If I could say one thing to the person who hurt me the most, what would it be & why?

Farah,

I would tell you that I wish I had been the little sister. I have ever since we were small, because although I may not look like it, I'm fragile. I don't like having to do everything by myself. I want to be coddled and looked after and cared for, and I feel like when you're the big sister, there's all this pressure to be a protector—almost like a second mother. And from such a young age, too. You never really get to be the protected. But when you're the little sister, you're allowed to be selfish. It's seen as natural, rather than what it is: mean.

You're fucking mean, Farah. And you've always been a little mean, but I guess I never really had a problem with it before now because, for one, it was kind of funny. But also, you had a soft spot for me. I never thought your meanness could grow so vast that it would reach me. But it did. And I just wish that you knew how it felt, even if only for a day. How it feels to walk through life in my shoes. To have to sit back and just take it. All the bullshit, day after day, because that's what I'm expected to do.

You break a plate, I get beaten for not watching you properly. You cut off half your hair, I get thrown outside overnight for leaving the scissors somewhere you could reach. You decide to date my boyfriend while I'm in a coma, I get forced to spend my Christmas with the both of you, day in day out. I'm fucking tired.

You really hurt me, Farah. And that's just it. There's not much else I can say except that you hurt me, and I kind of want to strangle you every time I see you, so you should thank your god that I haven't yet. You should be thankful I've chosen to remove myself from that home before something terrible happened.

But, I still love you. Despite it all, I still love you more than I even love myself, and I fucking hate that I can't do anything about it. That every time I pray, I always pray for you. I pray that Jared will never handle you the way he handled me. That you'll get out of that relationship before it's too late. That nobody will ever hurt you as deeply as you hurt me. And I guess I could just say this stuff to you since it's not like you're dead or anything...but fuck you.

You don't deserve to hear this.

What was the hardest thing I've ever had to do & how has it impacted me since?

Moving from Ayiti to America was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. For a long time, I didn't really acknowledge my agency in that whole process. I looked at it as though I didn't have a choice. Like I was just following my parents' direction, going where they took me, but that's not true. I had a choice. If I really wanted to stay in Ayiti, I could have. In fact, I was going to. Wilson and I had a plan.

He and his band had just signed a $50,000 contract with a silent investor from Florida. They were going to do big things. He had just put a down payment on a house in Port-au-Prince's city center and we were going to move in together. Start a life together.

Wilson always talked about all the kids he wanted, both sons and daughters. I don't know if he would've had them with me since I was only seventeen at the time and not at all ready for something like that, but it was the thought itself that excited me the most. The idea that I could plan for a future separate from my parents'. The idea that my life was my own. That I could choose happiness.

When Wilson died, so did my will to choose my own future. I was so depressed, so hopeless, that I stopped searching for happiness altogether. I didn't want it. And so I chose the easy way out, which was to follow my parents to America. I don't know if it was a mistake or not. I knew well enough that life is not easy for a young woman trying to make it on her own in a country like Ayiti, but every time I wake up and look outside my window—at the never-ending bleakness of this cursed land—I wonder if maybe the risk would've been worth it. Life here is not any easier than it was in Ayiti. Sure, I always have running water, electricity, and internet access. And yes, when it rains the kitchen does not flood and wash in all the cockroaches from the sewer, but so what? These things are not all there is to life.

What about the fact that moving here has ripped me away from myself? What about the fact that I float through every day feeling separated from both my body and my spirit?

Even if my family had left me in Ayiti, I would not have been alone. I had grann and granpè. I had all my cousins, my uncles and aunts, my friends! I had a land that I knew like underside of my eyelids. That I could maneuver through in my sleep. I had a culture that I understood. And every day, I wonder.

I wonder where I would be, what I would be doing, who I would be doing it with, if only I had just chosen myself.

If present-day me could talk to myself from 10 years ago, I would say:

Cherish it.

Your friends, your family, the fucking sun (because it does not always shine on this side), the food, the beautiful, beautiful land, your youth (because it will disappear before you can even blink), hearing your language everywhere you go, the good music, and the people (because trust me, you will miss seeing so many familiar faces when you leave. Faces that look like yours. Black faces).

Everything. Just cherish it, cheri.

Also, don't have sex with Stanley Rameau. It's not worth it.

What trauma triggers are common in my everyday life? How do I deal with them and where do I think they come from?

Jared was honestly the biggest trauma trigger in my life, but now that I've left and promised both myself and my family that I will not return as long as he is there, I'm less worried about it. Less triggered by him.

And if I'm being honest with myself, the trigger wasn't really him per se, but rather, seeing him and Farah together. The constant reminder of what they did. Of the fact that they choose to do it again each and every day. That, despite everything I've done for both of them over the years—everything I've shared with them—I'm still so insignificant. So unimportant that it's not even worth it to stop what they're doing if only to keep me from being hurt.

Whatever. Fuck them. I don't want to give them more power than they actually have, because it's honestly not just them. Even the couple I saw holding hands at Shoprite the other day fucking triggered me. It reminded me of Abel. Of us running errands together. The way I had to fight to keep my hands off of him.

Fuck, I miss him.

And I hate that I miss him because I'm the one who let him leave. I let him walk away from me even though I knew it was a mistake, so I really have no right to feel sorry for myself.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic—my trauma triggers.

I think since leaving my parents' house, I've been a lot more stable mentally, which is great. After having to be in such close quarters with Jared though, I'm realizing that there's so much around my apartment that still reminds me of him. And not just things, but entire rooms. He spent so much time here with me that it's impossible to erase him from the space. He became a part of it.

