as a person. Take everything you know about my struggle with the Rents, and multiply it by the fact that Mum and Stepford Dad are her real parents. I only have to deal with Mum; I have another father. Stepford Dad, meanwhile, is the sort of dickhead who helped make Mum what she is.
 

On top of that, we grew up working class, and there’s a special courage required for a poor girl to be vulnerable in the face of affluence. She’d gotten a great last minute deal on a nice hotel, but would have to make breakfast, lunch, and snacks from the free spread downstairs. She’d taken money away from her budget to make the trip, so I called in and paid her phone bill so that she wouldn’t be without a line to her loved ones. Poor girls spend their lives trying not to feel like beggars and not let jealousy eat up their spirits. I can only imagine the special torture that it has been for my sister to stand on stage, trying to make a cheap dress look chic, while she waits for someone to tell her whether she’s good enough.
 

I’d done my best to hook her up with some good accessories, a feminine leather blazer, and a bronze chainmail necklace that brought out her skin tone. She wore a pair of smashing Vince Camuto booties that I’d gotten her as a gift in San Francisco last year. Altogether with the simple dress that she’d bought with the last of her paycheck, she looked effortless and graceful, a bubbly beauty with mile long legs. My sister has always been a little spirit, despite her height and athletic build; you can see it in her big eyes.
 

She has been running all her life, for track, basketball, to get from our house on the edge of Compton to a better school on the other side of town, to get to work which she started doing as soon as she was old enough. Like a lot of Black women’s legs, my sisters aren’t just pretty to look at; they have a story. You’ll see, when she ends up on a red carpet. She’s got legs like an Olympian, like a model, and like a heady wine. Now that I have her permission to tell her story, I’ll start calling her Legs.
 

Legs has been calling me to hold her hand through this process, as she’s been calling for years. She has never gotten much support from the Rents, and especially not about choosing to be come an actress, a decision that she struggled with late in her college career. The Rents didn’t think she would succeed at becoming an actress, and maybe not at anything, because she was a cutter.
 

They throw it up to her like it’s a crime, a stain on her character. “It’s ugly.” That’s how they reacted to her original scars, after we all found out that she’d been self-harming. They said the same about the surgical scar that has since replaced the checkerboard of wounds that once filled my sister’s forearm. They said the same about her natural hair, when she first made the big cut. You’re ugly, and not worth believing in. That’s what the Rents say to my sister. I wish I could say, not literally, but they have done.
 

Her original scars reminded me of scratches on a prisoner’s wall, each one marking off part of a sentence. So I think it’s appropriate that she found her freedom through wearing her scar on her sleeve. The jacket I gave her to wear was 3/4 length, so her scar was visible to all. Five inches long and a quarter of an inch wide, it’s not flat, and the pigment doesn’t blend in. It looks like violence, until you hear the story, and then it’s heartbreaking. Legs is a gorgeous, tall girl with flawless skin, except for that scar, and yet it has become a part of her beauty.
 

I raised her not to be ashamed of it, the same as I keep a tattoo about my suicide so that I can’t ever act like that experience didn’t make me. The standard social discourse on psychological issues is so disease oriented that they don’t talk much about how complexes are integral to a person, even if psychological episodes are only a flash in the pan. I have a suicidal tendency. I survived the event, but the tendency is the story of my life, and I’m not gonna let shame take that from me. Tragically, for both me and Legs, the tendency comes from a cycle of abuse, the Rents and all their bullshit, genetic predisposition for depression that is obvious on Mum’s side of the family, and a general inheritance of Blackness, teenage motherhood, poverty, and what have you.
 

But our tendencies also include almost superhuman capacities for empathy, loyalty, and introspection. Up until we started to crack, we endured and took care of each other. I broke the cycle of abuse in my family, and two artists have come out of it, me and Legs. My other sister showed gifts as an artist when she was younger, but she hasn’t rediscovered that part of herself yet. She’s busy being a good mother, which is a triumph considering her teacher.
 

