It is February 7, 2024. I woke up this morning after not sleeping next to a white woman who calls me nigger. It is a good day. Today’s entry is from the year 2016:
There were only 3 entries that month yet it was harder to select a post. All 3 were painful to revisit in ways I haven’t hurt for quite a while now.
This one was written after things fell apart at Lexi’s. I wasn’t able to remain at Limekiln somewhere in the months prior and I stayed with Lexi. It was from there that I spent nights on the street, 2 nights in the intake and then finally landed Randolph.
I haven’t spoken to her since the events that led to this post. My baby Onyx died a few days after this post.
That was a pretty dark time in a life that has had multiple.
When I read the other 2 posts I did smile some. I notice that my typos are still front and center. I’ve never chosen to proof read any of these and that will have to change based on what’s in the pipeline but until that moment, here we are typos warts and all on Front St.
When I think back to that 2 week period it reminds me that the infrastructure that was present in Philly is not a thing here. It reminds me why I had to knuckle up May 2022 and why I’ve kept swinging since then.
I recall the random saying he was also homeless once. He might not have had a home of his own, but he didn’t do what I did. I could write a whole separate entry on that part of his life and how it conditioned him for what he’s experiencing now but we shall leave that for Western Vizionz.
I lived in a house without a door in the winter in Philadelphia. There was no gas. the water was on and the electric was illegal.
I slept on the cold Philadelphia concrete at night. I fended off an attempted sexual assault. I spent time in a homeless intake system where the staff were so cruel they would not allow you to put 2 chairs together so you could sleep, and would not allow you to sleep on the floor. I did eventually throw that roller out, but from the first set of luggage I ever bought the roller duffle I had with me had holes in it from dragging it through the streets of Philadelphia. I was so broke I could not buy maxi pads or deodorant. I went days without showering. February in Philly isn’t always great and this was one decade less of climate change then. The hair I no longer have on top of my head went unwashed for I can’t tell you how long.
That is my history. Nicole is Black History.
Also in that history are the people who helped me. One cannot walk through this life alone, even when I try my hardest.
LaLa who stored my clothes. I still have those bins which were previously in her living room. They are in my outside storage now. They contained the few things I was able to grab from Limekiln and what I looked at for years and years after as ‘all I had’.
I no longer recall her name, but I do recall her presence. She was a social worker assigned to me after my first night in intake. She was fresh out of college, red hair and chubby. I recall looking at her and feeling even worse. I had zero clue how SHE was supposed to help me. I was so inhibited at the time I forgot how the world actually worked. She was so white and so young that she didn’t realize the system she entered was broken and that hearing the word NO was possible. It’s because she didn’t know that I ended up at Randolph which as those places go was 4 star.
My BFF who couldn’t give me a sofa to sleep on but did give me both of her ears.
The staff and women of Randolph. While almost none of them were people I would have met and connected with outside the circumstance, each of them taught me ways to interact with more TYPES of people which serves me still to this day.
Mid Day I have an appointment and that appointment is very likely to change the trajectory of my life. To have this month reminding me of just how low, and knowing in a few hours I might just be about to hit the highs of highs. That is breath taking.
I’m also reminded as I wrap this up that instead of making up sub tweets to tell me how amazing life is, I am living it. Imperfectly but living it.
I am also reminded that THIS Black History month I am signing my 2nd lease without the other name. That the screeching voice in the background was wrong. That whatever might appear on YouTube or Twitter or where ever else they drop it is wrong.
That my resilience, my power, my ability will always anger them because of their limitations. That is both my history AND my future.