Meet My Girlfriend, Success.

As I sit down to write this, it's exactly 10 minutes till Graduation Day. It's be a quick, long four years.



I don't know how I made this far. I mean, I know why people didn't think I'd make it this far. As I left the New York offices of Travel and Leisure, my brother-in-law asked me, "Did you ever think you'd be here, Like, make it here coming from Central Falls?" Now, this man is no stranger to me. I've known him since I was 10. He knows exactly where I'm from. The exact cloth from which I was cut. I looked at him and responded, "Other people may not have thought so, but I always knew I'd make it here."
"That's why I like you guys," he said, obviously referring to myself and my sister, his wife, the Tax Attorney. The cloth my sister and I were cut from isn't refined. If it had a recordable thread count, I'd say... 12. While we (my sister more than my mother and myself) appreciate the finer things in life, we know the worst things in life. The worst has the tendency to grab a hold of you. Once you let the worst overcome you it becomes difficult to move, to maneuver through the world. I sometimes feel like I'm walking with a mirror in front of me, telling me to remember who I am. Remember where I'm from. Remember where those stern features in my expressions come from. Remember the color of my skin, the texture of my hair. Honestly, sometimes it's hard to let those things go.

There comes a time when the past no longer matters. Graduation Day is one of those times. Nothing matters anymore. It doesn't matter that Top Ramen was a staple meal in my home not because of preference but because of lack of option. It doesn't matter that I spent years alone in a world full of acquaintances. It doesn't matter that I tried to drown myself in obligations, liquor and weed to overcome the passing of my brother in hopes to forget he existed. And it doesn't matter that it worked for a while until it didn't anymore. It doesn't matter that I came from a place that produces criminals, teenage mothers and dropouts.

Since 2006, I've crossed mountains I probably shouldn't recount in detail, but as my mother and sister sleep upstairs in the hotel room, I can see from the front windows of the subpar "business center" of Baltimore's Brookshire Hotel, the Inner Harbor and its iridescent lights gleaming with the passive brilliance I've come to know Baltimore for. And those two women, I've come to know for their patience and impatience when dealing with me. "Get your shit together," my sister said to me before I was almost dismissed from Loyola. And that's exactly what I did.

I was heard-headed. I was disobedient. I was irrepressible. Unruly. Loud. Angry. Bitter. I was hard. Literally. It was hard to get through to me. My skin had become so tough that my own mind had to work from the inside out to tell me that there was something wrong.
You see, this is a moment for me. Because there's a great chance that I wouldn't have been here. If I don't look happy tomorrow it's because this means something different to me. Like... marriage to man. Men can go forever as bachelors, and most probably would. It's women who marry out of expectations, for selfish reasons. Men though, see it as a serious commitment. A milestone in life. A life-changing episode and a who-the-fuck-knows-whats-next occasion. Yea, I'm marrying this degree.
I'm putting in my everything. I need something. You see, I've been through it all before. I will not do that again. This is gonna work, God Dammit. Me and Success (that's my degree's name) will be together forever. No prenuptial. No divorcing. We will go to counseling and all. She's my ride-or-die. (Why's it a girl?)
It's now 12:32am. I'm going upstairs to do my hair because I have to be at the arena by 8:30am because my momma gotta see me grab that degree.
MOMMA I MADE IT,oh & meet my Girlfriend, Success.