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The Dalema

Finding The Woman I'm Meant To Be

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Blank Canvas 

I think you saw their true colors but painted over them. I think you thought maybe, if you mixed your colors with theirs, the painting would be a real work of art. We do that when we love someone.

Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time repainting. I wasted a lot of time in denial; always blaming the poor lighting or the colors I was mixing with. Then I realized something, all those times I thought I was choosing the wrong colors, but I didn’t even like my own colors. You can’t paint a beautiful picture if you hate the colors you’re working with.

So I changed my colors. I spent a lot of time staring at a lonely, blank canvas. And I threw away a lot of paintings.

I know my colors now. I know the colors that mix well with mine; anything less just won’t do. I don’t want to look down the road years from now and want to throw away the life I’ve worked so hard with my partner to paint.

Don’t be the only one painting. Love your colors. Make sure they love their own colors, too. If they don’t, if you don’t, the painting will never be more than a recycled canvas – an artless piece of trash – no matter how talented the painter is.

  • The Dalema. August, 2016
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Prelude 

The following is the prelude to my novel. I began writing this when I was 19 years old. Please feel free to comment and like. With enough feedback, I’ll continue sharing excerpts.

(June, 2006)

I have a history of bad relationships. I’m nineteen. Nineteen days, twenty-three hours and forty minutes, nineteen. I grew up watching Disney® movies, dieting, trying to fit in and – most of all – looking for true love. Why? I wish I knew.

I have friends in happy relationships – ‘true love’ type relationships. I have an older brother who, I’m pretty sure, is dating the girl he’s going to marry directly after college. I know family members and members of the community who are also involved in ‘true love’ marriages and relationships. Why is this of any importance? Because not one of them looked for true love – in fact I’m sure they didn’t even wish for it. They didn’t hope for it, didn’t wait for it – I wonder if they even thought about it. Yet here I am – nineteen days, twenty-three hours and forty minutes – nineteen, and I’ve based my life on one thing; finding (as in looking for) true love. Not just any love – not puppy love, lust, love at first sight, lost love or love that’s there for a portion of your life and just wasn’t meant to be. I‘m talking about one-of-a-kind love, the real thing – TRUE love.

Actually, I might be lying about my friends, my brother and the people in my family and community; I don’t really know whether or not it just came to them. I do know one thing – true love has not come to me. In fact, I think it’s avoiding me. It might be because I look, hope, dream, wish and wait so hard for it. Either way, it’s not here. Like I’ve already said, repeatedly, I’m – nineteen days and now about twenty three hours and fifty one minutes – nineteen. True love shouldn’t be the most important, only-focused-on aspect of a 19-year-old college girl’s life. But it is – always has been, always will be – and I wish it weren’t anymore.

You’re obviously wondering about my past because what sort of life have I lived to have cultivated such an obsession with the idea of true love – ‘TRUE love’? Well to give you a quick summary of the last nineteen years, twenty days and four minutes – my life hasn’t exactly been typical, normal, hard or extravagant. I’m actually really unsure of what one word I would use to describe my life besides, well, mine. I don’t have many childhood memories. I’m not sure why. It might be because I was molested as a child. I tell myself it’s because God doesn’t want me to remember all the bad times, but I wish he would let me remember the good.

My biological father and my mother divorced when I was three. I guess they just weren’t in ‘true love’. He wasn’t a part of my life much longer after the divorce. Now that I think about things, I’ve seen a lot of failed marriages and relationships. Seeing those failures should have kept me from believing in love, not obsessing over it. Yet here I am.

Anyways, back to the quick summary that’s not so quick. My mom and the biological father divorced when I was three. My mom became a struggling single mother who worked her ass off to give her kids the basics all while going to college for her Associates Degree. I remember when she used to date. One day, when I was around five years old, a bald man knocked on the door (I say I ‘remember’ this because it’s become a bit of a family joke that I’ve heard numerous times). At the ripe age of five-ish, after answering the door, I asked my mom what this man was doing at our house. She said they were going on a date, to which I dramatically exclaimed, “My moms going out with a bald guy?!” – and it’s been apparent ever since: I’d never have a filter.

