Getting Over My First Love – Part 5

I was sitting in the waiting room at Bad Boy Records. Someone from the finance department was supposed to meet me for an interview for a summer internship. My palms were sweating. I was thinking about all of the interviewing techniques I was taught at FAMU’s School of Business and Industry. “State a few facts about the company, then ask your question.” That’s what I kept trying to repeat to myself, but all I could think about was how my mom took me to the Puff Daddy and the Family concert when I was in high school…and now I was at the headquarters!…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 4

“I would have done the same thing,” my friend said. She tried to make me feel better about having an abortion. She was the one who drove me to Planned Parenthood. She told me not to look when we passed the group of protesters holding up signs of gruesomely disfigured babies. When it was all over, she was the one who drove me to her house, helped me lay down on her futon, and fed me fish sticks and French fries. I was doped up on anesthesia, which also helped numb my fears about what Michael might say about me actually going through with the procedure.…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 3

Photo: lol. The one picture I could find from Summer ’02. It’s my ID badge from my summer internship at United Illuminating, an electric company here in CT. I was part of the INROADS internship program. A bunch of people: Stacy, how do you feel sharing these stories? Me: Very anxious in the beginning. As soon as I click the post button I start sweating. I usually feel numb on Thursdays. By Friday, I feel much better. The rest of the week I feel freer. Each week feels like I’m emptying a bag. It’s like an emotional spring cleaning. [PART THREE] Parts One and Two are on processingpain.com.…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 2

  J: Are you sure you’re ready to share this part? Me: I don’t know. *Hits Post Button* [PART TWO] (Part One is here http://bit.ly/219wLs5, if you missed it.) It was the beginning of sophomore year. I got back to Tallahassee before Michael did. I couldn’t wait to see his face. I waited for his phone call. We hadn’t seen each other all summer. When he arrived to our new apartment complex, he called and told me to come down to his unit. I found the closest pair of flip-flops, walked a few doors down, and saw he and his mom moving his stuff into his apartment.…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 1

A week or two ago, an old friend from college asked me why I transferred from FAMU, and I started thinking and writing about it. I realize now, 13 years later, it was because I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of a break up…well not just any break up – my first love. I’m a little nervous about this one guys. The experience that I’m writing about this week involves a person that is still living. lol. I didn’t tell the person that I was writing this story, nor am I trying to throw him under any kind of bus, so I have changed pretty much all of his information.I’ll…

Grieving Someone I Never Met

Whenever I walked through my grandfather’s front door, I saw an 8 x 10 photograph of my deceased grandmother sitting on a glass coffee table. I often studied this picture without letting anyone catch me. I examined my grandmother’s chocolately, smooth complexion, her pastel blue dress, and her pressed, dark hair with soft curls around her face. “Am I short because of you?” “Is my voice high like yours?” “Do we walk the same way? I have a million questions for her that I’d never get to ask. She’s my only grandparent that I never met. She is my missing link.…

My First Heartbreak

The first emotional pain that I can remember experiencing was the death of my great-grandfather, “Gramps.” I was 9-years-old when he died; he was 86.   Aside from being a much older relative, I considered Gramps to be my friend. We played together every day after I got out of school. My father worked first shift, and my mother worked second shift. So, my mother would pick me up from school and take me to my great-grandparents’ house, and my father would pick me up when he got out of work.   I really liked being with Gramps and my great-grandmother, “Mama.” (pronounced MUH-muh) Mama always gave me vanilla Sealtest ice cream in a plastic cup.…

Having Trouble at Work?

Having trouble at work? So was I. I started at this company 2.5 years ago, when I was on the heels of a divorce and I moved 30 min. away from my core group of people. I took this job in transportation, an industry I had no experience in. Needless to say, my 1st year was miserable. People questioned me, my skills, and even my writing abilities – as a journalist, I was insulted. I had a horrible review. I had never felt so unfavored in any position. Every day I imagined myself getting a new job and boastfully slamming a resignation letter on my boss’s desk, but that never happened.…