You have to think really big to grasp this, but in the story of my sister’s life, being a cutter belongs. I’m not saying that she should have done it, ideally. I’m saying that no one is ideal. There are plenty of people walking around, draped in normalcy, with big scars on their psyche that they wish they could wear on their sleeves, in order to externalize that shit and make something of it. Women of color especially are constantly being denied full expression of their vulnerabilities. It’s not acceptable or beautiful for us to be flawed, scarred, wounded, delicate, little spirits, wondrous, soft, and still triumphant. You have to be flawless to deserve anything, or else when we get a story of triumph, it’s so often about a woman who is damn near invincible. She never seems to need anything except her fighting spirit, never seems to do anything except fight other people off and hold other people up.
 

I did that, before I was suicidal. I fought for my sisters, I was strong, and I held everything together, including a flawless academic record and a pristine sexual life. I wasn’t vulnerable; nothing could hurt me, and no one could touch me, because I was dead inside.
 

I tell my story, and now my sister has allowed me to tell hers, because there are so many women of color out there who have struggled to get everything they want, but none of it seems to penetrate deeply enough. They’re hard inside, and don’t know even why. Beyond success, relationships, and social change, the woman alone with herself is what I care about. I don’t want her to cry, unless she needs to. I just want her to feel it. Everything. There are a lot of little victories in our lives, but it’s not triumph until the victories, and the losses, and the scars, are all a part of your beauty, and you don’t have to put on a show or conceal anything for anybody.
 

That’s why I’m proud of my sister. She’s an actress, but she wasn’t faking it when she stepped forward on that stage, poor, Black, scarred, nervous as fuck, never wanting something so much. No doubt it was the best and worst moment of her life. The professor who saw her audition called this past week, to personally tell Legs that Columbia wants her, but her moment of stepping into the light will be in my sister’s memoir, not their acceptance.
 

Below is the personal essay that she included with her application. It took a lot of courage to write, because the story of her leaving school and going back hinged on the fact that she’d been a cutter and had taken time off to get her head together. When she asked me how much she should say about it, I told her what I’ve been saying all along: Be proud of your story, and show people who you are.
 

This is what she had to say for herself.

Life In Lights
 

Harder than applying to graduate school was the moment in which I gave myself permission to be an actress.
 

I remember holding my breath back stage, before my first performance, because I’d almost hyperventilated. I stood paralyzed while my heart pounded. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and sweat soaked my pores. I wanted to run to the bathroom and scream, “What have I gotten myself into?” Instead, I grabbed the velvet curtain as though it were the hand of a close friend. My own hand shook, and I glanced at the scar on my arm that had almost kept me from getting to that moment. Still unwilling to be defeated, I walked onstage and into the bright lights.
 

Harder than becoming an actress was the moment in which I stopped being a cutter.
 

It took time for me to uncover all the reasons why I’d begun to self-harm, but stopping came down to one desire. I wanted to trade shame for a life that I could be proud of. During my first three years of college, I floated from one major to the next, trying to nail down a sensible career path. Meanwhile, the dreams and goals of my friends floated around me like dangling light bulbs, raising my eyes from the self-doubt and self-blame that had led me to cut myself. Not knowing what to do with my life was a scary thing, so I stole other people’s dreams, and tried to make one of them my own. I suppose I had to look outward for a sense of direction because I was lost inside.
 

I gained a sense of perspective when my niece was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. Only two months old at the time, she had to fight for her life, and that made me wonder why I had given up on mine. How could I encourage a baby to fight and be strong, and not tell myself the same?
 

I took time off from school, and worked at the YMCA as I had for years. I’d always been creative and interested in performing, so I came up with skits for my group of kids. The kids were great story-tellers. Inspired by their openness and freedom, I realized that I embodied a story about overcoming. Prior to that, I’d been scared to get in front of people and have to explain the scar on my arm. I tried not to feel ashamed, but on a stage in bright lights, I wasn’t sure if I could be that strong, especially if I had to let myself go to a character. The vulnerability of being seen was my true fear, which was exactly why I’d sat alone in the dark and cut myself in the first place. I needed to step into the light, and use the drama of my emotional life to create something that would touch other people.
 

