One Life to Live…
“Hi world my name is Nova, and I… am a Nomad.“
And the world says… “HI NOVA!!!”
HOME was Queens, the big house with the front yard, the side yard, the back yard and the detached garage. The 3 family house with the basement converted into an apartment for extra income (making it 4 HAITIAN families living on the premises). I was born in Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica Queens, New York. I had always planned to visit for some reason, to walk down the halls… never happened. They shut down in 2009. My mother was alone when I was born, my dad didn’t bother to come to the hospital. She named me Sammantha Carlyn, but apparently at some point between my birth, and her leaving the hospital my dad went in and changed it. So I’ve been dragging around a variation of his name as my first ever since… Carlyn.
My Dad left when I was 11, he married his mistress and started a new family. I saw him once when I was 12, he popped up at my school. I was heading for the bus and there he was… this man I had once loved more than anyone. He was smaller than I remembered. He’d lost weight and I was taller than him. He was with my God Father, a friend of the family… someone I hadn’t seen since we’d moved to Florida.
Hi face was shiny and his nose was split across the top like it had been broken recently and was healing. His shoulders were hunched forward. This wasn’t the man I remembered. He had a new family… I guess the old one didn’t matter to his new wife considering he was a married man with a family when she met him. However the new wife ‘got him’… my dad’s health was failing. The man I saw that day was broken. There were rumors of course… rumors that his new wife had ‘gotten’ him with Voodoo. Rumors that his health was failing because my mom had ‘gotten’ him with Voodoo… Rumors that the new wife’s method of ‘getting’ him was eating him alive… three different forms of ‘getting’… the end result the same I guess. He was gotten. See the thing about love spells is they ultimately destroy the object of your affection. People become obsessive, obsession leads to jealousy, jealousy breeds anger, anger births insecurity and insecurity makes people abusive.
I came out of class that day and made my way over to where the buses were parked. The students would line up waiting for them to load up. I usually met up with a friend of mine and we would ride the bus together… we lived in the same apartment complex… Pier Club. I was searching the crowd for her, not aware of anything but the sound of the school students… hundreds of kids milling about the parking lot getting picked up by their parents and being loaded onto buses… “Carlyn…” that voice… HIS voice, he never called me Sammantha. At first I froze, then I turned around and we looked at each other. I looked down at him, and he looked up at me.
My God Father hugged me, I loved that man smh but I barely noticed him. My dad and I just eyed each other for what felt like an eternity then he asked, “You don’t remember your father?” and I… just looked at him. My God Father was speaking to me… from the corner of my eye I could see his lips moving but didn’t hear anything. It was like all of the light in the world had gone out and all I could see or hear was my Dad. A thousand things raced through my brain, how much I’d missed him. How much I loved him. How lost I was when he left the family, how hard things were since he left my mom, how different my sister was since he left her, how hurt I was because he left… me.
“You’re getting big.” He said while reaching into his pocket. He tried to hand me some money. “Here take this” and I looked at him. He waved the money at me and I just looked at him. There were so many things I wanted to say to him. So many questions I wanted to ask. I’d worried I’d never see him again. I had dreamed of happy reunions, dreamed of hugs… dreamed of kisses. I needed to hear him say “I love you”, I just wanted my dad… like any little girl. What I got was a stooped shouldered shadow of the man I loved, waving money at me… a stranger. A little more than a year had passed since he left and I realized something. That was all I would ever get from him, and so I answered the only way I knew how, “I don’t want your money.” Like all little girls, all I wanted was my dad.
He looked at me kind of shocked; I looked at him kind of amazed. He put his money away and I stepped away from him. He looked at me… I looked at him, and then I turned and walked away. I walked away from the father I remembered. I walked away from the dad I imagined. I walked away from the dream dad I invented. I walked away from the only father I had ever known… AND HE LET ME. That was the last time I ever saw him.
I got on the school bus, sat in the back by myself… silent. I taught myself something that day. If I sit very still, and stare at one object… take very shallow breaths and think about nothing… just focus on thinking about NOTHING… I can bear any pain. It becomes a part of me… deep… persistent. I learned if I sit very still and very quiet I don’t cry… I can bear it.
When I got home I made dinner for my mom and sister as usual. I didn’t eat though, I had no appetite. When they got home I told them what had happened. My sister didn’t have much to say other than, “Of course he would come to see YOU. He just wants something.” My mom ranted and raved about how he had come to kidnap me, and how glad she was that I didn’t take his money. That was the first time I got sick. I spent the next three days home throwing up with a headache and fever. I’ve gotten sick when extremely upset ever since.
I guess I’ve come to realize a few things. My Dad is the reason I love my loves for themselves and not for what they can ‘do’ for me. My mom is the reason I assumed all men were grimy for so many years. My Dad is the reason I NEED for my loves to NOT walk away, to STAY… with ME. He’s the reason I need my loves to WANT me to stay… to NEED me to STAY. My mom taught me to rely on myself… because no one ever does.
I loved my father. He was amazingly flawed, and beautiful. He taught me to respect someone who works with their hands… he taught me to analyze everything… see he was all about ‘the con’… all about ‘business’. As a result I’m all about ‘understanding’… all about ‘business’. I was angry at him for so long I had forgotten how much he was some of the best parts of me.
