How it started:

That photo was when after almost a year in the shelter on Randolph St I graduated to a solo room. Don’t get me wrong after ‘sleeping’ some of the places I’d slept prior to Randolph St even that duo room was an upgrade but this was my first solo room. It was also the room I stayed in through the end when I signed the lease for Manheim St. That time period after the incident, then on Limekiln for months trying to figure out next steps, then with Lexi was a lot. I’ve experienced a lot, I can’t say more than most or the average but I’ve experienced a lot. I am still here. The beat goes on. I am a survivor.

Would I like to live without surviving? In a sense yes. In a reality I am. This is not my past, the circumstances are much different. While this is a rock and a hard place moment, I really and truly have moved past ONLY surviving.

I fought my way out of my childhood, my relationship with Grant, being homeless and losing my family. I rebuilt….twice from nothing. I did not do it alone, but I did it.

How it’s going:

This is the exterior of my current apartment. 1br -1ba in Vallejo, CA. I didn’t do this alone either but I did it. I did all the heavy lifting [literal and figurative] to secure this location. I spent hours on the internet. I filled out multiple applications. I researched the area did price comparisons and went out on my goal to find a roof of my own in the city I was planning a future.

That future was based on multiple things, but also based on love.

I’d given up on love before my first trip to the Summer House. That first trip opened my eyes to something I was missing. Lots of things were missing, but love was the bigger one of the things that was missing. I was in the kitchen, MM was next to me, and she played this song:

I cried. I cried a LOT. When I left there I was altered, and that alteration continued when I lived there. It kept going when I had to flee there. It went into overdrive when I had to post up on Payson St. It was while at Payson St, I started fucking again, and I took a chance on love.

I thought I asked all the questions, I thought I took it slow enough, I though I explored every possibility. The truth is….I did.

Even though I found that note from last July, the rest of the correspondence shows I did the work. I didn’t just follow my heart and my vagina. I didn’t toss practical out the way.

By the time I found this unit, and I’d explored every angle and the signs were that August 4 would be who he’d shown himself to be in the decade plus I’ve known him, and the 2 years since we agreed to take this plunge. We were not perfect, and I say again that we never requested perfection from one another.

I exposed myself, but I didn’t leave myself ass out. I made sure that he had equal exposure, it was more about us fighting this world together, not about preparing for this moment.

He chose to end us, our relationship. I am still trying to process that. The question that keeps coming up is why. Why is the front and center question, yet it is also the least material. Why doesn’t change anything.

Now I am out here, without my support system, with my good looks and winning personality the best weapon I have to get over this hump. I will get over the hump, because life goes on. I will choose love again because even though this one broke my heart, I am a better human being when I choose love.

It was a blindside, but I will get on. Before it’s all said and done for good as we work out the details of the separation I will be shining brighter than ever.

What I won’t forget though is that I have to start and focus on ME and MY next steps.