The second time I got married, I married my so-called best friend. I later realized that I didn’t really know this man at all.
We were married for a few years, but I knew early on that it wasn’t going to work. He never tried to have a relationship with my children. He literally closed the doors and didn’t want anything to do with them. He talked to them in a way that wasn’t loving or fatherly—not even like a kind stepdad. In the past, he had always been kind. But the moment I said “I do,” he decided to be unkind.
I couldn’t stop the phone calls from other women. Couldn’t stop the emails. I remember looking at the phone bill and seeing that he would have a 30-minute conversation with some woman on the way to work and another 30-minute conversation with her coming home. But she was “just a friend.”
When I asked her to stop communicating with my husband, she laughed and said, “That’s on him, not on me.” So I got the cell phone turned off. I wasn’t about to pay for him to talk to other women.
My pastor even got involved, because I was determined to fix that marriage. At the time, I was a Christian (I’m not anymore), but back then I was told I was too loud, too much, not submissive enough. And later, I found out that some of those same people were rooting for my marriage to fail. They were making my ex-husband promises—offering him a car and an apartment if he would just leave me.
I tried counseling. I tried working with him. But I felt like I was the only one who wanted it to work.
So me and my kids left. And I never looked back.
And now… after being married twice, I don’t think marriage is for me.
🌀 What does repair mean to you—and when is it time to stop trying?
Repair, for me, is about intention. Sometimes it’s patching a house dress you love because it makes you feel good, even when you know the seam will rip open again. Sometimes it’s pulling a mango seed out of the trash just to see if it can grow.
Other times, it’s fighting to fix a relationship you already know is broken, because you’re hoping love or faith or sheer effort will be enough.
I’ve learned that repair isn’t always about putting things back the way they were. Sometimes it’s about understanding that you can’t fix everything. That you can’t fix everyone. That you can’t even fix yourself—not in the way the world tries to make you believe you should.
Now that I’m older, I don’t wait so long to end things. I trust my gut more. I’ve learned to tell the difference between what’s worth saving and what’s meant to be released.
Repair means caring, but it also means knowing when to let go. And I’m finally okay with that.
5. What can’t be fixed, no matter how hard you try?
I can’t fix me.
And what do I mean by that?
I’ve had a chronic illness for 30 years. One of the hardest things about living with it is how the world will make you believe you somehow caused it—that you invited this sickness into your body by not eating right, not exercising enough, not taking care of yourself, not loving yourself properly. That you called it into existence.
But sometimes, things just happen. They are out of your control.
Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can get sick. You can get a disease or a disorder. And it has nothing to do with your worth or effort.
I’ve come to understand that I can’t fix me.
Can I make myself more comfortable? Yes. Can I do things to feel a little better and care for myself? Absolutely. But I am not the cause of this.
I can’t fix me.
So I’ve learned to live my life in spite of having a chronic disease—and all its little sidekicks—and the way it shapes my days.
It’s funny—my dad has this tradition where he goes to Sam’s Club and buys me a whole crate of mangoes. I’m the only person in the family who eats them, and he does this just for me.
So every couple of weeks, I get maybe 15 to 20 mangoes. It’s wonderful.
One day, I thought: Can I plant this? Could I actually grow a mango tree here in Atlanta?
So I did a little research, pulled the seed out of the trash, cracked it open, germinated it, and planted it in soil.
Now I have two mango trees growing in pots in the backyard. Every time I go out there, I check their progress and see how much they’ve grown.
I’ll have to figure out what to do with them when winter comes, but for now, they’re just thriving.
3. A time you patched something just to make it last a little longer.
I have this house dress—not a muumuu, not a caftan—just a house dress that never, ever leaves the house.
It has this big, gaping hole right at the seam where the top part connects to the bottom. I’ve tried mending it, but I do a terrible job because the hole always comes back. It’s this wide, stubborn gap that refuses to stay closed.
But the dress is so comfortable. It fits me in all the right ways.
I probably need to give it up, but I can’t.
It’s not that it holds any big memories—though maybe it does, and I just don’t realize it. There’s nothing particularly special about it. It just makes me feel good when I wear it.
Is it worth fixing again? Yeah. But I know it’s going to keep coming undone. So it’s probably time to let it go.
I’m cheating a little on this one, because nothing came to mind that I have mended. But I do remember, as a little girl, my mother making me and my sister pink tutus for a holiday parade. She had all this tulle spread out across the living room.
And you might wonder why that memory has stayed with me so clearly. It’s because I know my mother.
My mother didn’t grow up with a positive parental figure. No one taught her how to sew. No one taught her how to make things. No one taught her how to be a parent.
So whenever she made something for us—costumes for whatever activity we were doing—she taught herself how to sew, to mend, to create, because she didn’t have that for herself. She poured so much of herself into everything me and my sister needed.
She is one of the most resilient people I know, and I love her dearly for that. She grew up in extreme poverty and neglect, but she showed us there was a different way to be a parent. And that’s what she chose when she chose us.
2. A relationship you tried to repair.
The second time I got married, I married my so-called best friend. I later realized that I didn’t really know this man at all.
