Excerpts from the Diary of a Diva

My family continues to be a complicated factor in my life. My father clearly doesn't want me in his. Even though it hurts me to write this, it's how I feel. I found out that he comes to my city once a month to see his sister. But he doesn't even bother to make time for me. This probably wouldn't bother me so much, but I really want a father who wants a daughter. I don't have that. What I have is a man with whom I share DNA that I can't relate to...and even if I could, he's not interested. I was having a conversation with my cousin at her mother's bedside. Unfortunately, my aunt is suffering from Alzheimer's and is slipping away slowly in real time. My heart aches for my cousin because she's an only child and she's doing the hard part of caring my aunt by herself. Thankfully she has an amazing husband who's helping her, but I cannot begin to imagine what she's going through. We were talking about our sick and twisted family dynamic whe...

Dear God, Remove the fear that keeps me small and replace it with faith that reminds me  I’m made for more. When my Apple Music revealed to me that my song of 2025 was “We Are One,” it finally unlocked the words I’ve been looking for. This year has been a whirlwind all the way around. My heart has been through so much this year — both good and bad.  Our country has gone through more changes in this one year than I’ve ever seen thanks to the Felon in the White House — heretofore to be known as FITWH. He’s made it his business to make sure that my nieces are growing up in a country that may never treat them equally and where they’ll have fewer rights than I did.  This clown car government is run less like a ruling body and more like a reality show. If you look at the players, they’re cast less for their skill and ability and more for how good they look on camera. The bad part is that the policies they’re enacting are making people that look like me less safe in America. In ...

I tend to think of myself as skilled. I may not be domesticated in the traditional ways of Southern women, but I know how to navigate most situations. However, this year I find myself at a loss. My uncle is gone. Even though I didn't see him or even talk to him on a regular basis, I could always count on hearing from him for the holidays and my birthday. This year will be the first time without him. I am completely broken up about it. All I can hear is his wife saying, "He's gone," when she went to check on him. I feel like the whole world shifted on its axis after that statement. I don't know how to do this -- live in a world without him. He's literally been there since I was born. When I went on my ill-fated quest to find myself a father, he was the first one I asked. He was the one I wanted to follow everywhere. It was him who set the standard -- good or bad -- for the men in my life. If a man couldn't be as cool as my uncle, I didn't want to be bot...

I love reading the "Modern Love" section in The New York Times. There's one long essay every wee and  a column for Tiny Love Stories. I don't get to them as often as I'd like, but when I find the time, I bing on them. Although I find the stories inspiring, I usually spend the majority of my reading time either fighting tears or drying my eyes. One might ask why I continue to read them when I react that way. After all, subjecting myself to such unnecessary pain seems pointless.  For one, the writing is superb. Even though the content makes me cry, I can't deny the wordsmithery used in telling the stories. Another reason I keep reading is that I need to see that love IS possible. Although it has yet to find me, I see that it can exist for others. You know what's even worse that reading love stories? Watching them play out in the real lives of the high school students I teach. I've given out more relationship advice than I ever thought I would to teenager...

I don't know if I'm depressed, but I'm not feeling like myself today. I'm realizing that these feelings of malaise always come after I witness love -- and realize how much I stand in the way of my own. I went to a wedding yesterday. One of my coworkers said, "I do," to her longtime boyfriend. She's one of the cutest, most petite women I've ever known. I'd seen photos of him, but had never met him. He's definitely a cutie, but when I say he was larger than life, I mean that in every sense of the word. I was so shocked. I never would've put those two together, but they both looked super happy. Their joy was palatable. I was glad I got to witness it. There were several couples in attendance. Some looked evenly matched, some not. All seemed happy. Then there's me. My birthday is approaching next month and I'll celebrate 55 years around the sun. Glad to be alive, certainly, but can't for the life of me figure out how I became so unlo...

My uncle died. He actually ceased to live. I don't know how to handle this. Even though he was my mother's brother, he was so much more than that to me. He was the coolest cat on the block, He set the standard that every man had to meet. He was the one I compared every man in my life to. For all intents and purposes, he was my de facto dad. I am stunned. I feel like someone knocked the wind out of my body. I grew up watching him. If he sat up straight, I wanted to sit up straight. I once caught him standing up to pee. I thought I'd do that when I grew up, too. (You can just imagine that conversation). That's the thing...he never shied away from my craziness. When I discovered what a father was -- at the tender age of five -- I purposed in my heart to find one for myself. I asked every man I knew, including him, if they'd be my daddy. He said, "I can't be your dad. I'm your uncle." When I pressed, he gently explained that he already had a significan...