I walk into my bedroom and all I see is the sunny afternoons we spent meditating and stretching on the floor. The rainy mornings we spent burrowed beneath the sheets, learning each other's bodies anew. I enter the bathroom and all I can see is him emerging from the shower, dripping wet. The way he would smile at me, run a hand through his hair, lean on the counter and study his reflection. The way he would always ask me to lotion his back. The ritual of it. My hands on his fresh skin, my lips on his fresh skin, kissing softly up his spine. Then I would hold him, hook my chin over his shoulder, and watch our reflections as they stared back at us.

I've been thinking recently that I may need to move. I don't know where to, but I'm thinking really seriously about Stéphanie's offer. I've been wrong about it before, but I really think it's divine timing that Roseline is getting married in just two months' time and I'm now realizing that not only do I need to quit my job, but I also need to find a new place to live. What more of a sign could I ask for?

How have I internalized my parents' judgement?

They're actually not as bad as they used to be when I was younger, so this is hard.

I'm sure Manman and Papa know that I've had sex, since, I was dating Jared for years and when he came to stay for Christmas break the first time, we slept together in my bedroom. They might've even known back when I was with Wilson, because some of the lies I came up with whenever I had snuck away to see him were so see-through that I was surprised they didn't lock me in the shed and throw away the key. But alas, if they do know that I've been fucking, they've never said anything about it, and for that, I'm grateful. It's not really something I want to talk to them about.

Growing up, a lot of the judgement I had internalized was due to Christianity. Manman and Papa are by no means the most devout of Christians, but culturally, that religion just has a hold on my people. I'm sure my parents sinned, but they acted like they didn't, and so I thought it was just me.

The first time I had sex, I really thought I was going straight to hell. That trauma ran deep. I even thought the gonorrhea was part of God's punishment to me; it took a really long time to move past that. Even before I had sex, I was already scarred. Back in year seven, I had my first kiss with some boy I ran track with. I didn't really like him, but I wanted to see what all the hype was about and so we went behind the changing rooms after practice one day. We kissed a little and then I let him lift up my shirt and touch my boobs. Nothing more happened, but that had been enough. I literally lived at church for the next month. I had recurring nightmares where I was being dragged down to hell by that boy and I could never really look at him the same after that.

I'm glad I've moved past Christianity. I think I definitely believe in something, but I don't really know what. Maybe the universe...love...myself. I think there's some greater power or energy that breathes the life into every living thing. That makes the sun shine, makes the plants grow, makes the earth spin, but I don't know if it's a god. It still feels a little blasphemous to say that, but I'm working on moving past those feelings.

So I guess I don't really know how I've internalized my parents' judgements in the now. The Christianity stuff doesn't plague me as much as it used to. Nowadays, it's more about the judgements regarding me. Manman and Papa always talk about how I'm so weird. How I'm not social like a young woman should be, how I'm not good at keeping friends, when—let the records show—I have great friends. Not a lot (like three), but they're solid and I love them. I'm still in the process of trying to divorce my view of myself from my parents' view of me, but it's a long process. A difficult one.

Write the words I need to hear right now.

It will be well.

I've got myself, and that's the most important thing. I will always have me.

When was the last time I witnessed self-destructive behavior in myself? Describe it & the emotions I had at the time.

LOL.

I don't even want to talk about this because it's still too fucking fresh, but obviously it was when I sent Abel away. Why was I even trying to test him like that? Hoping that, despite my words, he would see what I really wanted when I could've just told him what I wanted. That I wanted him. That I just wanted to feel like he would choose me.

I guess it was my pride that got in the way. I was still so hurt by the way he had left me back at his house—the way I had begged him to stay with me and he'd just cast me aside—that my pride wouldn't allow me to put myself in that situation again. To tell him that I still wanted him even after all that.

I was afraid. Afraid that if he knew even that was not enough to get rid of me, then maybe he would do it again.

What emotions do I rarely express to others? When did I first start hiding these emotions?

Sadness. I often cloak it as anger. As upset, frustration. I find it easier to express those instead of the pure sadness. It makes me feel less vulnerable. Less open to attack.

There are definitely people that it's easier to express that sadness to though. Stéphanie, for one, is someone that I've never felt like I had to hide from, and maybe that's because she's known me my whole life. She's known me since before I even had to start building these defense mechanisms, so she can tell when I'm sad even if I try to hide it. With people that got to know me later in life, it's harder to shed all these outer skins and show my true self.

Sometimes, I feel like there's this persona that I've allowed others to create of me. A Chevelle that doesn't even exist—that isn't really me—but that still, I feel all this pressure to perform as.

I feel all this fear about disappointing others—about not being what they expect—and the worst part about it is that I don't even know what they do expect! This persona of me? I have no idea what it's like. I don't know what characteristics even embody it, so of course I can't be it! But whenever I realize this, the fear just becomes crippling, and in order to avoid disappointing people, I just don't let them get to know me at all. I hold them at arm's length in order to keep up an illusion that only ends up hurting me the most.

In the end, I'm the one with the ever-growing wall around my heart. I'm the one who can't be as vulnerable as I'd like to be with others. I'm the one who has lost sight of who I even am. All because I'm afraid. And for what? I know it's all in my head.

There's no persona that other people are expecting from me, and I don't even know where I got the idea that there was, but it's gotten to the point where it's all-consuming. I find it easier to express myself through anger and violence, when in reality, I'm just sad. I'm just hurt. A crying child looking for someone who will sit beside me and listen. Someone who can hold space for my softness. Someone who can help me hold the weight of this sad so that it's not as overwhelming.

So that I can breathe my way through it.