Hello my name is Nicole and I over think.

Sometimes it is a reaction to something I don’t want to do. At other moments it is a trauma/fear response. Also sometimes it is me living and learning a lesson.

In this moment it is quite likely all of the above. I dislike that I am expending this energy right now, but this is a part of why Vizionz exists. Type it out, free up the brain cells, move along.

As 2023 gets ready to wrap, I took a moment to consider everything that I’ve experienced. You name the emotion, I had it in 2023. That is a blessing and what I’ve wanted for a very long time. It didn’t make some painful moments less painful, but I wanted all da smoke and it is cloudy as fuck in here at the momennt.

Because of the unwelcome eyes – not all clicks are good clicks – I didn’t detail as much of what I actually lived here as I normally would. That will change, when I cannot say for sure but change it will. I didn’t break or lose myself after last May and I am more stable today than then.

Last May was on my mind, I mean considering how could that be avoided? From May 7 through July 8 marks my origin story. In his head, not in reality.

I’ve asked myself this, because the most recent nonsensical ramblings and thinly veiled threats read as if their version is factual. There is a saying about there being 3 sides to every story. There is not. There is one side and multiple perceptions and interpretations. I’ve been specific and explicit about the events. While my words are absolutely colored by my emotions and my bias, it remains still that I am not twisting I am reporting.

I asked myself could they think they are also reporting? FYPM says no, but I spent a lot of time learning and observing. There is a level of truth to it. They believe their version. Yes it is impacted and enhanced by their surroundings, but yes they believe it.

In those 2 months like a blooming onion the layers of facade faded away and I was exposed to who they are. Had you asked me prior to May I would have said I knew them, yet I only knew the version of them they either shared or I could discern. I study people remember?

I remember lamenting when I still lived in Philly that I’d been so happy that I finally met a Black man who I wasn’t required to rebuild! Only to uncover after I’d given my heart that they required it also. That sucked, yet I don’t let go when I am invested so build a man it was going to be for me. I’ve historically seen it as a part of my role, and one of my superpowers. While I still think on the whole they can be saved, I no longer see it as my responsibility. My concentration is on me today. I never factored any of the discerned things into my steadfast declaration that if decisions were demanded then I would be one of the ones who benefitted. That is a me error, and I don’t exactly count it as an error. If I can’t believe in the person I love why would I love them no?

They seem so sure, and I seem so sure who is right? Is there a right? There is absolutely a wrong but is there a right?

It was the hit and run in Vacaville and the aftermath of it which set May in motion. While things were imperfect leading up to that night, the hit and run created the catalyst for confession. I won’t ever know what was confessed, from then until now, but I don’t know if that matters to this moment. I do know that at least when all of this began to unravel that night, all of the details were not shared. If they have since is irrelevant but logic says no. A version of them will always be the child who cannot stand their ground to the woman in the house and the details would make life untenable. What I cannot account for is the other’s reaction to the partial confession or the spin put on it while happening. I still have the recording from a week later with the other one screeching in the background. I can still go back and listen to the defeated voice which was so different than the one I used to love to listen to or which inspired fear when I veered off the path. No, it was not all given then. I can do back to the legal paperwork and the ‘official’ response. Was it worded to help their case? Of course, yet even there it as clear all was not given.

I wonder if because it wasn’t all laid out if that makes it simpler to re-write me as the villain. The likely answer to that is yes. If you have to convince yourself of something to sell it to another then that can become your truth. I’ve been there and done that.

The conversation had to happen with the Vacaville PD. Why it needed to be shared and how it needed to be shared I am not privy to, and while I have my suspicions, it still is not something that matters in the big picture. Whatever was said lead to the phone call. I can’t be with you. I need to get off the lease.

What’s true is that I was not employed at that time. Many other things are also true about my finances then, but I was not employed. What’s true is that within days I asked for 2 months rent and agreed I would sign paperwork that would allow him to exit the lease. I didn’t know then that it would require proof of income from me. They wanted out, I wanted to give that to them.

A week after the break up is when I first heard the threat to break the lease. I didn’t think then things would get as ugly as they eventually did. I can think back to that defeated voice and understand a part of why they did, but I didn’t predict it.

I asked for 2 months to give myself enough time to get employed again and I would figure the rest of it out. My language wasn’t always clear, but my position never wavered. Yes it was colored by a broken heart, confusion, fear but it was always the same ask. In their mind it became an attempt at extortion. That’s not the legal definition of extortion. They ignored that my request reduced their financial exposure. They ignored that I was never obligated to even consider agreeing to let them off the lease. In theory, they could still be on the lease here. The first lease if never renewed turned into a month to month tenancy meaning all the prior language rolled over as long as I lived here and did not create a new lease. All they saw was a dollar amount, and all they were experiencing was discord in their house.

Maybe it was the length of time it took to get to July 8 and the daily stress related to that. Perhaps that is a part of how I became the villain because of that they had to go through from May 7 through July 8.

The truth is on July 8 they were physically aggressive. They released the video of it themselves.

The truth is on July 11 I went to the county courthouse to file for a restraining order against them both. I still have the recording of the treat the other made to me, and the confirmation of said threat from our meeting in June. There was the physical attack in the leasing office. I was alone here. I had no idea what risk the other presented to me. I only know what they’d told me about their mental health. They’d left me alone, threatened to make me homeless, when they thought they would not get their way they attempted [and succeeded] in physically imposing it on me. I did not know on July 11 that there were 2 types of restraining orders. I did not know when I saw the DVTRO form it would have a section for unresolved financial disputes. I didn’t know that I would have to keep going back to the courthouse to redo the paperwork and to the sheriff to have it served. I’d been in California 7 months.

The truth is FYPM contains lies about me. I don’t mean the name calling. Did that bother me? Of course, but I can’t control that. Lies about my criminal history, lies about by business, lies about extortion, lies about court judgments. If it was just she’s a bitch, we aren’t in this moment. It was much more than that and if they remain unchallenged it could continue to impact me expanding my business.

None of that sounds like a villain to me. I’ve gone over this so many different ways, asking myself am I being extra, am I over reacting. Every move I’ve taken has been a result of the circumstances presented to me by a man I loved. I haven’t initiated any of this, I’ve reacted when presented with an attack. They would say it isn’t an attack yet, to follow their demand of my compliance causes me harm. What else do you call that?

I know what they call it. I know what comes next.