Soft Circles

"Pretty Wings" by Maxwell

...your pretty wings / pretty wings / pretty wings...

I spent a week out of town. I needed a break from this monolithic flavored life I live here in the City of the Rich. My mother didn't seem any type of happy about it but it seems as though she doesn't have anymore guilt tactics to employ in order to make me do what she wants me to.

So I left. It was an interesting little vacation. It reminded me about how bad I want to move away from the Commonwealth State. I forget how restricted and anti-cultured this state can be sometimes. It could also just be that I have spent my formative years here, had my fill, and need to move on. Actually, it's both.

My best friend Gwendo had a graduation cookout yesterday. I returned on Friday to spend the night at her mom's house to cook and prepare. Gwen and her mom Novita picked me up from the train station (I love the train). I haven't told my mother that I am in town. That is probably really bad but I just don't want to see her or talk to her right now. She hurt my feelings so bad. Ever since that argument, I have been itching to get away.

The cookout went well. The food was delectable, although it is hard for food to be gross to me. Gwenny's family and friends are so wonderful. Everyone is a colorful character.

I thought I would be sad at the cookout. Being around families can be hard sometimes. I miss my family often. Of late, I see them often but I don't feel apart of the family anymore. They love me and they are all so excited to see me when we do hang out, but I don't feel like a part of them anymore. Ever since all the mess of my life unfolded, I have felt thoroughly alienated from the people I love the most and need the most. To sleep in my mother's house is comparable to staying in a nice jail. An emotional jail. She hasn't any pictures of me up in her house, as if to inform me that is not my home. If home is where the heart is...girl, I don't even know about my heart. That sh*t is broke, blackened, weak, and wandering all about my body.

Anyway, this is my formal proclamation of love for family. I love my family, my good old Sierra Leonean family. I love our selfless culture. And I love my American family. I love our selfless culture and our emotional availability. I think that I am learning that family is not just the people to whom you are related. People who show and know true, good love are eligible to be family too.

Thank you God for more family than I have time to thank you for.