Life is insane. One day you’re happily turning 40, minding your magical Black business, then your sister dies; COVID-19 happens; you get laid off; mom gets diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, prompting you to move from New York, your home of 20 years, back into your childhood bedroom in Los Angeles to be mom’s caregiver; your dad dies; you get laid off again – all between 2020-2023 – leaving you to clean up the lives of three people and, somehow, find your own life and self again at this big age of, “I did everything Boomers told me to do and I’m left with debt, my dick in my hand, and the task of keeping alive the very person responsible for the traumas, frustrations, and problematic Pentecostal protocols that goad me into throwing in the proverbial towel and burning it all to Hades because you got me fucked up!”

I call shenanigans. God and I have unfinished business!

None of the sentiment above is helpful to my plight of achieving self-actualization despite it all, but you, gracious reader, need context, and so here we are. Lying prostrate on the ground praying “Sky Daddy,” my favorite heathen description for God, will stop painting his nails and friggin’ focus on enlightening me on his “plan” for my life. Or at least give me a win, free of contingencies, that evens things up a bit. Damn. How am I supposed to trust Him when he’s taken almost everything and left me literally scrubbing my mom’s feces out of her bedding and carpet? How am I supposed to repair and build myself not only back up, but better than before, while simultaneously bearing witness to the last member of my family disappearing before my eyes? How am I supposed to believe in myself, and dream again, and date again, and make friends in my forties, and want to keep going? Is this all there is for me? Am I cooked, internet?

I absolutely refuse to go the way of Iola Boyland, spinster-living in the quiet bitterness all caregivers suffer, repressed and deprived, helplessly flirting with other people’s husbands or dudes half my age, and excusing my tardiness because, “Mother had a boil and it took both of us to pop it.” Who wants to fuck that?! My God on today; fix it Jesus! Still, I must move forward, keep on keepin’ on and fighting the good fight, which is where your reading eyes come in, observer of this middle-age catastrophe and underdog comeback. I’m told there’s lots of good livin’ to be had over the hill, and I intend to find it: the love for myself, my body, and my mind; the community; the healing of my inner child, by way of therapy; the committed and bountiful dick-balls-and-ass of somebody’s son.

May the odds and gods be ever in my favor, and may you enjoy my ridiculousness.

Welcome.