At that point, I decided to go back to school and finish my bachelor’s degree in theater. I visited a university, and happened to arrive during a very exciting time. One of the school’s productions had been selected to perform at the Kennedy Center. I was able to watch a screening of the play during my visit, and was inspired to apply to that school. It was difficult to morph into a theater student with no background in drama, and with a less than impressive assortment of coursework from my first three years of school. However, as I discovered a passion for stage production and acting, I found the motivation to succeed in school that I’d been lacking before, and finished my degree.
 

After graduation, I moved from the city to my family’s much smaller town in the South. There weren’t many theater opportunities in the area, but I wanted to continue training, and created some opportunities. I started classes with actors at a community theater, and volunteered with the drama department of a local college. I hoped that if I kept showing up everyday, someone would let me help with an upcoming production. To my happiness, I was given a small part in a show.
 

Standing backstage wasn’t hard at all that time. I didn’t hyperventilate, though I did start to sweat off my stage makeup. My heart pounded but not from fear. I was excited because I knew exactly what I’d gotten myself into. I had found a passion not just for being on stage, but for living in the light.
 

Having my name in lights wouldn’t be bad either.

I just had one of those huge resonance moments. I’ve mentioned before that sometimes things happen in a loosely related way that’s like a series of little bells going off, all reaffirming the same thing. Sometimes that’s just my psyche clicking into place. Other times, it’s The Big G, or karma, or truth, or whatever you want to call it, lovingly but sarcastically saying, Ding, ding.
 

Anyway, I just realized that the world will end soon because there’s too much truth rising to the same energy level as what we call reality, and reality can’t handle it. There are epiphanies exploding all over the place, in the lives of my friends and loved ones, in the world at large. It’s eerie. You don’t have to be religious to grasp that we’re at critical mass. Truth is God, so I don’t know why bitches are waiting on some dude named Jesus to roll up. You can feel the energy in your veins. It’s just the truth, and people whose lives are built on lies are terrified.
 

I’m not scared at all though. I been knew this shit wasn’t for me to keep. I’ve been steeping myself in what matters ever since I figured out what that was. My bucket list is finished, and I’m ready for the next evolution. Bring it.
 

This is when it pays to be fearless. Religion and social conditioning fail because they teach you to sit still and fear, when the secret of our being is to stay fluid and open, to recycle everything that happens into more life. Richer, deeper life. Even the idea of your death is supposed to make you live more potently now. These things are only secrets because most people aren’t listening to their lives.
 

If you’re not at fearless already, you need to get here quick and start doing it big.
 
 

I work in a family business, and one of my employees is a cousin who talks too much. Not just like, he’s a little too chatty. He’s a compulsive talker, always filling in silences because he’s scared to be alone with them. In my experience, people who talk too much out of proportion to how well they know you—and not because they’re nervous—usually have something to prove. Most of the time, they’re either defending a lie that you aren’t aware of yet, or defending their self-esteem.
 

So after work tonight, I closed up shop, and me and my cousin were going to our cars. We said goodbye and I popped the locks on my truck. I opened the door, and was literally standing with one foot on the running board when he called out to me.
 

Cousin: Hey! I got that email from Walmart saying that my vacuum cleaner came in.
 

I was stumped. He seemed to be referencing a conversation that we’d had before that I didn’t remember, because I hadn’t paid any attention, because he always talks too much about nothing whatsoever.
 

I tried not to make my WTF?face because I’m working on being less blunt in the way that I react to people. But he was looking at me like he was waiting for a response, and what the fuck was I supposed to say to that? Congratulations? Wow, that’s awesome?
 

Stumped, like I said. First thing I came up with was, “What kind of vacuum cleaner is it?” I figured it had to be a Dyson or an Oreck or something really fancy.
 

He launched into an unremarkable description of the vacuum cleaner that I didn’t hear because I was busy thinking, This is what I get for learning to be nice. If I’d just made my WTF?face, I could be in the truck on the way home right now.
 

Finally, I cut off the conversation even though he was still talking. “Sounds good. Hope you enjoy it. See you tomorrow,” and then I got in my truck. He never knows when to stop, so I have to do it for him.
 

Driving home, I realized what my cousin was trying to prove to me: that he has a life. That vacuum cleaner email, used as a conversational gambit, was his proof of life. He’s about fifteen years older than me, and has never been in a steady relationship, and has never been able to finish any kind of trade school or vocational training that would make him not my underling in the family business. So I kinda felt bad for him for half a second.
 

