Confessions of a Single Parent (Actress)

The word grateful is thrown around quite a bit, but there are moments when we are so immersed in our own pity party that we forget how to be grateful and why it is vital that we are. No matter how jacked up the day, week, minute, hour or year may be, there is something to be grateful for. So this is what I am grateful for on April 16, 2016. I am grateful for the air that I breathe that allows me to wake up each morning because I am not promised that I will. Grateful for family, my mom, my aunt, James, my great aunt, and my many cousins who I adore and who always teach me by example that love and support can and should be reciprocal. Grateful to be Maya' s mom because there are many moments that she teaches me something new about life and myself. She is an awesome teen! Grateful for my network in the struggle to make Philly a better place for everyone, by reaching and touching one person at a time. And in turn becoming a better person for working with them. My extended family in t...

Last night I held a concert. It was titled, "Escape From Purgatory: The Concert," because the last several months have been interestingly difficult. I discovered something new and familiar about a person that I had known for over 30 years. I say familiar because some of the behaviors were not as much a surprise as they were disappointing. The final straw involved child endangerment and that is when I had to take care of me and Maya and split. This led me on a path that reminded me each day that I was single, Black, had poor credit, and was the mother of a teenager. I had forgotten that housing could be so elusive. In the midst of it all, my network of friends helped and we found temporary refuge as I continued to be shown places that even a local crack head would think twice about moving into. And it reminded me that many of our women are even more vulnerable than I ever was because they have no one. And the person that I spoke of treated me as if I had no one, and that is ...