(Warning: NSFW, toxic per usual, tragic, pathetic, and more notably, you’ll be shaking your heads but I pray the moral of the story will be a gem). 

It’s really been over a year since I published last sooo…

“I mean, where the fuck should I really even start?” – Aubrey Graham

After much consideration of burning this entry into a crisp and spreading the ashes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this small time frame cannot be denied which has caused trivial aftereffects.

Simply put, I fucked up. I fucked up with my “love” interest, I fucked up with myself, but most importantly I fucked up with my daughter. Dismantled, the plan was to get past it and overcome these series of events humbly and discreetly, but alas, we meet in my misfortune.
So here I am once again wishing this manuscript was a rehashing of the past, pre-pandemic past but most of you will agree, 2020 was one ruthless bitch. 2021 is still in question.

Also, keep in mind that I’m squeezing in over a year’s worth of unedited life content into one single blog, much like a retired car being crushed, ready to be recycled scraps.

Well then, let’s start by playing a song by Summer Walker: Session 32.

After many unbearable months of words scraping at the back of my head, rolling around like balls in a lotto machine, and not being able to compose a single paragraph, I sit here determined to thrust these taunting words out and the excruciating feelings that reside with them.
In theory, by the end of this blog, I should know if part of this story is about love or obsession. What I DO know for certain is that I completely derailed and lost myself from the spiritual journey I intended to conquer.

By December 2020, after being blinded by a dark shadow, I unfolded my eyes, looked back and saw a trail that was once almost turned into a garden had become infested with locust and turned into ruined greeneries. Even after the end of December things got worse before they became better.

So directly to the facts: I DID IT. I fell for the Scorpio I had sworn off. The one I had claimed to have wrongly manifested. The same Scorpio I vowed to leave, and swore to never fraternize with another water sign ever again. Because that’s exactly what he was. He was water slipping through my fingers. Each drop was uncontainable, like an hourglass, every grain was a second lost and before we knew it, our time was up. 

As much as I yearned to bask in our chemistry, our situationship was blatantly unrealistic. He was a kaleidoscope of colors, constantly changing patterns, and no matter how many times I had anticipated it would remain at a beautiful standstill, and as much as I knew that could never be, his demeanor remained addictively intriguing. So as the entire world was immersed in a state of the pandemic panic, absentmindedly we latched onto one another. The truth is, we had only known each other for five months. 

In the very beginning of our situationship and towards the middle, I showered him with every single love language, that is: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts, and touch. An enormous amount of it ALL. 

After the last relationship with my ex Nick, I wanted to test out the relationship arena, only this time I was going to be completely driven by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. You know, the fruits of the spirits and all that. Not pop off after every little mistake he made.

There were things he did that would test this almost every single day. 

But I was infatuated with this riddle of a man. He was the most enigmatic human I have ever laid next to and I was going to solve him, no matter the consequences that came with it. And not to spoil this disheartening passage, but what sometimes comes with being a fixer; a problem solver, sometimes along comes dire consequences. 

He would often tell me, “Ang, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

And I would respond with, “like what? Tell me.” And he would remain silent. That was his gift, and that was his downfall. He would silence himself before he said too much. He protected those thoughts with every last molecule he had in his body. But that silence couldn’t protect him. It was his actions that sounded the alarm, exposed who he was and ultimately became the demise of what we (I) sought to have. 

I wasn’t innocent in this entanglement either. 

There were times when we separated, I ran amuck. I can’t say I was loyal but I can’t say I was disloyal because we never cemented our situationship. That is until September 1st. After 11 months of being in the “talking stage” on and off, knowing that he took advantage of me, he came back from Las Vegas after partying day and night with his pals and begged to speak to me. A puppy with his tail between his legs. I asked him to meet me in my car because my daughter was in her room and I didn’t want her to hear the conversation. He was beyond ashamed with his actions and his mistreatment; he could barely face me. He never took his protective mask off (mask required because of Covid) as he offered his plea. So there in my car, I gave his apologies permission to seduce me.

Tears streamed down my chin which left makeup blotches on the side of the seat of my car. He begged me not to cry. I felt like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan when her light went dim. Weakened but still up for the Scorpio challenge, I forgave him for the 100th time. September 1st we agreed to fully commit to each other, even though I knew it would be short-lived because of the enormous amount of red flags he carried along. I took the bait. Because of love? His mystery? Or was I addicted to mental self-mutilation? 

Dr. Mark Steinberg, a California psychologist who specializes in neuropsychology has an entire excerpt on emotional addiction and how “the cost of emotional addiction is that you live at the mercy of feeling provoked by circumstances…and your perceptions of these events.” He also states that, “living as an emotional addict is like boarding a bus based solely on the advertising on the outside of the bus.”  

And there I was with an annual bus pass. 

I knew he was sucking the life out of me and I didn’t want it to stop, because that meant losing him.

SO it took 11 rocky months for Scorpio to come to this decision of commitment, (which I never once asked for but ultimately was enticed), and it took exactly 17 days for us to break up. 17 days of pure loyalty and undivided attention. But before I get into logistics, let’s start where we left off and rewind to the start of heartbreak number 1 of this chapter.

As I said in blog V, the first couple days we first began to see each other we had a conversation that went as such, “I just got out of a relationship so I’m not looking for anything,” to which he replied “Yea, I don’t want to be a rebound, I’m not looking for anything either.” 

And believe me, he was the most undeniably diligent bachelor. I truly feel that as he was enjoying his single life, he had absolutely no intentions to fall in love. That was not part of his plan. In fact, he refused to fall in love. But the more I felt him push me away, the more he stumbled. We had luscious chemistry during a shitty time. 

Meanwhile, before all that, during mid March, in baby daddy-land, my daughter’s father, Sudan, had refused to let her out of the house and isolated with her for about a month. He guilted me into believing it would be safer for her to avoid commuting back and forth during a pandemic. I begged him to let her isolate with me, but because his wife was pregnant at the time, he refused to let anyone in, or let anyone out. Completely crushed and heartbroken about not seeing my daughter, I decided to quarantine with Scorpio for that allotted time. It felt like eternity and happened in a flash. Call it empty nest syndrome but I nurtured him day in and day out. In realization now, I must have transferred all the energy into what I could control rather than what I couldn’t. The days where I COULD control my emotions about separating from my daughter was hardly a win. Clearly I had to disassociate. What would that cause in the long term? I have no idea, but at the time it was better than wanting to gauge someone’s eyes out. Even my own. The bad days where I lost all control were crippling. I felt every emotion between the private walls of my home. There were days I couldn’t eat, I could hardly sleep, my anxiety caused me to vomit outrageously. A nurse came to my home and put an IV in me to give me all the vitamins and nutrients my body wouldn’t digest but needed.

So throughout these hell-hole lows, there was Scorpio offering me the bare minimum. His company. During that time I was beyond grateful. It was better than nothing at all…was my train of thought while my face was plastered on the floor of rock bottom.

The company I was working for cut our hours then eventually temporarily closed down because everyone left to isolate, so I had all the time in the world to bask in his bare minimum. Anything to keep me distracted would suffice. 

One particular dark day, I had an insufferable panic attack. Scorpio convinced me to go to the beach and even though I could hardly breath, my sprung ass couldn’t say no. (If memory serves, I NEVER said ‘no’ to him the entire time we were “together”). Since we had exhausted every in-home activity, and hadn’t felt the outside breeze for days, we headed out. The streets were mostly empty. Closed signs plagued the surrounding shops and restaurants as we passed. Everything was desolate and depressing. By the time we reached the beach, it was abandoned minus a small-framed girl working out nearby taking exercise pictures for the gram. We weren’t allowed to be there because the beaches were closed. We continued toward the ocean air anyway. We reached the sand and stood there in silence.
There were three things he warned me about when I met him: he was jealous, insecure, and he hated public displays of affection. (I know, I know, red flag, red flag, red flag). So we just stood there to what felt like 6 feet apart. Not really, but it might as well have been. The thing is, he was spending time with me at the beach, he could have been anywhere, with his family or friends, but there he was with me and my panic attack- was my adolescent reasoning. Until this day I don’t know what either one of us were thinking. What did we want with each other? What did we want OUT of each other?

The beach houses were silent and vacant, even the waves seemed silent and were definitely unoccupied. 25 minutes later we left, we went to a clinic, I got CBD remedies to see if it would help with the anxiety, and he grabbed a bunch of THC products. We came home and continued to watch our Tiger King marathon. We were cuddled up being unhealthy shits, eating Umami Burgers and cheesy potato tots. He would not shut up about those damn tots until we had them.

We grew accustomed to two different routines: Wake up early, eat fruits, guzzle alkaline water, make healthy shakes, make healthy decisions, exercise, and make love.

Then there was the days where all the news stations shielded any glimmer of hope, we would have champagne for breakfast, blast music, have sex, take a nap, shower, have sex again, watch our show, eat the shittiest thing we could order, go on a liquor store run, come back, he would dance stupidly and I would encourage it. We laughed until it was painful, we made fun of each other and mocked one another, fought for which song would play next, then we would knock out with our show playing in the background. He slept much easier than me. The THC vape pen that was sewn into his hand was his saving grace so he could easily check in and out of reality.

There were days that the only time we spent apart was going to the restroom. And while he would take some of his classes via online, me and the baby daddy were emailing each other nasty emails, once again playing tug of war with our daughter. Kamille was unknowingly held captive from me. We would message each other every single day, FaceTime, play drawing contests with our families across the world, and all the while I had to keep a straight happy face, like I didn’t want to burn the city down and snatch her up. I had nightmares every other night that someone was trying to kidnap her from me. I would wake up in sweats. I felt torn, was I really putting her in danger? Was I putting Sudan’s pregnant wife in danger? I felt like a fucking wretched weakling. Even now, I still don’t know if I did the right thing by not sending a peace officer to their home. All the yoga and meditations in the world couldn’t control my innate instinct to want to attack. But it would filter my barbaric unreasoning into practicality.

Thankfully, I would wake up with Scorpios comfort, his arm around my body, his face on my neck, and he would whisper, “I love you babe.” Paralyzed, I didn’t know what to say back and because he was in a transitional state of conscience, I never told him that he would use the “L” word.

And even though we spent almost every millisecond together, his sudden presence would stir me. While preparing breakfast in the kitchen, he would suddenly walk into the room. I would suddenly have a sharp pain in my chest, and I could hear my pulse in my throat. Something about his presence drove me crazy; something about his absence made me worse.

There were times he would leave to visit his friends and family, and as lonely and trapped in my home I felt, I remained uncomplaining, because remember? The fruits of the spirits? Patience. 

At the time, my family took isolation a lot more seriously than he did, so I couldn’t pack up and leave to be with close ones like he could.
His random love notes were found around my lifeless home when he would leave. And those notes alone would hold me over until he decided to come back. (Even though he would blow up my phone making sure I wasn’t with anyone else. Heaven forbid I didn’t answer his facetime).

When he was ready to return, I was ready to love on him, kiss on every freckle, every beauty mark, and his sweet little birthmark on the side of his cheekbone. Everything that he saw as a flaw, I deeply adored. He had beauty marks scattered throughout his body like the constellations that we admire through our telescopes. Long, soft, brownish hair would fall over his eyes when he slept, and red lips that would pucker out more and more the deeper he went into dreamlandia. I witnessed his perfectly bronze soccer tan turn into vampire white as we hardly spent time with the sun. He would kick his legs in his sleep and I wondered if he was dreaming of soccer. I would run my hand on his calf to calm him and let him know I was there but not so much as to wake or startle him.

The next day I would ask him what he dreamt of. He never remembered or he just never told me. And just like the constellations are light years away, so were his thoughts. How could this man I was sleeping with consecutively remain mysterious and withdrawn? 

Regardless of his distance, I wanted to be so close to him it hurt. Was I projecting my emotional state in order to feel something other than the baby daddy drama and global pandemic? Nonetheless, I wanted to be so close to him, like within him, much like when Plankton went inside the Mr. Krabs robot. *lololol*

If you understood that Spongebob reference, 10 points to Gryffindor!

Now, by the end of April, Scorpio had to prepare to move out of his apartment in Irvine because his lease was up, which was perfect timing because Sudan and I had finally come to an agreement with our daughter. She would complete the rest of her 4th grade year virtually from home with me before her father and I split the summer. 

A cleaning team came to my apartment and sanitized every inch, corner to corner, to prepare for her transition.  

I set her up with a daily schedule so she could adapt to a proper routine. Morning meditation, breakfast, reading, PE activity, lunch, her online curriculum, free time/snack, French lessons, advanced vocabulary, and then we had the rest of the day to lallygag and play. It was pure bliss. 

Every day we practiced a jazz dance that we would later record and watch ourselves with pride. We made face masks out of honey and bananas, made TikTok’s, watched Glee, had ‘smores for the first time ever, and made it a goal to finish reading Oliver Twist. All was going swimmingly in the little world we created other than the fact that Scorpio and I were not on speaking terms once again, by this time I can’t even remember why, but it was always something with his short temperament. He would be back because I never gave him a reason not to. Of course I missed his voice and comfort but I was with my daughter now and determined to make the most of every second. 

The night before Kamille would leave back with her father, May 24, would be a night she and I will never forget. It is branded deeply within the trauma section of our brains. 

If you recall, blog number IV. Sluts, Shamelessness, and Bad Advice, I wrote about a friend, Layla, with low frequency waves who I committed to because she housed me when I had nowhere to go. And I quote, “No matter how much we disagreed, loyalty would (remain) reciprocated.” God how I wish I could take that back.

That Sunday, around 9 PM, Kamille was on her bed watching videos, and I was in the kitchen finishing up some cleaning. Layla FaceTimed me. She was with her two kids at a friend’s house in Anaheim. 

“Angie! What are you doing?! We are bored!”

She pointed the phone at her friend who was passed out on the couch. 

“Let us come over! The kids aren’t ready to sleep yet!” She continued.

The tables had turned. She didn’t have a home anymore. She had been rooming with another person, and at times was couch surfing amongst her friends. I, on the other hand, had busted my ass off to live in this luxury apartment. What would I do? It was almost Kamille’s bedtime. Do I turn my back on the one person who took me in when I was homeless? I should have. 

“Layla, it’s super late, and Kam has to go to bed soon, so if you come, it can only be for an hour or so.”

”Okay! The kids can play with Kamille and we can catch up!”

She called me a few minutes later and told me she was outside getting out of an Uber with her two kids. It’s nearly impossible to get into my apartment complex without access. I ran outside to get them. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that she was belligerently drunk. I was completely caught off guard. 

“Layla! What is going on?” Her two kids attempted to hold her up. She was tumbling all over the sidewalk laughing. I stood there flabbergasted and in a state of shock and panic.

“Angie, I need to pee!” 

She then proceeded to pull her pants down, slumped over and began to release by the bushes, pee slipping down her legs. I begged her to wait until I could get her to the bathroom. She was mentally checked out. No amount of begging could detour her. Her kids stood there humiliated and continuously whispered to one another advices as to not to make their mother upset and to go along with the situation. Their faces told a story that this happened often. I told them it was okay and immediately knew I had to handle the situation delicately. Layla was there careless and half-witted and as much as I wanted to be selfish and ask her to leave and come back another day, I just didn’t. Not just because she gave me a home when I had nothing, but children were involved and if something were to happen that night, it would forever be on my conscience. It was a lose-lose situation for me.

“Layla, please, I am begging you, this is Kamille’s last night here before she goes back with her father. Please gain control!”

I took her up into my apartment and led her to the kitchen to get water. My daughter was enthusiastic to see two children in our home because she hadn’t had any interaction with any other humans at that point. 

It didn’t matter, her children were so tense, they cowered into the living room and had put an Anime show on the TV.
Layla dragged me into my room and asked if I wanted her to order coke…as in the drug.

“Layla, are you serious? No! I really don’t think that’s a good idea. You still do that? You said you would stop.”

MANY years ago when we worked together at the club we had experimented with recreational drugs (which I keep wanting to write about but these setbacks). Well apparently it had continued to be her vice. I hadn’t been around her enough to know that this was happening. And at this point I was thinking that maybe it was just the liquor talking. Either way, I left my room to check on my daughter. She was back in her room watching videos with her door opened and the kids were in the living room watching TV doing the best they could to act normal. 

Completely out of nowhere I heard Layla speaking nastily to her children.

”Don’t be fucking STUPID!” She told one of her kids.

“Please don’t speak like that,” I quickly said.

“Angie! Don’t tell me how to speak to my kids!”

So I asked her to go into my room with me and she followed.

”Layla, I have never told you how to speak to your kids but in my house, you cannot disrespect your children that way, especially in front of Kamille.”

To which she replied, “Life isn’t perfect! You always baby Kamille! She needs to see the world and experience reality! This is REALITY, no one is perfect!”

Heat went from my chest into my head, I knew this would hurt her, “that is why you always put your ex over your kids, that was your reality, to always put him first, and now look at you, you don’t even have a home to put them in!”

She had fury in her eyes, she immediately grabbed my neck and began to choke me. She had long, devilish nails on, and a Kung fu grip around my throat. Mind you, this bitch heavy lifts and spends much of her time in the gym. Plus she’s a hefty girl so she had a lot of weight on me. 

I couldn’t breath, I just swung my fist on her head to get her to release me.

She dragged me outside of my room, into the living room where her children were and began to throw punches at me. The moment we were in front of the kids, I stopped defending myself and took the punches. I refused to get physical with their mother in front of them. I kept feeling blows and blows across my face. Her children were screaming, “Mommy! Please stop! Please let go of her! Why are you doing this?!” 

I was filled with adrenaline, I couldn’t feel the pain, and her kids tried to get their mother off of me, but she kept yelling at them to get away. 

Should I have deescalated the situation? I could have, but I didn’t. I lost control.

“Is this what coke does to you? You fucking psycho!” I yelled.

Livid that I exposed her truth, and in an attempt to get me back she ran to my daughters room and lied. “Did you know that your mom does coke? Yeah your mom is crazy!” She wasn’t just telling lies, she was in my daughter’s face screaming at the top of her lungs, and my daughter stood there screaming and crying, terrified and confused. 

Infuriated, I grabbed Layla and told her to stay the fuck away from my daughter, I dragged her into the bathroom so the children wouldn’t see and pinned her down and told her that she was to leave my home with her kids and never come back. She kept trying to fight and her kids cried and begged their mom to leave. 

She refused to leave until I got her an Uber with my own account. More than glad to, I called her an Uber, apologized to her children, and kicked her out of my house. I texted her, “I will never forgive you.” To which she replied, “ I will never forgive YOU.”

