My grandmother, sister and I have, to put it mildly, big personalities. We are not ones to go quietly into the night or morning or mid-afternoon. We love each other deeply, but even the most benign situations can lead to screaming matches, slamming...
I was once a Republican. The reason that I registered Republican is because we were extremely poor during my teenage years. Stay with me. I’ll bring it around. When I was 15, my parents were arrested and sent to prison. My grandmother adopted my...
The bedspread was scratchy and stained with years worth of cheap beer and the loss of virginity. The room, with its battered, chipped furniture, was littered with Natural Light cans, cups of discarded Boone’s Farm with cigarettes floating in them...
Our tear-streaked mascara formed Rorschach masks across our faces as we held each other at arms length, circling the front yard in an awkward two-person, tequila fueled Rugby scrum. It was her dad, returning from a day of looking at farm equipment...
Welch, WV 1982 My granddad expertly weaved his mammoth Buick along the winding, cramped road high above our coal-dusted Appalachian town. I kissed him on the cheek and hopped out of the passenger side door. I was running down the steep steps that...
Dear Conley, There was not a dot of the fabled Carolina blue in the sky the day you were born. It was not the type of weather that drives people south. No, the day you were born, was dreary, muggy, and overcast. However, the weather was an...
My parents were raging opiate addicts. They both went to prison when I was in high school. My grandmother adopted my younger siblings and me, but there were considerable emotional and financial strains on all of us. We had to rely on food stamps to...
There are 7.8 billion people in the world. Each of these people have had a different experience than mine. Still, there are times when I get to feeling sorry for myself because people don’t understand what I have been through or when I get too full...
They both have the kind of smiles that spread wide across their face and make their eyes dance like the first fireflies of summer. Their hugs are where, in times of emergency, I want to shelter in place. They are two of the great loves of my life...
Last week I ventured into a place that I try to avoid on the same level that I try to avoid dark alleyways and Justin Bieber concerts – my daughter’s room. My grandmother takes great pleasure in pointing out that Conley’s slovenly ways are my...