But then I was like, If he didn’t talk so fucking much about bullshit, he’d have friends and have more to say for himself than, “I’m getting a vacuum cleaner.”
 

Moral of the story being, sometimes you are the cause of the effects. If you’re not reeling in the life that you want, instead of cursing the pond, you might want to try switching your bait. Just sayin’.
 
 

Halo got hit by a car. He’s okay. He stepped back in the nick of time and only got clipped. Fortunately, he was still downtown so the hospital was right there, and some classmates took him to urgent care. He can’t remember who did it, and I kinda think that’s a blessing, because if I found out who it was, murder would be the case that they gave me.
 

I’m writing this because when the shit hits the fan, that’s when you see who your lover really is.
 

I was upstairs watching TV when this went down, and didn’t have my phone on me. When I went downstairs to bed, I saw that he had been blowing up my phone for the past hour. It was like, four a.m. over there, so I knew something was up. After I hadn’t answered any of his calls, he’d sent me a sarcastic ass message, which is unlike him because he’s usually not sarcastic.
 

Halo: Thanks for calling me back. I’ve only just been hit by a car. No big deal.
 

Feeling awful, I called him, and he told me that he’d been in an accident and that he was in the hospital, hopped up on pain killers. He said that it was no big deal because the car got his knee and the ankle he fucked up back when he played footie, and mostly he hated that he had to be in the hospital. When I asked if he could remember the car, he cracked a joke.
 

Halo: Let me ask my knee. No, he can’t remember if he got hit by a Bentley or a Volkswagen. It was just a big piece of metal.
 

At that point, I figured he was on some really good shit because he was in so much pain, and that terrified me. If it wasn’t serious, they would have sent him home instead of keeping him in the fucking hospital. But before I could get on to a more accurate description of how badly he’s been hurt, he started apologizing.
 

Halo: Sweetie, I’m so sorry I upset you. Did you get that message? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It’s just I hate hospitals, you know, and I just needed you so fucking much. My mom even offered to come here, but I said no. I just can’t stand it that I don’t have you here. What kind of karma is this?
 

Meanwhile, the motherfucker is a social worker. Like, he was just in the newspaper a couple weeks ago for getting a healthy nutrition cooking class started and sponsored by local grocery stores to benefit kids in their neighborhood. That’s just on his volunteer gig. His karma is so fresh, so clean at this point in life.
 

Halo: Two more steps, sweetie, and we wouldn’t be having this call, you know? It just puts it in perspective how much I love you, girl.
 

I mean, he’s crazy though. Anybody else would have been on a rampage, trying to find out who’d done the hit and run, or playing woe is me. Busted up on a hospital bed, Halo was cracking jokes and telling me how much he loved me.
 

So I just busted out crying and shit on the phone. ‘Cause sometimes you just know that you know that you know that you love somebody.
 

Then he came with his usual line: “I just needed to hear your voice.”
 

I don’t know why this happened in his life, but I think it happened in my mine so that I would realize Halo is not playing any motherfucking games with this love shit. Like, I said he was fluffy the other day—whereas I’m not—and now I have to take that back. There’s nothing soft about the level this dude is on. When he said that he can’t sleep unless he hears my voice, clearly he means that. Even hopped up on pain killers in the hospital, when he should have been thinking about himself, he couldn’t sleep until he heard from me.
 

I don’t even know what kind of crazy love that is, but it hit me hard like, What am I doing with my life that I’m not with this man right now?
 

I don’t know. ‘Cause I swear the whole world stopped when I heard him say that he was in the hospital. I am in love like whoa. Like whoa, bitches. Like Rolling In The Deep.
 
 

Seriously, my aunt just called apropos of nothing to tell me she has a lemon cake for me. My cousin’s restaurant is opening tonight. My sister got into grad school. My bestie’s daughter started walking this past weekend. And then there’s Halo. And then there’s “Cherish.” And my bucket list has been finished since last year.
 

I’m happy, and everyone I love is also happy right at this moment in time.
 

Maybe I already died of happiness, and only just realized it.
 
 

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: