Sometimes we wish that we could use a little Correction Fluid in our lives. We make mistakes, some of them we’d rather forget all together. This poem was written during a rough patch with Kenrick. Honestly, I’m the most poetic when there’s some sort of drama. That being the case, I have not written many poems outside of that. Inspiration takes hold when I feel I have something to write about. So, when I am deeply sad, I feel the most inspired. Odd, I know. I guess that that’s just how I am. To think, I didn’t feel the desire to write the day I got married. That isn’t to say that I didn’t have anything to say, it just feels weird writing about happier things. Alas, the mind of someone who lives with depression. Sadness is more interesting to me than is happiness. I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact that I have spent a greater portion of my life in some level of sadness. For several weeks recently I was very happy. Inexplicably so. I analyzed virtually every moment of it. It was like a new discovery that I poked at, tried to understand and tried to hold on to. It was fleeting. But, I did enjoy that time. I grabbed a hold of it, and as the poets would say, I sucked the marrow from it. As I said, we make mistakes, and sometimes in these mistakes we find ourselves.
Family Above All
By Christmas 2011 Kenrick and I had broken up. I was miserable and unhappy. Our breakup had happened the month prior and I had not been sleeping well. The plan was for family members to again share something at Christmas dinner. I turned to my staple, poetry. It was, of course, much different this year. I was moody and depressed. I don’t remember sharing the poem as we’d become busy talking and playing games. However, despite the way I felt I was thankful to be around people I loved and who loved me. So, although Christmas 2011 was sad, that’s all it was, sad. Within a few weeks Kenrick and I would be back together again and the heartache of the season melted into the past.
For the Love of Family
Today’s poem is one I co-wrote with my soon-to-be husband on our way back from my 30th birthday cruise. It was Christmas Eve and that year we were all tasked with presenting something to the family at our traditional family dinner. I decided, since I enjoyed writing poetry, that we’d come up with a poem together. I love my family. I am blessed to have a family that thoroughly enjoys spending time together. We spend all the major holidays together and it’s something I really look forward to. I have an aunt and uncle who, with their tribe of kids (they have five between them), are always great fun to be around. I’m older than my cousins by at least a decade but we are close and get along quite well.
I know that it’s not often that people are able to say that they have a close-knit family. I’m incredibly close to my grandparents, parents and brother. I talk to my mom more than 3 times a week and the others with somewhat similar frequency. It wasn’t until my latter 20s that I began to feel this way. But now, I really and truly live for the time to hang out with them. We all know that if ever anyone is in need, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call.
And so Christmas 2010 was, as a result of the hard economic times, the first year we decided that instead of trying to get gifts for so many people, we’d share our talents with the people we knew would appreciate them the most. Kenrick and I presented our poem and the family of course loved it.
LaToya M. Davidson-Perez 