Urban Stories

When you think of starting over, in terms of life-style choices or in general one may consider making peace with themselves. A trail of thoughts and ideas come to mind. Somehow, the unpleasant seems reasonable to face head on and everything that was avoided from the beginning is hard to ignore. At least in my opinion.. Maybe make amends with those you hurt or hurt you. Or moving on to another endeavor, be it a new hobby, job opportunity, or relationship. So much will come to mind in terms of truly stepping out of the norm and gradually making changes for the better.

However, life is full of surprises. What if changing for the better meant stagnant behavior..literally creating the same reality for yourself and purposefully. (For goodness sake I wish this could happen to me, as I've witnessed others find their true calling.) However, I mean.. You know what needs to change but somehow the cost of leaving all behind nearly latches itself onto you. Mentally and physically taking a toll on just the slightest things you do throughout the day. To accidentally step into a purpose, actually happens more than not. Personally I'm reflecting upon a time when things became worse. A time when all of my hard work went to waste. Literally, I scrambled for money and borrowed far more than I could pay back. I woke each morning at four just to prep and be ready for the earliest ‘Ride On’ bus to catch the red line train from Shady Grove to Brooklyn Ave for an hour long commute to class in D.C. I listened to my favorite songs of the time, via shaky headphones and a heavy a## android phone I bought at Boost Mobile (my credit score was horrendous in college by senior year- may I digress).. Many commutes I listened to “Private Dancer, New Flame, Autumn Leaves and Stereotype” by Chris Brown, or “Cake” by Trey Songz ( doting but light to hear in memory of an ex) “I Like It,” by Sevyn Streeter, “Maybe,” by Teyana Taylor, “Pretty Thoughts and Paradise” by Alina Baraz, (sporadic, topical and cute as I inwardly felt unlike myself thus everything swung like clockwork and I hated that.) Not to forget an all time favorite during sophomore and junior year “Pink Matter” by Frank Ocean. I remember I cried drunk to this in my dorm as I found sexts from my boyfriend of the time. I left abruptly from his apartment that night as he took a sh!t. I figure he had nothing to hide, and ironically so did he.Mind you this uncanny experience replayed in my head so often even after we split. A month later President Obama was voted second term into The White House. Fast forward to senior year, my life took an absolute turn. I had to commute to and from class as I opted to stay home and slyly take care of things as my father became increasingly ill. For weeks at a time he remained in the hospital. My younger sister skipped high school every so often..I pretended to share concern but deeply understood the last thing on her mind was attendance. To address each other of pure emotion felt awkward, and a foreign aspect of normality from childhood. Surely we assumed, or I assumed our father's illness would improve. I could resume a life in D.C and continue to live on my own terms after graduation. Our father raised us as sole parent. We just hung to the idea he would recoup. Eventually. On my hour home commute I listened repeatedly to, “ It Won't Stop” by Sevyn Streeter, (still gravely reminiscent of a time period that was romantic and unpredictable as most adventures took place with an ex I was deeply in love with as passenger in his clunky, broke down 2001 Hyundai Elantra); “Use Your Heart" and “I'm So Into You” by SWV, “Next Lifetime” by Erykah Badu (softer, fuming yet hopeful of the next same thing tomorrow..ideally.) In Maryland, the fall time is typically on the warmer side. Of lukewarm, dry bursts of wind, I lived for the moment my armpits dried bit by bit as I waited for bus twelve toward Montgomery Village. My phone had run its musical course, and while I rode the bus home I repeatedly listened to a few other songs but namely “Paranoid” by Kanye West. (Self explanatory.)

If my past was told in music, I would hold it by the measure in which I felt including all senses. In fact, I can recall memories and old faces quicker than one can flip a penny simply based on music alone as I have a vivid imagination. I struggle to express my current feelings to this day, however, music somehow links, rather explains in my own weird way of thought processing quaint chapters. You can listen to music from any era or time, and still generate feelings, emotions or memories from a song regardless of its release date.

Some thoughts pleasant and others I need dismiss. Lesser the baggage, and somehow I glide against today like as if my past drew me nearer to right now. Going back in time may not be so bad after all.

Please know, I like to write using present and past tense without much organization. (Disclaimer: I go back in time as if I am in the moment or present tense, based off of a diary I kept near high school graduation until a year after college.For every event, or experience I jotted down a song I heard throughout surroundings, people, my own personal relation to a song and/or from pop culture. Everyone I introduce are real and went through the experiences I share. My goal is simply to connect, and tell stories in respect of the people I was blessed to meet. I was ashamed of my past, for the longest time. I continuously learn to let-go of all toxicity and stand in my truth.

