There are a number of poems I’ve written about this specific person. We’ve not yet made it to his named poem but I had loved this person since I was 19. He was completely wrong for me. He was the stereotypical bad boy. He drank, did drugs…I thought he was so deep, so misunderstood. I thought that I could fix him, that he would change for me. I enjoyed his company and disturbingly loved that I was the one he called in the wee hours of the morning, usually quite drunk. I was young, inexperienced and I suppose I just watched too much television or bought into the fairytale. What I do know is that I truly loved him. Unhealthy or misguided as it was, I did truly and deeply love him and I still have love for him even now. He’s no longer in my life but he was a big part of my past and there he will forever be. And in that way, he played a Cameo.
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Blog posts
The Day Has Come
It was only a matter of time before my poems would lead to this. Okay, the ex-husband. It has taken me a long time to not immediately wince at the thought of him. I of course say this as the woman scorned. I’m not going to lie or sugar coat it. It took me well over 5 years to reach a place where I didn’t want to cry or scream or do something crazy. That experience left me completely broken. Fortunately, I’m not quite so broken anymore. When someone is your first in virtually every way that counts and you marry them and it ends in divorce, well, that’s a special kind of heartache. We married young. I suppose we both knew that we shouldn’t have married at all. He said I was very, err, persuasive. Get your minds out of the gutter, he meant it in the bossy and overbearing way! I was invested. I couldn’t reconcile the thought of not being with the person whom I had chosen to share so much with. Even though I also saw the warning signs, I was hopeful. I was naive enough to believe that my love was enough for the both of us, you know, all the clichés that are attributed to the “weaker” sex. Yep, that was me. I loved him, I loved the idea of him. In that space and time Braxton was everything to me. But that’s the thing about life, everything changes and we are forced to move on.
Back in the Stacks
Three years ago this month I wrote the poem that I share tonight, Back in the Stacks. In 2010 my best friend and I thought it’d be fun to host our own podcast. It was. 82 episodes and seven seasons later it has gone from a mostly weekly show to one that we do every now and then. Our last episode was in June of this year. I honestly thought it was much longer ago. You can’t deny the on air chemistry of the hosts! I saw co-hosting the show as an opportunity to do the type of job I’d intended to do when I was younger. I’d always loved broadcast journalism. I was, from what I was told, pretty good at it. I remember when I was younger coming up with copy and using my parents’ camcorder to record news shows. And when I didn’t have any original copy I’d read from the newspaper.
In high school I had the opportunity to do some work for Media One (now Comcast) as a cub reporter. The show I did was even nominated for a local Cable Ace Award. I decided that I would not pursue broadcast journalism and instead follow my then husband to Milledgeville. In its stead I did my second option, business. In my family most females go into business, hospitality/travel or medicine. Sure, I’d thought I wanted to be a doctor at some point but I realized soon enough that I didn’t have the temperament for it, sufficient passion for science, or the real love or tolerance for sick people. Hospitality/travel was a mild interest but I love business. Although I work in a library my primary focus is in administration and so I get to do all the things I like, create policies and procedures, budgets, administrative tasks, etc. I especially love the technology side of it!
Our loosely related library show is on iTunes so feel free to download an episode or two or 82! When I say loosely, I mean very loose. You’ll have the chance to hear both Barry and myself openly discuss a number of topics from the inappropriate to downright funny. I’m sure we’ll do another show some time but Barry now has his own show and the responsibilities of our day job has drastically increased as a result of budget cuts. However, I’m sure if we get people asking for more, we’d oblige. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!
LaToya M. Davidson-Perez 