My personal journal has been getting all the work lately. There are things I write out there to try to make sense of emotions and plans. The thing about this moment in time is that it does not make sense, yet it still exists. That is always a hard pill to swallow, not being able to change or alter anything. In some ways I can deal with that, so much has happened “to” me and I’ve navigated. In other ways, I don’t process it well because I always think what else could I have done.

One of the lessons I learned in the Summer House was to let go of things beyond my control. I also learned in the aftermath of the Summer House that I can also create my own reality and destiny. Those 2 truths feel in conflict at this moment and the big deal is that I don’t have the ‘time’ to deal with or understand either one at the moment. I have to set aside and focus and push forward.

One of the other issues in this moment is realizing I am a Black woman.

That seems like a no brainer. I’ve spoken about my love of my melanin and that still remains, always will. I just also am hyper aware that my path in this life, is different that the yt counterpart and I am faced with the reality that even though I crafted a safe space for myself for a period of time, it did not last.

I don’t get the luxury of being in my feelings and having the world come to comfort me. I have to swallow my pain, my humiliation, my fear, my sadness because even though he promised to protect me above all others, he did not.

All of the things related to this break up hurt. all. of. them.

I have to swallow that hurt though. I don’t get to feel it, because if I do, then I am in jeopardy. I think back to the recording and hearing her shrill, turn to her menance….”when I am here crying at 3am”….. It wasn’t desperation it was you will do that which I want or you will pay, and I had to watch the man I went all in collapse like a dollar store plate at a cook out.

I have to sit here every day and understand that everything she faked, I am actually experiencing and I must conquer it alone because her fantasy is more important than my reality.

I have to be the woman I thought I finally got to retire. I hung up her jersey and told her to enjoy the free time. She could rest. She’d been there, she’d carried me, she protected me and she’d earned her time off. I thanked her for her services and told her to go get a massage, drink a margarita and watch the California sunset. I now have to tap her on the shoulder and explain that she needed to come back to work. She never gets to rest just as I don’t get to rest.

I haven’t cried a lot these past few weeks because I kept my brain occupied on how this could be salvaged. What Phoenix could rise from these ashes and fly again?

The tears began when the little one took her trip, and they have not really stopped since. I had to go outside and do things, in that respect they did. I’m in a new city, without someone to have my back so I can’t walk outside looking like a mark. Once the front door was back in sight with the familiar license plate on it, they welled. Once inside and the door was secure they fell. They fall now as I type this, so you might get more typos than usual. Charge it to my fat fingers not my heart please.

Those fat fingers already have a tan line from the ring. It will fade as all things do which are not maintained.

I started a document, compiling all the words. I began it because I wanted to know if this was something I could have seen, chose not to. I wanted to find a way to blame myself for this because it was obviously my fault right? As the number count grew and I went through every memory attached. As I scrolled past morning photos that never wavered and I love yous never forgotten, it became apparent to me that I didn’t “miss” anything. This was him, choosing to discard me. That didn’t make it better. What was so flawed about me that I wasn’t worth 2% of what she was getting?

I came to him, open and vulnerable and honest. He told me what was required and I did it. We spent 2 years creating what he said and I felt was an unbreakable foundation. I did everything by the ‘book’ and yet here I am, abandoned. One of my worst fears. It’s not that I can’t be alone, its that I was told I would no longer have to be, and he demonstrated I was not, then ripped it away.

The neighbors in the complex are moving out. First the upstairs, then the couple behind me, now the ones to the left of me. I feel even more alone and exposed now. The apartments will re-fill it is the nature of the business, but that could be weeks,,,the upstairs has been empty for 2 months. Out here on the corner only my light shines and that feels even worse now. It leaves me more exposed, and fearful because while these are not the streets of North Philly I grew up in and escaped, danger exists here as well. No one will hear me scream. No one will come save me. I have to save myself….again.

The Saturday before Mother’s Day, all that I knew was upended. I had to go into that Sunday reminded that I chose to move 3000 miles away from my now adult boy, understanding that my seeing him again would be mostly through video and in person connection would be impaired. He knew how hard that day would be for me and his only words were I am so not good right now. Really nigga?

I have 2 things I can hold onto and I am moving into the next month. The details I have to keep close, but they are real. In a month, or six I will be in a different place emotionally and financially. That gives me the base to stand, yet doesn’t comfort me at all.

I moved his shit out of the inside of the apartment and into the outdoor storage. I hope everyday it becomes infested with the spiders which hang out there. I also curse them as they are a reminder of his current cowardice. He won’t give back the key, and it shows me his insecurity and that turns my stomach.

These next 3 weeks aren’t going to be simple, they are going to be fucking brutal. The story of them will be told in future entries as the stories of the past are also recorded here.

I still want the future I saw which made me take this risk and arrive here. I still do not know what that looks like without him by my side.

I feel like he broke me.