I like to discuss dating, love, sex, relationships, domestic abuse, LBGTQ community, women's rights/ cultural differences, spirituality and growth, music, poetry, poverty, substance abuse/ drug addiction, city night life, suburbia and much more!! I have met people from all walks of life and I've lived in several different areas or two other states beside Maryland. Never judge a book by its cover! And if you can manage, put yourself in his or hers shoes. I not only speak from my perspective but others

bE YOu

Before I moved to Washington D.C in 2010 for freshman year of college, (which is literally a hop-skip-jump from Maryland) I took it upon myself to write a secret memior of all events toward the end of high school. Given the current circumstances of the time I remember everything crystal clear. All throughout high school I always kept a journal nearby, as to skip lunch and write short stories comfortably secluded inside a basment lab. I gradually learned how to utilize Google, Dictionary.com and YouTube just as efficiently as my peers scoped Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. A distant, yet, well off aunt on my mother's side of the family purchased a lap top and printer as a gift for my eighteenth birthday.. Before her brief appearance after nearly a decade of absence since my mother's death, I sparingly used a motorola flip phone. All while my peers tapped into the twenty-first century, I could barely look up from a computer keyboard. Word of mouth spread throughout the family I was accepted into college. If two words could depict my father's mother: pretentious and boisterous. A motor mouth by birth right. Her raspy, deep southern twang jaggedly cut into the hearts and minds of strangers who dared cross her. Intuitive, yet grim she was the protagonist if need be as the face and voice of our small intermittent family unit. It wasnt long before my mother's side of family got word I was accepted into college. A college. Any college. What college? I wasn't comfortable from all of the attention, let alone dozens of relatives I haven't seen since age ten openly dig for answers. Merely strangers, I disliked the entire experience as my grandmother spread news. Although at this point I created a Facebook account simply to friend cousins, aunts and auncles far and wide. It was easier to catch up throughout a message than anything else I could fathom. Two weeks before graduation, my father gave me two leather cover journals the color of ebony and the album “Thank Me Later” by Drake. Each page slapped heavily against the next. I knew to use sparingly as my father went out of his way to buy specially hand crafted booklets he casually mentioned as an investment to further my creativity. He always smelled of lush cologne and after-shave, constantly whipping into a convenience store or mall like King Tut. Call me basic, but at the time I long anticipated the album “Thank Me Later.” If I can gingerly take a step back into the summer of 2010, my feet may never touch the ground. I was nervous, excited, bored yet, anxious. In between my grandmother's half drunken visits, (we could tell her arrival by the loud clanks and thuds of her navy blue Lincoln continental) or my father's mysterious whereabouts (my sister and I were very used to being home alone); I wrote daily and listened to music (with an actual radio that spun cassette discs, collected dust and screeched 93.9 WKYS by default day and night, "It's Angie Ange on the miiicc.") Top songs on the radio at the time "OMG" by Usher, "Tik Tok" by Kesha, "Bedrock" by Young Money, a big time favorite " Rude Boy" by Rihanna and "Telephone" by Lady Gaga featured Beyonce. I sat many a humid night crouched beside my bedroom window and listened to "Fancy and Find Your Love." By late July I also summoned the courage to virtually friend Michael Madrid, a boy I secretly liked all throughout high school. I often caught him gaze over his shoulder at me throughout geometry class. For two years straight we took the same math courses. Naturally I reveled of the coincidence. Of almond shaped, sunken hazel eyes, olive skin and frizzy black hair he stood over six feet. Part dominican and puerto rican descent, he spoke little Spanish and made due of his ambiguity as he hung close knit with the blacks, popular crowd and jocks as class clown. Michael spoke fast, sometimes under his breath and I melted each time I heard his native New York accent throughout the hallways. Odd as it may sound to some in this day and era, ( I'm not particularly phased) high school can be very segregated. At least where I went to school. Everyone got along, but in all seriousness, race was hardly a hot commodity. (at least from what I remember.) If anything, the clothes on your back, your current and last zip code and technological dialect likely distinguished you far more obviously than racial profile.The harshest of experiences I had witnessed in school be it in a joke, comment or school book assessment afterthought in English class. And that's if someone played true to a stereotype. “Leave No Child Left Behind” tore full effect in 2008, all students no matter the rank from honor/ gifted to special education were required to be taught the exact coursework. Montgomery County Public Schools quickly enforced and adopted a newer but temporal method to increase the rate in which students passed the HSA (high school assessment aka G.E.D) first go around. I likely skidded carefully unto the edges of anonymity as an introvert in high school as I attempted to avoid all social groups or clubs. No one knew who I was or cared. The fact that I returned sophomore year as skinnier and darker skinned drew less attention than I thought because I aggressively trained with my father to prep for varsity tennis tryouts. (My father preferred I play basketball but he and I knew I had zero hand-eye coordination despite being tall. Oh the irony..That summer was the only time we bonded. I humbly accepted a two hundred dollar racket he found 'randomly' and begrudgingly ran the courts until my easy spirit sneakers broke loose about the front. Every single day, he forced me out into the hot sun to become fitter. In his own words, “ If you give up on everything and never put yourself out there, you will never make it.” ) Little did we both know at the time, I excelled in neutral temperaments and the very off qualities we mirrored in each other drew exceptional in terms of book sense and "damn right dumb" in reality..from what my grandmother would say. My father was an eccentric loner, truant by nature and eerily beyond his time. I learned this later in college before his death. If I can remember anything worth anything from childhood, he taught me to be different.

"Be you."

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