I spent years afraid to speak his name or acknowledge him in any way that wasn’t insulting. My mom, sister and I took to referring to him as ‘Doo Doo Head’… all the time… in public and everything smh it reached the point we didn’t even realize we were doing it until people looked at us funny. My sister destroyed every picture of him in the house from every album except MY ALBUM. I used to hide it… it was mine, given to me by my mom to do with what I wanted. I had my own personal stash of pictures of him… OUR pictures… things like my first communion, Christmases, Birthdays… etc… my last and only connection to him. One day when I was missing him terribly I opened that Album… and he was gone. Each photo where he had been was carefully destroyed… his face cut out of every single one. Devastated I ran to my mom and confronted my sister. They both laughed… it was extremely funny.
My mom was curious as to why I was keeping pictures of him anyway. That day I figured something out. If I was anything but derogatory… or insulting when it came to my dad… my mom took it as a betrayal. So I stopped speaking about him at all. I only chimed in on the insulting stuff… ‘Doo Doo Head’ and all that, oh I was still very much angry with him but I never stopped loving him. I still believe Karma took a big bite out of his azz for the grimy things he did… but still… I never stopped living him, but growing up in that house… survival meant I had to pretend that I had. With every move I hoped he would pop up… with those hugs and kisses. Never happened…
Just so you understand… these are the moves…
February 1979 – June 1987
- 3 Family House Hollis Queens to Mom’s cousin – Miami, FL
June 1987 – November 1987
- Mom’s cousin – Miami, FL to Embassy Blvd – Miramar, FL
November 1987 – June 1989
- Embassy Blvd – Miramar, FL to Mom’s sister – Miami, FL
June 1989 – September 1990
- Mom’s sister – Miami, FL to Pier Club – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
September 1990 – May 1991
- Pier Club – Ft. Lauderdale, FL to St Charles Place – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
May 1991 – June 1992
- St Charles Place – Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Dyckman St. Housing Projects – New York, NY
June 1992 – September 1994
- Dyckman St. Housing Projects – New York, NY to Vermilyea Ave – New York, NY
September 1994 – August 1995
- Vermilyea Ave – New York, NY to Fox Meadows – Maple Shade, NJ
August 1995 – August 1996
- Fox Meadows – Maple Shade, NJ to Bishop Terrace – Stratford, NJ
August 1996 – December 1998
- Bishop Terrace – Stratford, NJ to Sister’s – Philadelphia, PA
December 1998 – April 1999
- Sister’s – Philadelphia, PA to Vine St (on my own) – Philadelphia, PA
April 1999 – February 2001
- Vine St. – Philadelphia, PA to Ludlow St – Philadelphia, PA
February 2001 – April 2001
- Ludlow St – Philadelphia, PA to B’s Mom’s – Brooklyn, NY
April 2001 – March 2002
- B’s Mom’s – Brooklyn, NY to Jefferson Ave – Brooklyn, NY (me B)
March 2002 – July 2004
- Jefferson Ave – Brooklyn, NY to 150th & Broadway (just me) – New York, NY
July 2004 – August 2006
- 150th & Broadway – New York, NY to B’s House Macon St – Brooklyn, NY
August 2006 – October 2007
- B’s House Macon St – Brooklyn, NY to Warner Ave – Jersey City, NJ (me and B)
October 2007 – March 2009
- Warner Ave – Jersey City, NJ to Clerk St. – Jersey City, NJ (just me)
March 2009 – August 2011
- Clerk St. – Jersey City, NJ to Claremont Ave – Jersey City, NJ
August 2011 – December 2013
- Claremont Ave – Jersey City, NJ to well… figuring it out as we speak.
This move in December is going to be my 10th move as an adult… meaning a move by my own choice and not because my family is dragging me around all over the place. So I need for it to matter… it matters to me. I’ve spent so many years planning for a family that has not and may not ever happen. I’ve spent too many years trying to make the family I have feel like the family I want. This move is for me… it’s for myself… no more… no less. For the first time in my life I’m embracing that expression… “It’s all about me…” and while I’m not entirely comfortable with that. I’m working toward a home that I want, with no room for anyone but me… the cat… and the dog.
I’ve started at the bottom and I’m still working my way up. I’ve worn so many different hats that multitasking has become a second skin. Pick any 5 year span of my life and realize I’ve started over more times in that single 5 year span than most people do in their entire lives. So no… I can’t compare myself to any other woman. There will always someone ha has better, who does better, and who is probably just BETTER. I can’t help that, I do the best that I can. I’m the best I can be… a constant work in progress. I had both of my parents in their own way… and yet… I grew up feeling like an orphan.
We only get one life, one opportunity to live it to the fullest. I want my existence to be relevant. I need to matter to do things in this world that matter. So I’ve decided to put going back to school for the life-coaching on hold. I have wayyyyy too many issues. I need to work more on myself. As much as I’d love to help other people… I have to admit these days I can barely help myself.
I’m definitely a work in progress. I need to be a better person.
I need to be a better woman. Not for anyone else. Just for me.
Yes… I’m selfish that way.
– NovaCSA