As angry as I was and as much as I despised her, the ten year friendship abruptly ended and left me heartbroken. This would be the second heartbreak of the year. Never would I have expected this from Layla. Until this day I have heard the drunken version of her story that she tells other people and regardless of what she says or what she thinks happened, I am grateful that she is out of sight. This was the universe tearing away that one toxic friend that I vowed loyalty to. But when it comes to my daughter, there are no vows, no loyalty, and no contract that can bind me. Bye Insane Cokehead. Peace be with you. 

When she left, I went to my daughter’s room to comfort her. I tried to embrace her. She cried and asked me not to get near her. I hated myself. How did I allow this to happen? I was fucked. It didn’t matter how beautifully our time went the last few weeks. All it took was less than an hour for it to be demolished. Her father picked her up the next day. She ran to his car. I asked to speak to him and tried to tell him about the incident. Cutting me off halfway, he was appalled and disgusted. I knew I would never hear the end of this. A year later I am still paying the consequences. He later messaged me an essay about putting his daughter in danger, and that he shouldn’t have to be explaining what ‘coke’ is to our daughter at such a young age, and so on and so on. He was right and I wasn’t going to sit there and explain to him exactly what happened. He would never believe me. I just took the jabs. Again. 

I called my lawyer and told her exactly what happened and asked her what could potentially happen if Sudan were to try and make any custodial moves.

“How could you have known she was drunk when she came over? You did nothing wrong but defend yourself, and did your best to try to protect your daughter. These things happen and in this case, this was completely out of your hands. You have nothing to worry about. You can’t control what other people do.”

Hardly relieved, I knew I would have to rebuild trust with my daughter which would prove most difficult since she was to vacation in Mexico for half of the summer. 

I wanted to call Scorpio so I could scream, cry, and tell him everything that happened. I had become reliant on his comfort after we had isolated together. I was angry that I couldn’t. He had become a ghost once again and I wasn’t going to beg for his consolation. I hated him for this. I needed him to be there for me the way I was there for every single tiny mishap that occurred in his life.

Things eventually cooled down, but I knew I had no room to make any mistakes. I would carry this burden throughout the rest of the summer.

By June, I picked up a side gig for a movie that was going to begin production that month. I was desperate to keep myself occupied. As I took on the script, continued to share custody with Sudan, and dealt with the absence of Scorpio, I did everything I could to keep a healthy routine. Mid-production, my sister and her family flew from Tajikistan to the States so they could be near family while the pandemic intensified. They stayed in a 3 story wooden cabin, and that would be the headquarters where all of my other sisters would meet from all over the states with their families. During that time, I would commute back and forth from LA to Big Bear. My daughter would stay there as I traveled up and down because of script meetings and filming. As much as I wanted to settle down and relax with my family during the most frightening time of our lives, I knew I had to invest my time wisely and keep it moving, whether it was financially or mentally for our future.

While commuting back and forth I developed strep throat. The moment I told Sudan, he zoomed over to Big Bear to collect our daughter. I watched, isolated from the third floor as he and his wife packed Kamille’s things into their car, and I could only say goodbye to her through the window so as not to infect her. I watched their car drive off and grow smaller and smaller. I cried and heaved into the pillow, packed my things and rushed off the mountain straight back to Orange County to get some bed rest in my own home. My little sister Natalie was with me and took care of me while she was recovering from a rhinoplasty surgery. Random, I know. 

Amongst the sadness, and blurry chaos, somehow, some way, Scorpio navigated his way back into my life just as I suspected. My problem was that I could never object. I was always ready to receive him with opened vulnerable arms. We were back into the entanglement, in full effect. Was I bored? Or was it unconditional love? Was the Scorpio challenge to solve him still at play?

What I do know is that he expressed the pain he went through when his late mother passed away from cancer when he was just nine years old.

His father had picked him up from soccer practice and rushed him to the hospital to say goodbye to her in person. What he approached was a once-loving lifeless mother which would forever change the life she gave him. In tears, he begged her to wake up, and shook her, pleading for her to open her eyes. When he told me this, we cried together. I wanted to mend this opened wound that remained unhealed but it was gashed and too enlarged. I was useless. And as alcohol could begin the process of disinfecting a wound, he would rather drink it instead. A temporary solution.

So as much physical affection and warmth he displayed overtime, he remained mentally withdrawn. Not just from me, but with society in general. I was convinced that he hated people. A misanthrope of some sort. He loved only his family (if that) and his circle of friends that he had for several years, but it was almost impossible to let anyone else in. The times that he did open up, it was about his late mother, sister, dad and other immediate family. Then there was the family on his mom’s side that had become estranged from. He held so much anger towards them. And me, being a problem fixer, felt helpless because there was nothing I could do to remedy that resentment he held towards that side of his family. I felt compromised with my own family issues. What good could I do? 

Listening carefully while he was angry at his coworkers or friends would tell me how he took on challenges in life and how he reacted within his community. He was passionate about camaraderie and if someone overstepped what he felt was loyalty to their brotherhood, they were shunned out…locked out…panic room shut out. His patience was almost nonexistent, which was interesting because I wondered how he could have patience with himself? He was incredibly inconsistent with almost everything except the gym and soccer. BUT to his benefit, he was headstrong about that from the start, “ANG, nothing, or no one will get in the way of my goals. I have worked my ass off! You don’t know! You might not believe me but I will let nothing stand in my way.”

And there I was all ‘tonta‘ like a cheerleader, “I believe every word babe, I see it, I know you will.” 

What a laugh.

I’m not laughing because I didn’t believe him because I really did and still do. I laugh because there I was supporting someone’s dream when I could have been doing anything but drooling over someone who had dropped multiple red flags in my face. What kind of red flags you say? *cracks necks and knuckles*

Anyone who knows me knows that there are three things that are to be respected at all costs: My family/Kamille, my TIME, and my money.

And because time is money, the money I support my daughter with, you can’t disrespect one without disrespecting the other. There were days he promised to come see me and he would have me waiting for hours and not reach out to me until the next day. I know what you’re thinking, pathetic…right? His excuses never made sense. And in that same regard, I didn’t even care if he decided to take a bubble bath instead of seeing me, the point was that all he needed to do was at least cancel via text. If he hadn’t noticed yet, I was okay with the bare minimum. There were times I would call out of work just to watch a movie with him, and times he would cancel for who knows why. You’re right, I’m the imbecile, not him. He was just naturally inconsiderate.

Other cases of red flags were when we would go out with his best friend, let’s name him Chad. Chad has a live-in girlfriend however, whenever we would go out together, Chad always had eyes for someone else. The ol’ wandering eyes. I would remain silent and observe the two. They would look at each other approvingly, and because Scorpio didn’t necessarily approve of Chad’s girlfriend, he would approve of Chad’s behavior, which is ungentlemanlike at a default. You know what they say about the company you keep. Their motto was “bad boys for life” for heaven’s sake. And there I was being fanned by this waving red flag, hair blowing by its harsh gust of wind.

Here’s the crazy thing…I often refer to my camera roll, email, and messages to remember precisely what was going on during particular months or days so that my writing is accurate, but in this case there is a big gap missing in July throughout August. There is no evidence that I actually existed in those two months. I have searched my Snapchat, instagram stories, messages, camera rolls and there is no trace of life. It’s like someone deliberately deleted any trace of human activity. I swear it wasn’t me. I keep everything.

Now, my memory is shot so I can’t exactly write about that time, just know that I lived a single life, studied my script for the movie, drank with my peers on set, made new friends and situationships in the cast (short lived). Also, I was method acting and I happened to land the role of a gangster’s ho. So there’s that. Furthermore, I got robbed. (Long story and completely my mistake-for another blog). My safe was emptied, my Louis Vuitton’s went missing, a stack of cash gone, and my favorite jewelry was taken. That week I had cameras installed in every corner of my home.

The summer was coming to an end, and I had to get my shit together and prepare for Kamille’s 5th grade year. Her father had moved to Irvine, “illegally” mind you. In the state of California you’re supposed to come to terms with the other parent in order to move, which he didn’t, and on top of that, he put her into a new school. I didn’t object because my daughter was thrilled to make new friends. Other than the robbery, things were going peacefully until September.

So back to the 1st of September, when Scorpio and I finally converted our situationship into a relationship after 11 months of being up and down and in and out of quarantine.

Scorpio decided to introduce me to all his friends on Labor Day as his girlfriend. As we got ready in my room for a Labor Day party, he looked at the beige biker shorts and tube top I had put on and asked me to change. Confused, I didn’t question him. My favorite thing about him was that we would unintentionally walk out with synchronized colors, and admired similar fashions. I loved that he would dress me and suggest different outfits on me. But this time was different. He felt that it was too revealing, which I could hardly control because my body type is quite curvy.

To avoid disagreements on a big day for us I got undressed and redressed. Once again he asked me to change. I believe I changed 4 times that day. Finally in the end, I wore black cargo baggy pants and a regular shmegular top. 

We arrived at the party, which turned out to be a pool party. Everyone wore small bikinis and tiny dresses along with high heels, and there I stood looking like a tomboy. Was this going to be for the rest of the time we would try to create a something together? Whatever it was…

Retaining all my frustration, feeling quite bitter, I guzzled down the drinks his best friend Chad made. It was a hell of a jungle juice drink. He made me multiple ones. Next thing I knew, I woke up by myself in my room…at home.

What the hell happened and where was the party? But more importantly where was Scorpio?

Well apparently I had made a fool of myself and he had to bring me home. He was livid.

He claimed that I was too friendly with a guy at the party in front of his friends. The one day we came out as a couple. 

I asked him to speak to me in person. He did. And like I said in the beginning, one misstep of loyalty and be prepared to be shunned out. I knew I had lost him.

I cried for forgiveness. He said he forgave me, but I knew he never truly would. In his words, “I’ve lost love for you.” And just like that, his seashell clamped shut once again, guarding his black pearl. So there you have it, we lasted 7 days, tried to continue our relationship for 10 more days, and then went ghost on each other…AGAIN. That’s all it took to break us and I found myself relieved because I already knew that. This just confirmed it. A lukewarm relationship if you will, neither hot nor cold. Or was it vice versa? Sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold? Yes that’s it. I would remain in a limbo residency, and he would prance back into civilization and I would mentally wait for him, but never physically.

Never once did I beg him to stay with me, or to come back to me. I never even begged the father of my own child to be with me, what made him think I would begin to chase someone now? The last person I begged to stay home with me was the day my father packed his bags to leave with his new family. I was 7 years old. From that day, I knew I would never make someone feel obligated to be with me. IF they wanted to, they would find a way.

Come November, he weaseled himself back into my gullible heart once again. It was his birthday month and I was determined to make it unforgettable. Across the county, we went to clubs, restaurants, bars, threw money on exotic dancers, and loved on each other again. Who was this person that made me forget all my inhibitions? 

Quite frankly, the reason I took so long to write this was because I couldn’t stop cringing every other sentence. I was as overzealous as they come. But wait, it gets worse…

For his birthday I made a list of his favorite things and drinks, got balloons in his favorite color, red, and themed his party after his finsta. By the end of the preparations, I was sweating bullets from running his birthday errands all day. I was actually sore the next day. Preparing for a last minute party is an extreme sport. I wanted it to be perfect. (WHY?!)

His family, close friends, and my friends joined. 

Now, prior to the party, Scorpio and I had made a playlist that would be our main soundtrack for the evening and night. He was ecstatic and content being around the people that love and value him. I met his father and stepmother for the first time. (After a year of hiding one another).

Everyone was drinking and enjoying the night but one of his friends kept insisting that I give him my phone to control the music, which was a terrible idea. Because Scorpio and I had been up and down countless times, I couldn’t risk getting a text message from someone I had been talking to while he was absent from my life. Especially on his birthday. Pretending to be indifferent, I asked for my phone back after he found the song he wanted. 

Scorpio began to lecture me and told me to allow his friend to keep my phone and that I should just let him control the music. I tried to switch the music via Bluetooth over to his friend’s phone but it wouldn’t take. Throughout the night, his friend and I kept scuffling over my phone. It was pure shit. I had two choices: let him have my phone, get a mass amount of messages that would forever ruin Scorpios birthday, or just to get him out of my hair once and for all and have everyone leave my apartment (the plan was to go to a club later on that night anyway.) And just like that, I put everyone out of the party, and over a thousand dollars that I spent on it went down the drain. Either decision I made, he would hate me. I chose the latter. 

The next day he came to pick up some things that he left in my room and he saw that I was hanging out with my friends. He was upset that I wasn’t upset about my behavior that night before. Why should I? It was a lose/lose situation. And if we hadn’t been up and down for an entire year, that would have never happened because I would have no one to text for entertainment and distractions. *needs healing detection*

Even though we had lost respect for one another, we decided to go to a lounge in Costa Mesa called Mesa. Still tense from the night before, we continued his birthday celebrations. We grew annoyed with each other that night, and he decided to leave with his cousin whom he invited. I stayed with my friends, and as soon as they were about to leave, a group of gentlemen invited us over to converse. Scorpio jumped out of the shadows and dragged me home with him. Tense, angry, and fed up with each other, we fought the entire night. Looking for random things to argue about, he went to my vanity ottoman that sits in front of my mirror in the bathroom and thrusted the lid opened saying, “and what the FUCK is this shit?! Why do you even have this little ass shit?”

Apparently he had found a stash of my lingerie and bikinis that didn’t fit me anymore because of weight gain. I had refused to throw them away because my goal was to be able to fit in them once again. Had this insecure issue been addressed early on, it would have been handled accordingly. I love donating clothes. 

Last but not least, he poured blue Powerade all over my new Christian Dior shoes, I tore his gold necklace off as he walked out of my home, and he left the empty bottle of Powerade on top of my car and somehow found his way home. That was the last time I would see him. He had told me that his stepmom had suggested that he forget about me and that he should speak to one of my closest friends, allegedly. After that last sentiment, I told him to visit the pits of hell.

The next day I called his best friend Chad and cried, “What have I ever done to him to be this way to me? Tell me! Please, if there’s anything that I could have done differently? Who hurt him so badly that he continuously crushes me?” I just wanted answers, anything that could possibly hint to some sort of explanation.

I didn’t expect him to tell me the truth, but he did, “Angie, you haven’t done anything. The only thing you have done is allow him to do this to you over and over again. You’re the one who keeps taking him back. My suggestion is to just STOP. Stop letting him do this. That’s all you can do.” Chad didn’t tell me to not give up on him, he didn’t tell me to give him another chance, he didn’t make any excuses for him, like any best friend would. He straight up told me to walk away. We hung up and I contacted my spiritual guide.

Up until the end of what we had, the Spiritual Guide had told me exactly what would happen between us. I had fair warnings the entire time. She told me that he was running wild, she mentioned that he was sleeping with another woman, maybe more than just one, but couldn’t stop coming back to me. She said that he was my soulmate but if I received him when it was too soon, it would ruin our chances for something greater. She said he wasn’t ready, but that he had the potential to be the phenomenal man that was meant to be for me. I wanted to be patient and wait, but I was scared to reject him for fear that he would never come back. So did I really love him or was I just obsessed with the torment and then the breath of relief when he would come back?

That night I was in deep prayer, “God, I come to you humbly and ask that You reveal anything that I need to know in order to move on.” 

I tucked myself into bed, fell asleep and began to dream:

In this dream, I was alone, walking inside a dark, rundown apartment. It was empty and eerie. His friend Chad opened the unlocked apartment door and walked in. 

“Hey, how’s it been?” He asked. 

Cutting to the chase, I responded with, “I’ve been pretty good, how has your friend (Scorpio) been?” And that’s when he began to tell me in detail what he had been up to. Nothing that I didn’t already assume. I didn’t want to hear anything anymore, and woke myself up. 

Why was I looking for answers anymore anyway? What was the point? He had said unforgivable things that he could never take back and so had I. 

All those rules I followed throughout our situationship fell through the roof. There was no more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. There were no more love languages to emit. There was only anger, disparity, regret, intolerance, pettiness, hatred, and war. 

As hardened as I became, I continued to have a soft spot for my ego that had entertained him. The ego I had worked on for so many years made its way back into the game, challenged to piece this broken man back together.

Meanwhile, back in baby mama drama, it only took 8 months to screw up with my daughter for the second time that year.

By December, everything had been going smoothly with our schedule and sharing custody. Kamille had begun her 5th year of school and I was elated to experience this with her since 5th grade was my most favorite school year. I met her new friends and invited them over to take culinary classes with my daughter. I had hired a chef that year to teach my daughter culinary because of her love for cooking. And also I was scared to screw up anything in the kitchen, so I left it up to the chef.

Life was going as it should, until December 4th. 

I had been working in advertising as a freelancer with one of my friends named Elaine. We were in my room working on our laptops and Kamille was in her room playing.

A mutual friend had asked me if I wanted to go out that night, (to Mesa, out of all places) but I said I couldn’t because I was with my daughter. Now Elaine on the other hand has trouble saying no to a good time. Just because I couldn’t go out (nor did I want to) I didn’t want to stop her from going out. She left all her work stuff in my room and I told her that if she came back late that she needed to enter quietly, and be completely silent. 

3:30 AM she came back with our friend Lilly, who was pretty tipsy. I was asleep and woke up to a “SLAM” outside my room. Lilly had mistaken Kamilles room for a bathroom and immediately shut her door. Furious, I told them to gather their things and leave. I knew I shouldn’t have let them drive in their state of mind but did I care at this point? No. My priority was to get them out before Kamille became frantic. But it was too late. She had gotten flashbacks from the first incident and texted her father to pick her up. 

I woke up to camera alarms on my phone and on the screen watched my daughter run out of our home at 7 am. I ran to get her but she was already taking off in her fathers car. 

In came the messages about Kamille’s comfort and that I shouldn’t have friends coming in and out of my apartment so late and that he would report this incident with his lawyer, so on and so on. 

Yes, my daughter was being a little overly dramatic with this incident but considering the first incident, I couldn’t blame her.

Instead of explaining how less-than-trivial the situation was, I sent him a copy of the camera footage showing exactly what happened. 

I knew he felt stupid because his threats decreased. But either way, the trust I had gained with my daughter that entire year deteriorated. She refused to come back home. 

Was I to force her to continue our schedule? Did she need time from me? How was I to rebuild trust with her if she wasn’t around me? My yoga instructor says we have over 60,000 thoughts per day, and when I wasn’t thinking about being heartbroken over Kamille, work, or family, many of those thoughts went to Scorpio. How can someone just flee so disdainfully? And why was I spending any thoughts on it at all, knowing he would be back and I would be too vulnerable to object?

Within the next couple of days my family had been warned that my Uncle Wayne only had a few days to live. He had been fighting cancer. I begged my daughter to come with me but still upset, she didn’t want to leave her fathers home to come with me.

