Free or Fettered? That is the Question

Divorcee? One painstaking inhale, and I sniffed it on my skin. He wasn't exactly present, loving, or emotionally available, but at least I belonged; at least he was familiar. On April 17, 2018, I officially belonged to someone I no longer knew...myself. My own ambiguity walked over to me as I wept on the carpet, and it sat on my chest. Roots were all I desired. To feel home wrap around me like a crocheted blanket, a keepsake from grandma drenched in memories made, became my longing for myself and my three children.

I'd made it through college on a track and field scholarship and graduated on time summa cum laude even after having my first child during my sophomore year. As an adolescent, I'd stood on my two feet after enduring molestation by two uncles and my step-father. I even found a way up from my little sister dying of liver cancer when she was just twenty right before my mother succumbed to a bacterial infection months later. No loss prepared me for the dismantling of ten years of marriage. This death seemed to go the remaining distance the death of my innocence and belief in healing could not quite reach. It ensured my chains were indeed snug.

There in my mind was a table set beautifully with a white cloth lined with lace. Stainless steel utensils were wrapped in crimson napkins laid beside white plates with a gold trim. At the head of the table, my seat, there was one of those silver dome covered plates. I lifted the dome by the handle to see it. Freedom. My craving became freedom. I could no longer remain an inmate to the self-imposed imprisonment my shame had welcomed me into.

Another deep breath, and there it was, a fragrance like one you smell while you're at the market placing a ripe avocado in your arm basket or driving down the 10 with all four windows down in early winter so it can dry your freshly washed afro. It arrived on the tiny hairs of my nostrils. Passion. I hadn't smelled it in so long. I didn't even know I was capable of it anymore, yet here it was. It urged me to awaken to remember who I was, who I am, and who I aspired to become.

So I worked. I worked hard and saved money to make a drastic move. I wasn't going to stay put and be docile, accept my fate and accept being just a divorcee. The process was grueling, arduous, ugly. I spent two months in North Hollywood, CA before my eldest daughter arrived for her first day of school. Many family members glamorized it, but we struggled. We woke up at four in the morning in our roach infested motel room to prepare for a two hour metro commute to Alhambra where I coached at an elementary school, and she went to school a few blocks away at Los Angeles High School for the Arts where she was a member of the opera program. It was the least glamorous situation one could find themselves in. Four months later, my two youngest children were with me in our one bedroom apartment taking multiple buses in the cold December rain to their separate schools.

Standing on the platform waiting for my train home, I remember calling Tiffani.

"I want to jump. I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired. Why does my life have to be so hard? Even before I can remember, it's just been hard. Why me?"

"Sometimes we miss the goodness in all of the pain, and that's okay. You're not alone."

There was the table, dressed and ready. There was my plate laden with my longing, but I kept resisting my desire to stick my fork into it and bring it to my lips. It became a daily fight to get up and get to work, but the passion pushed me on. Three months after my two small children had arrived, I purchased a car. I'd had several over the course of my adult life, but something about having this car hit differently. The level of gratitude was different as I drove past many of the bus stops I sat at shielding my children from the rain. Each time, I could feel the tears well in the center of my chest. Then I received the call that I'd gotten a job I never even applied for. I'd be moving on from coaching to being the regional manager for several coached schools in LA County.

My children began to thrive, and I got to witness my oldest perform with her opera company on the 2020 Grammy Awards with Common! My five-year-old was becoming a more fluent Spanish speaker as part of our school's dual immersion program, and my son found his confidence for the first time as a member of our community basketball team. No matter how many accolades or experiences flooded our lives, I never forgot the struggle. I never overlooked the pain that got me to the peace.

It was during the Coronavirus shut down that I finally found my way back to the table, picked up my fork, licked my lips, rubbed my fork left to right against the flesh of my entree, and took a bite of it. I finally got a taste of freedom, and I must say, it went down smooth.