Author: LaToya M. Davidson-Perez

I often write or am most compelled to write when I am experiencing extreme highs or, most often, extreme lows. This is not one of those times. Rather, this is the time in between, where life has given you a bit of a lull before it again gears up for an extreme high or a disappointing low. I’ve come to appreciate these times meandering on the plateau, a time where you have the best vantage point of those mountains you anticipate climbing as well as the valleys where you hope not to dwell for too long.

A lot has happened over the past several months. A little over a month ago the hubby and I moved into our “forever” house. Let me explain this. I’m a nester. I like to find something and somewhere comfortable and then stay there. The past few years have been disruptive physically and emotionally. These last four years will have found us spending Christmas in 4 different “homes”. This year, we’re in what we anticipate being our final home. The house is everything either my husband or I wanted and needed. And minus a somewhat questionable neighbor (every neighborhood has at least one, we just happen to be living beside them), our ranch home is where we hope to live the rest of our days. Continue reading “The In Between Time” →

It had the potential to fully deflate me, to cause me to spiral out of control, growing more and more angry with each passing breath. But as I stood on the precipice I realized that this time, I had a choice, that I was no longer the overly needy twenty-something-year-old. I was more prepared this time around. “It’s finally over,” I told my husband of the now defunct attempt at having an ex-boyfriend be in my life. True to his character, and as he’d done with every other false ending, he lifted my hand and kissed it. “You’ve still got me.”

I know I take him for granted, annoyed at times for the things that I cannot and maybe should not attempt to change. In this, he allowed me a wide girth. I took it, relished it, allowed conversations and thoughts to linger like a long-lost but not forgotten fragrance. I knew that I couldn’t relive the past, I couldn’t rewrite its story but I had hoped for another ending, a happy one. Maybe through friendship, we could find what we were truly meant to be. I wanted that friendship, that familiar connection. I even craved it. It’s sweet nectar seeming to be well within reach. I was wrong. I showed all my cards and left with nothing. Still, I accept the blame that is my own. Misguided missteps resulting in gut wrenching sadness. Continue reading “The Final Goodbye” →

It’s been some time since I’ve written publicly. In that time, I have decided to end my writing for my former local newspaper and I’ve stopped reading. What I mean is that I typically skim through my People app but I’ve not read a book in months. What compels me to write today is my past. Specifically, my ex-husband.

Now, this isn’t a road that I have been down in quite a long time. My dealing with the end of that relationship and that last name essentially meant my having put everything into an already overly filled closet. When I closed that door it took years to force it shut. All this time later, 13 years since our divorce, I never imagined that my first husband would be anywhere in my thoughts. Time does what it can to heal but the end of my being LaToya Cotton became a taboo topic internally. Continue reading “The Land of Cotton” →