I rushed over to my uncle’s house in Lancaster and read him a letter that I had prepared for him. The more I tried not to cry, the more tears rushed down my cheeks, lips, chin, and neck. I hardly recognized my uncle who had been one of the strongest, hardworking men in my life. He became a father to me when my parents divorced. Heartbroken, I kissed him one last time that night. My aunt returned the soaked letter that I wrote him and asked me to read it at his funeral.

My sisters were in the process of booking their flights, but by the time they arrived, he passed away. My sister Melissa and her son called me while they were at a layover in San Francisco and I couldn’t tell them that he was gone until she came. I just didn’t want to say it over the phone. When she arrived, she embraced me and that’s when I told her. My sister fell to the floor, held her stomach and cried. We were all sick. I found my nephew in the corner of my kitchen, sitting on the floor with his hands over his crying face. Nothing, there are no words that could explain what Uncle Wayne meant to us, what he did for us, and who he was to us. I never read the letter at his funeral. I sat there in the church, clenching the letter, and my jaw. There was a lump that felt like the size of a large stone in the center of my throat. There was no way I would make it past the first sentence.

The year was wrapping up in the worst way. 

And I snapped.

I didn’t want to feel anything. I didn’t want to feel the breakup, I didn’t want to feel like I had failed as a protective mother, or failed at love, or failed at being loved. I didn’t want to face any emotion. I didn’t want to think about life or death. 

As I told my dear friend Lisa, “I wish someone could unscrew my head, take my brain out, remove my limbic system, and return it back into my skull.”

So I went on airplane mode, flew to Denver to spend time with my cousin and began to spiral. 

The day before I was to fly back home, Scorpio came crawling out of the woodworks. He FaceTimed me and demanded to know where I was. I pointed the phone toward my cousin, and for whatever reason Scorpio looked relieved. By that time I had already retaliated multiple times with a couple different guys. It was as though I was possessed and his demons had taken over me. I didn’t know how to backtrack. I was already in too deep. Keep in mind that I had been in serious relationships ever since I was 15, and after the 3 year relationship I had with Nick, I had jumped into things immediately with Scorpio, so as late as it seemed to have a “ho” phase, I had nothing else to lose…except my dignity. 

As my plane landed at LAX, I made plans with, we will name him Jake, and as problematic as this sounds, I met him through his brother, whom I had met on the cast I work with and whom I already messed around with. I didn’t feel too bad because I had found out that he, the cast member, had a girlfriend in Miami that I didn’t know about (who eventually found out about me). Also, I didn’t really care nor have sincere feelings for either one of them. Ruthless and barbaric, I know, but remember: airplane mode, spiraling, snapped, no dignity, heartbroken, lost, tarnished…ALL that. Zen Angie was lost at sea.

SINCE this blog is way too long, we’ll have to come back to that story and continue forward. Anyway, I was to meet him and some friends in Huntington Beach. As I got into an Uber to meet them there, Scorpio began to blow my phone up. He believed I was still part of his game when in fact I had forfeited. The Scorpio challenge was finished. I lost.

“Angie, I want to see you, where are you?” He questioned me.

”I’m going to Huntington, I can’t see you, I am going to see someone else.”

This entire time of games and ups and downs, and on and offs, and my romantic world revolving around him, he knew it would be almost impossible for me to replace him. But I knew what I had to do. I had to self sabotage. I had to hurt him deeply. Otherwise he would never stop coming back to me. He would continue to hurt me over and over and over again. Nothing worked, not my tears, not my pleas to not play games, not my devotion, not my love, and nothing could reverse irreparable damage. 

When I told him I was with someone else, he thought I was joking and said I was full of shit. That’s how much he believed that I couldn’t move on. He called my bluff, and he was right, I couldn’t move on. I had to push him over the cliff so he couldn’t reach me anymore. I sent him a picture of me hanging out with another person. He lost it. 

Livid, he began to send me pictures of himself with his ex girlfriend and spewed any insult he could.

What’s annoying is that earlier that year he had fought with me when he saw that I had old Halloween pictures of my ex. He asked me to delete them and said he never wanted to see anything like that on my phone ever again. And this whole time he had a bunch of pictures of this ex on HIS phone. Thank God I didn’t delete my ex’s pictures because then I wouldn’t have had pictures to rebuttal with. So there we were at picture war, sending each other old memories of flames that never even worked out to try and hurt one another. DEPLORABLE. How did I stoop to this low vibrational level?! We said some pretty awful things to one another and the last thing he said to me was, “sad to know that your daughter has a mom who gets tossed.” With a bunch of laughing and basketball emojis.

And he wasn’t completely wrong, I probably got tossed around that night. What baffled me was that he praises all these promiscuous rappers and hip hop artists but when I have a go at it, I’m condemned. Anyway, my strategy worked, back to the streets we went, opposite sides of course and I didn’t hear from him for about four months.

Now for the rest of the winter, I would throw parties and go to underground parties in an attempt to forget that my motherhood was stripped away, that I lost at love again and that I didn’t know what to live for anymore.  

Also, I know this blog is getting to be plentiful, each blog is getting longer than the next. I feel like J.K Rowling, only I wish I was as brilliant and benevolent as she is…ok getting off track.

I do have to mention the incident when it was my week to pick up my daughter (during the time she had refused to be with me and stay with her dad). I had friends and family in my ear: “let her have time,” or “you are her mother, GET HER” or “just give her some space, she’ll be back,” or “my mom would have beat my ASS if I was your kid!”

My friend and I were in line at the store when I told her about the two incidents. She listened carefully and replied with, “well my mother was addicted to crack when I was twelve and did all sorts of crazy things. Your daughter has first world problems! I wished I had a mom like you!” Someone behind us overheard our conversation and said, “Sorry to interrupt, but when I was your daughter’s age (10) my mother dropped me off at an orphanage and left me for a child molester and abuser.”

My friend and I stood speechless. I didn’t want to minimize my daughter’s trauma, I was stuck in the middle of giving her her space and getting fed up with the theatrics. 

That Monday, I told her father that I was on my way to Irvine to pick her up from school. Frantically he beat me to her school and checked her out early so he could get her first. A surge of adrenaline enraged throughout my body and I told him to meet me at the Irvine police station. I had regretted not calling a police officer before when he had broken our custodial rules, I did not want to regret fighting for my daughter this time. He arrived with our daughter Kamille, and his wife who was holding their baby son.

