I had The Soul Tape 3 blasting when I drove down Canal and over the Manhattan Bridge for the very first time in my own car. The Alchemist really ate with that “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” . That's real.  I left Houston at 5am on Saturday morning with the last of my belongings crammed into my car. A few months prior I had sold almost everything in my apartment and moved in with my homegirl. It took me 2 days and 24 total ho

There’s a running joke between us 3 that I have a terrible memory. ‘Shani, do you remember such and such from high school?’... ‘Girl, no’. I’m slowly learning that when your nervous system lives in a constant state of chaos, it interrupts the memory process. High school definitely has more pockets of memories for me than my younger years. By that time I had already built up an armor from years of struggle and was fighting back against the traumatic circumstances of life. I wa

A dollar, a dream and a printed MapQuest.  It was 12am on a late summer night and I was hitting the road solo to Houston. My fresh start was 500 miles away. The car was overflowing with everything I owned with no clear view out of the back window. Walmart bags of college dorm goods from a $300 layaway that I paid off throughout that 2005 summer. I had completed my high school requirements a semester early and worked my ass off to save up for August. At the very last minute I