Stacy's

Posts

Guest Post: Down Syndrome Diagnosis

This week I am sharing a video created by my sister-friend, Luvena Jones, who described what her life has been like since discovering her daughter had Down Syndrome. Luvena’s video was very informative, and I was really moved by her experience. I hope that you are too! If you have a story that you would like to share about overcoming a challenging situation, please email me at sgrahamhunt@gmail.com.…

Election Grief

Denial. Bargaining. Anger. Depression. Acceptance. I am grieving. Yesterday I took lots of naps, ate macaroni and cheese and cookies, and started lots of fist fights on Grand Theft Auto. While I am disappointed that President-Elect Donald Trump will be my next president, I am more upset by my peers who supported him throughout this season. You have disappointed me. Yes, I actually mean you…as an individual. You – the former classmates, the former coworkers, the people I’ve danced with, the landlords, the clients, the Facebook friends. You. I understand that we all are entitled to vote for whomever we’d like, but somehow I thought my relationship with you was enough to consider my rights as a human being.…

AfterBirth

When you go see the movie “Birth of a Nation” and then return home to “your” city that’s 8 percent black; where your upstairs neighbor, a white male, continually tries to convince your black dad why he and other black people should vote for Trump, a misogynistic man with a history of racial discrimination lawsuits; where another neighbor who’s a white cop, has only spoken to you once in the 3 years you’ve lived next door to him – that one time was because you said “hello” first. When you sit through that same 2.5-hour movie and watch white men rape, hang, shoot, kill, buy, sell, force feed, and knock the teeth out of black men and women…and you know the movie was based on a true story – an American story – about Nat Turner, a black slave who led a rebellion in the 1800s, killing about 60 white slave owners, many of whom were guilty of the crimes I just mentioned.…

Great Expectations

I had my life planned out at nine-years-old. One Thursday night, while I was at my grandmother’s house for our weekly Cosby Show date, we discussed where I would go to college and graduate school. I knew Hillman College would prepare me to become a lawyer, an author, and a cashier. Cliff and Claire Huxtable went there. He was a doctor, and she was a lawyer. Denise was also enrolled there at the time, so I assumed it was the place to be. Maybe by the time I got there, Rudy and I could be classmates. I had everything figured out, until Evelyn, my grandmother who made me call her by her first name, dropped a bomb on me.

Silver Alert

I was shopping for nail polish at a beauty supply store, when I found out that my grandfather was missing. It was six years ago in July. My mom called and told me that no one could find my grandfather. I assumed he would return home soon. I assumed he took an “Alzheimer’s trip,” a quick getaway that people with Alzheimer’s disease sometimes made. My great-grandfather, on my father’s side, also had Alzheimer’s and sometimes went on unsupervised walks around his neighborhood. His trips scared the crap out of my family, but he always returned home in one piece. I assumed my grandfather would return home too.…

Will and Ashley

“You’re dead to me.” For the longest time I thought that phrase was too dramatic and should only be used in Mob movies and reality shows. But as I’ve gotten older, there are a few people in my life that I’ve had to push to the outermost limits of my brain, almost like the deepest, darkest, coldest parts of the sea. They can no longer live in the most conscious parts of my brain or in the warmest places of my heart. It’s a survival skill. It’s my way of forgiving people and moving on without seeking revenge. My cousin is one of these people.…

VaginaGate

“Stacy, you look like you could suck dick…but your pussy is garbage,” Fernando Thompson blurted out in our school lunchroom. I was sitting at one table; he was sitting at another table in front of me. He was in my class. We were tenth-graders. I stared at him. I looked at his buck teeth. I looked at his unibrow. I looked at his off-white flea-market jeans, but I said nothing. This was my strategy anytime anyone mentioned my vagina at school. People were talking about my vagina at school because I let a boy from a nearby boy’s school put his hands inside my panties at my classmate’s beach party the previous summer.…

Cory’s Mom Died?!

Monday, I was driving to the the trail, where I usually run. I parked, and before I got out of my car, I checked Facebook, for nothing in particular, just like I always do. Then BAM! One of my closest friends in middle school, posted a picture of her mother. My friend, Cory, had her arm draped around her mother’s neck. Her mom, had her head tilted in Cory’s direction, and she was smiling. They were both smiling. “Bliss” would have been an appropriate hashtag for the picture. Cory posted the picture because her mom died earlier that day. Many people called Cory’s mom “Jet,” as I learned this through the comments section of the picture.…

I Lost a Tooth as an Adult

“Wait, are you missing a tooth Stacy?” my friend Ananda asked me. We were laughing before she noticed the hole where my tooth used to be. I was laughing so hard that I forgot that I was supposed to be hiding my flaw. My guard was down. My head was cocked back. My mouth was wide open. I was laughing, and of course she noticed. She’s one of my best friends. “Yes,” I said. I stopped laughing. “When did you lose a tooth?! How did that happen?!” I really wasn’t ready to talk about this. She was supposed to be making me feel better.…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 6

“Is this Stacy?” “Yes, who’s this?” “Stacy, this is Jessica. I know you went to visit Michael in St. Louis, and I just wanna’ know why the fuck you would do something like that.” I took my phone off of my ear and stared at it. “What did I get myself into?” I thought. “Uhmm…” I said, trying to figure out what to say in this situation. My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend/baby mama was calling my phone because she found out that over Christmas break I went to visit him and his family in his hometown. “How the fuck you just gonna’ go visit somebody else’s boyfriend that just had a newborn baby?”…