I felt like a complete antagonist but continued to tell the police the situation. He said the best thing was for us to talk amongst ourselves. *ummm question mark*

We began to go back and forth. Kamille is crying, Sudan is telling me to give her time and that she doesn’t want to go with me, his wife tries to interrupt our conversation so I blurted out, “She is NOT your daughter, she is MINE!”

This woman had the audacity to say, “Oh but she IS my daughter.” All because she had been her stepmom for a whole two years and Sudan leaves our daughter with her when he has to work and leave the country. Had she not been holding Kamille’s little baby brother, I would have seen red and ended up 15 yards south within that holding cell behind those steel bars. Until this day her existence is nonexistent to me until I pray with Kamille before bedtime and I add her into our prayers and thank God for her stepmom. You know, the old high road. 

I had given her the benefit of the doubt since day one, although I did think she was marrying my child’s father just for her green card. My family insisted that Sudan never acted this way until he got married to her. They insisted that he changed. I stood up for his wife and said she was kind and seemed lovely. I even got them a wedding gift. Now I want that Cheesecake Factory gift card back. *LOL*

Anyway, after the scuffle, Kamille agreed to go with me only until 7:30 pm, when her father would pick her up. She sincerely didn’t feel safe with me anymore.  

So back to spiraling, I was living like a bachelorette on steroids, I made a breakup playlist, and I put anything that reminded me of Kamille in her room. I knew the time would come where I would have to face my pain, but I wasn’t ready to feel anything. It was debauchery times 10. Like I said, all the mindful training, mediations, eating clean, and zen mode commitment evaporated. I didn’t go to yoga for 3 months. I was paying $119 a month and continued to pay for my unlimited-access pass to punish myself for not going. Why couldn’t I just turn to God and beg for mercy like anyone else would do? Why was there this incessant need to retract everything I had worked so hard for? For my mental, physical, and emotional self?

And now since this blog is over 10.5 thousand words, I’ll have to leave my debauchery acts for another day. Just know I reached an all-time low, a time that my friends refuse to let me forget and we laugh about it now. 

It was time to confront the pain I numbed, it was time to stay at home, patch myself up, rehabilitate, and find that zen.
The depression set in, just as I suspected and right on time. Sometimes I slept to avoid reality, but knew come morning I had to drag myself to work and make mental progress. It took 27 days to see progression. During those 27 unutterable days, I watched a red tomato turn into complete mold in my refrigerator, love notes Scorpio left around my home collect mounds of dust, and the weight scale go from 127 lbs to 134 lbs. Completely unmotivated and slayed in a dungeon, I knew that somewhere, somehow I would have to build up a pinch of light I knew that lived within me and grow it to power. Eventually I trashed his toothbrush, I began to write aspirations every single day, weeped it out, and finally made it to Bikram yoga. Flashbacks of when I took him to hot yoga swirled my head, and I remembered his sweat falling, hitting the yoga mat loudly like rain in midsummer Minnesota. I began to condition my mind to release the thought humbly and transitioned the memory into my current aspirations.

He became less and less. I grew stronger.

Kamille finally came back home and that filled my heart and mind to its fullest. Just listening to her breath next to me in her sleep put me in a state of euphoria. She kept her distance, her snuggles were different, her kisses felt weak, her hugs were light, but her presence quadrupled my strength, and every other moon she became warmer. Sadly, her worst day became my best day. She swore she had gotten a bad grade on her math quiz, and believed that she was a failure. She was in complete misery, saying that there was no way she would pass her math test that week. She hugged me so tightly and cried on the pillow we shared. She entrusted me with her deepest fears and begged me not to let her go to school the next day. I grabbed her hand and said, “Kamille, as long as I’m in your life, you will NEVER fail, I promise you on everything, you will not be perfect in all that you do but I will always figure out a way to guide you, and lead you. I mother-daughter swear.”
(Mother-daughter swearing to us is treason if you break it. If broken, you are never to be trusted again).
“If you happen to fail, ok then, what next? We try again.”
She finally fell asleep, hugging me tightly, sobbing in her breath. I couldn’t help but enjoy her closeness. She finally opened up to me with something…anything. I began to research math tutors all night only to find out that she had scored a ‘B’ on her quiz, and an ‘A’ on her test.

And with that happy ending, I realized I was transfixed on the wrong broken person, the person who was physically in front of me, because of Kamille’s absence. Scorpio, a person who didn’t care about getting better, and was unashamed of everything he did, while my 11 year old was fixated on being the best person she could possibly be.

That. Hit. Hard.

Regretfully I admit, I was one of those people who criticized parents who would use their children as an excuse as to why they became a better person. Why couldn’t they make themselves better? Why did it have to take a child for them to strengthen up? Well now I understand now and apologize for the criticism.
The moral of the story:
I used to look at growth like a chart escalating higher and higher each day waiting for it to pass the clouds, when really, trying to grow into a better person is a hitting low points, gathering yourself and climbing back to the top, falling again, then picking yourself up to the highest point you can make it to. The instability is human, the consistency takes backbreaking work, so long as you wake up in the morning and choose greatness, and like I told Kamille, if you fail? SO WHAT, you get up and try again. That consistency will pay off. Inconsistency is success suicide.
Has Scorpio shown up again attempting to web his way around my arteries? He sure has! And while I was debilitated on my bed like a vegetable, he was in Miami and Vegas enjoying life in all its glory. And I’m happy for him, his journey belongs to him, he has his own story just like I have mine. Everyone deserves to choose their own route of happiness. But at what costs? It took all that time to understand what he meant when he said “Ang, there is a lot you don’t know about me.” Well now I know. His ability to wholesomely love was corrupt and had been since his childhood. So I choose to care for him miles away. No more games or challenges, just pure tender love from afar.

Writer Paulo Coelho said, “Don’t allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not.”

Heartbreak after, after heartbreak, after heartbreak, after heartbreak, I’m unrecognizable. The spiraling has mangled my soul.
Today it is difficult to look at myself in the mirror because it’s not who I want to be just yet, but I’m growing there. No more backtracking, and if I fail, SO WHAT.
What I do know concretely is that that last “romantic” heartbreak will be my very last.

Now, Siri, play: Parce by Maluma ft. Lenny Tavarez, & Justin Quiles.