They’re always telling me to write, who is they? Everyone, friends, coworkers, associates, family, doctors, ancestors through tarot cards, everyone that sees my words or hears my story tells me to write. They tell me that people need to hear my story, as I sit wondering what makes me so special. Truth is there isn’t anything that makes me special. Determined? Perhaps. Special? No, I’m no different from other women living across the world that came from a broken background. Or am I?

Why write the story of my life, if I don’t think I’m special? Apparently, it’s a story that needs to be heard. Why don’t I write it? I’m not done living it yet and a part of me that feels if I write it now, then I’m asking death to come and with my diagnosis that’s the last thing I’m doing. This is my compromise, my way of facing the past while letting others know they can overcome pretty much anything. It’s not pretty and people have lived much worse lives. But when you see what I’m talking about, you’ll also see my life could have turned out different.

Where do I begin? I was born, obviously.

I come from NYC, born and raised. I had Cuban father and first generation Sicilian-American mother. We moved to Queens from Brooklyn when I was about six months old and that’s pretty much when life got fucked. Well maybe not at that moment but it started early on in life.