My mother and the bald man proceeded to date. He became my dad, and I love him. He is better than any father I could have ever hoped for. He is my real dad – regardless of what any documents, medical records or last names claim. My mom and my dad love each other. It’s ‘true love’. It’s what I’m looking for.

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Dead End

I was a block away from our place
Well, the place that used to be ours
I was being pulled in that direction
But I was afraid you’d be home

I’d imagined myself driving by
And I’d see the front porch light on
The picture windows would show it all –
You, your wife and the kids wearing smiles

I always thought there would be a time
When our paths would unexpectedly cross
I’d be wearing a huge engagement ring 
You’d be looking plump and miserably unhappy

So I pulled up to the light and my blinker was on
But that same pull swept up again
And I put it in reverse and moved to the other lane
Guess I just wasn’t ready to see the truth

I might be living in this city again
The only place I’ve considered home
But to be honest, it wasn’t home because of us
It’s home because of me – I’m glad I kept driving.

  • The Dalema, 10.22.16
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The Sigh Of Familiarity 

She let out a familiar sigh
the one she used when life
had disappointed her

Life gave her everything
she could dream of
except for one thing
except for love.

  • The Dalema. September 20, 2016
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Pivotal Moment


I read your goodbye over and over all the time. It’s not because I want to keep hurting, I hurt no matter what, but rather to remind myself why you ended things. You were the best and worst for me. My turning point. Nothing in my life will be the way it was before you and everything will be different after you. I am thankful and grateful for you but I also want to say, ‘fuck you for giving up on me’.

I met you when I was vulnerable; we were both at an all-time low. Our luck in life had really fucked us and, as cliché as it is, we were meant to save one another at that point in our lives. Unfortunately for me, I thought you were saving me altogether. I thought you were different, that what we had was different. I thought you were it. We started so differently – so I didn’t think we would end the same, I didn’t think we would end at all.

You belittled us at the end. You made it clear the feelings you had were because we were ‘new’ and ‘exciting’. You made me feel like a phase you were going through – a stepping stone in your life. A phase you were over.

You were the most amazing man I’d ever been lucky enough to know, let alone fall in love with. You were the only man who saw every inch of me, and I’m not talking about my skin. You saw every inch of my naked soul before our lips even touched. You saw the darkest parts of me, learned of my hidden secrets. We spent so many hours smiling, laughing, sharing, talking about the future. You were right there with me, alongside me, the entire time. We walked, hand-in-hand down the path that lead me to love you. You let me fall, you let me feel happy. You even told me to ‘get used to it’. And I did – without hesitation. Because I trusted you; with my secrets, with my soul, with my skin, and I trusted you with the most delicate, fragile and priceless part of myself – my heart. Even though there wasn’t much of it left, I gave it to you.

Ultimately, you did exactly what you promised you wouldn’t do. You did what every other man has done before you. You left me, you gave up on me – on us – and you didn’t look back.

So when I wake up and you’re the first thing on my mind, or when I find myself thinking of you in the middle of the afternoon or right before I lay my head down to sleep at night; I read your goodbye. Not to hurt myself, but to kill the hope. To kill the notion I have in my mind of you actually coming back. To kill the heartfelt words of kindness and promise that we once had. To let go of the idea of you waking up one day and suddenly regretting your goodbye.

I read those words to remind myself of all the reasons I’ll never be the same person I once was. You did that to me; you showed me the most amazing love and then took it back. You showed me happiness and trust and butterflies and then drowned me in pain. You lead me to the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, put the car in drive and then slammed on the brakes before we’d even turned down the road of ‘us’. You gave me whiplash; and as I sat there trying to figure out what happened, you got out of the car and ran away.

It was you all along – you were my pivotal moment; the point in my life where everything I thought I knew about myself, about love, about strength – everything changed. When I was finally good alone, when I knew exactly what I wanted in a partner, you showed me you were everything I never knew I always wanted; you were what I needed. You made yourself the one I’ll compare others to – my ‘one that got away’.

My pivotal moment – it was you all along. It will always be you for me, but I’ll never be the same.

  • Danyle L. M. 5/17/16
    Check out rhsin.com for more amazing quotes like the one pictured above.
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