Authentically Nita

I literally had to grieve my divorce.  The stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, letting go and acceptance. I have gone through each one of these stages. I had to remove someone from my life that had been part of it for sixteen years. I met him when I was 22 and my divorce was finalized when I was 38. The relationship had ended years before the divorce, but it took me a long time to accept it. I was gone mentally, long before I had physically picked up my things and drove off. I was hurt. I was sad. I was angry. I couldn’t understand how HE could do the things he did to me. The one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally broke me down bit-by-bit until I didn’t even understand why I was living. I didn’t understand why I was suffering. I didn’t understand why God put me in that place. I was angry with God. I felt myself breaking down and it was getting hard to pretend that everything was normal. I hated going home. I worked late and went into the office early when...

January : I started the year off at an RMA networking event at the Pyramid Club. I could have sworn I would be doing fabulous Banker stuff all year 🤔 ....2020 had other plans. The World Health Organization announced on January 9th that a deadly coronavirus had emerged in Wuhan, China.  Then, on January 26th, Kobe Bryant, his daughter, three members of the Altobelli family, Sarah Chester, Payton Chester & the pilot all lost their lives in a ass helicopter crash. It was devastating news and the entire country mourned.  February :  For Valentine's Day I got some beautiful roses from Vaughn. I love flowers so much and red roses are my favorite!  My grandma wasn't doing well in February and we spent a lot of time at the hospital.  On Feb. 24th Harvey Weinstein was convicted rap and sexual abuse which started the #MeToo movement.  I paid little attention to this, because on Feb. 24th, my grandma passed away.  March :  I was so heart broken w...

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your Christmas Eve was amazing.  I was so exhausted by the end of last night.  I had planned such a fun time, but two of my daughters weren't speaking when we started. Then my mom hurt one of my daughters feelings. Another one was being rude to her sister for no reason. I tried to pull it together with some board games, but one daughter was shut in her room and another left to go upstairs after Clue. I have three daughters and the third one was so hurt by her sister's rudeness she started crying. My mom was starting to feel a little down after that.  The pizza came around this time and I pulled out my phone for a game of Heads Up! My son sat this one out but I was okay with that because the had participated in everything,

I knew it.  All the signs were there.  This man flipped the script so fast!  We were just in love and planning on starting our business so we could really build something.   Ex had enrolled in school and began classes.  Soon after, he started going out without me.  He was staying out really late.  At family events he sat in a corner with his face in his phone texting and smiling instead of talking with the guys.  I wasn't stupid.  I confronted him and he denied any wrong doing.  I waited up for him so many nights.  The bars closed at 2:00 am.  Sometimes he didn't make it home until 5 or 6.  He said he was at the "after hour."  I called him a liar.  I argued with him every day.  I bitched and yelled, and he wouldn't tell me the truth.  I tried talking and reasoning with him, but he wouldn't tell me the truth.  I had to find out on my own.  So I did.  After only three months...

In my novella, "The Story of Ex," I write about a woman changing herself to keep her partner happy.  I, myself, have done that in more than one of my relationships.  That was wrong.  You should never have to change who you are to keep your partner happy.  If that person loves you he/she is going to love you as you are. You don't fall in love with someone while having a list of things you want them to change in the back of your mind.  That's not love.  I'm not saying that you shouldn't change some of your behaviors, or compromise with your partner.  You can change your behaviors to improve yourself and your relationship without changing yourself.  For example, if one of the partners in a relationship drinks a lot, and their significant other is like, "You're drinking way too much.  I worry about if you'll make it home driving. It's affecting our children and our finances."  That is a behavior that a person should change for the betterment...

Sometimes I think Ex loved me more than I loved myself.  He loved me so much that he put me on a pedestal and held me to a higher standard. There were so many things that I was supposed to be.  Pretty but humble, kind-hearted but unyielding, well kept but natural, conservative but open-minded, reserved but out-going, strong but soft, cordial but not too friendly.  It was almost impossible and quite draining to keep up with.  Still, I was determined to keep it up.  Ex thought more highly of me than I thought of myself and I wanted to be everything he thought I was.  So I did....or at least, I tried. Sometimes I was too friendly or didn't say the right thing.  Other times I held back too much and came off as awkward.  It was a little nerve-racking to not know when I should or shouldn't speak to someone.  Normally, I would just speak to store clerks to be polite.  Now, I needed to make sure I wasn't being, "joe."  It really wasn't...

I feel compelled to fill you in on what happened to change me as a person and stop me from writing for so long.  It has been a long journey and I think you will understand me more if I explain. Let me tell you about my marriage... I met Ex long before we got married.  We married in 2011 in a very rushed ceremony while he was on house arrest fighting a case. (He was later aquitted of all charges). You will never hear me say that I did not love my ex-husband. I loved that man. From the moment I met him, I felt like no one else on the planet understood me the way he did. The night we met, we sat on bar stools next to each other and talked for an hour and a half. We talked like we had been friends for years. We talked about life and family, about current events and politics and about music and movies. I wondered why I had not met him sooner. I was 22. Now, here I was, at age 30, feeling doubt in my heart while standing at the alter holding his hands. The doubt was not from me thin...