• (A bit personal, but hey smile )

    I just got told off for explaining why my face is all red from crying. I couldn’t explain it right, that’s why I got told off. That’s why Reggie Dabbs got told off too. She says he’s all bogus and making money out of a sob story and that she’s worked her a** off to keep a roof over their heads. My feeble excuse of “He’s American” was met with more reprimanding. Why bother explaining further, she won’t get it. She won’t get me. Part of me wants her to see me like this. Part of me wants to scream.

    I’m trying to spare you the teenage angst but somehow it just creeps out of me. I’m sobbing and I don’t know why. I don't know what it feels like to lose someone as close to me as a parent or sibling. I've never gone through half as much pain as some of my classmates have. I’m crying when I have nothing solid to cry about. Overemotionally numb- that fits. I feel so fake; planning out what I’m going to write when it should just pour out in shattered words over myriad red squiggly lines. See! It all looks so PRETENTIOUS! I’m not that kind of person; I never will be. So why am I sounding so completely dense?

    Mama told me, “Real motivation is what we your parents have done, coming over to this country and working intensely hard to get where we are now. Real motivation is what my father has done, what he is. THAT is motivation, how great people of the world have got there by determination, belief and hard work.”

    And I just stood there like a complete idiot, searching for the right way to say, “I know. I know that already, and I want YOU to know that YOU are my motivation; YOU are the reason I’m doing so well; YOU are the reason for my dreams, my ambitions and my life. I thank YOU for every single second of your time you’ve ever given me and there are just no words to show how grateful I am, but I’ll try my hardest to find them. I’m sorry for anything wrong I’ve ever done in my life, I’m sorry for every time I’ve ever hurt you or disappointed you. I love you, and it’s wrong that I don’t say that to you often enough. I wish I was young enough to say "I love you, Ma" with it sounding cute or old enough to make it sound more sincere. I want you to know ALL of that, I just don’t know how”

    But I didn’t say a thing.

    I dragged myself up, opened the laptop with dead fingers, stared at the pathetic reflection on the screen before me...

    ... And typed.