We were married for a few years, but I knew early on that it wasn’t going to work. He never tried to have a relationship with my children. He literally closed the doors and didn’t want anything to do with them. He talked to them in a way that wasn’t loving or fatherly—not even like a kind stepdad. In the past, he had always been kind. But the moment I said “I do,” he decided to be unkind.
I couldn’t stop the phone calls from other women. Couldn’t stop the emails. I remember looking at the phone bill and seeing that he would have a 30-minute conversation with some woman on the way to work and another 30-minute conversation with her coming home. But she was “just a friend.”
When I asked her to stop communicating with my husband, she laughed and said, “That’s on him, not on me.” So I got the cell phone turned off. I wasn’t about to pay for him to talk to other women.
My pastor even got involved, because I was determined to fix that marriage. At the time, I was a Christian (I’m not anymore), but back then I was told I was too loud, too much, not submissive enough. And later, I found out that some of those same people were rooting for my marriage to fail. They were making my ex-husband promises—offering him a car and an apartment if he would just leave me.
I tried counseling. I tried working with him. But I felt like I was the only one who wanted it to work.
So me and my kids left. And I never looked back.
And now… after being married twice, I don’t think marriage is for me.
This is so deep.
Thank you.
🌀 What does repair mean to you—and when is it time to stop trying?
Repair, for me, is about intention. Sometimes it’s patching a house dress you love because it makes you feel good, even when you know the seam will rip open again. Sometimes it’s pulling a mango seed out of the trash just to see if it can grow.
Other times, it’s fighting to fix a relationship you already know is broken, because you’re hoping love or faith or sheer effort will be enough.
I’ve learned that repair isn’t always about putting things back the way they were. Sometimes it’s about understanding that you can’t fix everything. That you can’t fix everyone. That you can’t even fix yourself—not in the way the world tries to make you believe you should.
Now that I’m older, I don’t wait so long to end things. I trust my gut more. I’ve learned to tell the difference between what’s worth saving and what’s meant to be released.
Repair means caring, but it also means knowing when to let go. And I’m finally okay with that.
5. What can’t be fixed, no matter how hard you try?
I can’t fix me.
And what do I mean by that?
I’ve had a chronic illness for 30 years. One of the hardest things about living with it is how the world will make you believe you somehow caused it—that you invited this sickness into your body by not eating right, not exercising enough, not taking care of yourself, not loving yourself properly. That you called it into existence.
But sometimes, things just happen. They are out of your control.
Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can get sick. You can get a disease or a disorder. And it has nothing to do with your worth or effort.
I’ve come to understand that I can’t fix me.
Can I make myself more comfortable? Yes. Can I do things to feel a little better and care for myself? Absolutely. But I am not the cause of this.
I can’t fix me.
So I’ve learned to live my life in spite of having a chronic disease—and all its little sidekicks—and the way it shapes my days.
A mango seed.
It’s funny—my dad has this tradition where he goes to Sam’s Club and buys me a whole crate of mangoes. I’m the only person in the family who eats them, and he does this just for me.
So every couple of weeks, I get maybe 15 to 20 mangoes. It’s wonderful.
One day, I thought: Can I plant this? Could I actually grow a mango tree here in Atlanta?
So I did a little research, pulled the seed out of the trash, cracked it open, germinated it, and planted it in soil.
Now I have two mango trees growing in pots in the backyard. Every time I go out there, I check their progress and see how much they’ve grown.
I’ll have to figure out what to do with them when winter comes, but for now, they’re just thriving.
3. A time you patched something just to make it last a little longer.
I have this house dress—not a muumuu, not a caftan—just a house dress that never, ever leaves the house.
It has this big, gaping hole right at the seam where the top part connects to the bottom. I’ve tried mending it, but I do a terrible job because the hole always comes back. It’s this wide, stubborn gap that refuses to stay closed.
But the dress is so comfortable. It fits me in all the right ways.
I probably need to give it up, but I can’t.
It’s not that it holds any big memories—though maybe it does, and I just don’t realize it. There’s nothing particularly special about it. It just makes me feel good when I wear it.
Is it worth fixing again? Yeah. But I know it’s going to keep coming undone. So it’s probably time to let it go.
And I will. Eventually.
1. Something you mended with your own hands.
I’m cheating a little on this one, because nothing came to mind that I have mended. But I do remember, as a little girl, my mother making me and my sister pink tutus for a holiday parade. She had all this tulle spread out across the living room.
And you might wonder why that memory has stayed with me so clearly. It’s because I know my mother.
My mother didn’t grow up with a positive parental figure. No one taught her how to sew. No one taught her how to make things. No one taught her how to be a parent.
So whenever she made something for us—costumes for whatever activity we were doing—she taught herself how to sew, to mend, to create, because she didn’t have that for herself. She poured so much of herself into everything me and my sister needed.
She is one of the most resilient people I know, and I love her dearly for that. She grew up in extreme poverty and neglect, but she showed us there was a different way to be a parent. And that’s what she chose when she chose us.
Check back for my answers. I hope to see yours.