Underneath It All (11 page)

             
It just wasn’t fun anymore after a while. From the beginning I knew we weren’t going to work out because it was too good to be true. You can have it all but I guess in my case for me to have it all I just have to continue with making my own dreams come true and in time love will come and find me.

              One of the biggest mistakes I made moving forward was letting my feelings get too deep and I lost focus of what was important when I should’ve come to an agreement with him in a sense of the business end before we began mixing pleasure. Its not that I didn’t trust him, lines got crossed because we tried to take on too much at once.

             
I never want to have the ultimatum between my career and love. Why can’t I have both? If I were financially stable then yes I would stay at home and be that wife who cooks and cleans but is still sexy and waiting for her man when he comes home. I want that. Just like how he ended up purposely hurting me I know I hurt him too by lying and denying things that he already knew were true. I let him sit through radio shows and not let him know that that day, that very morning that it hit that we were engaged Envy sent me a text and asked if it was true. I was letting him go into these situations blind and that wasn’t right.

             
Rich and I were in a who cares, its about us kind of mind set so I said yes just for the fuck of it and that led to Envy having this break down that caused him to make this fake confessional about his life all because he felt like he had lost me forever. It turned into this whirlwind of everything coming out and I was then forced in a way to let the world in but by that time it didn’t matter because everyone had already formed opinions when I had the power all along to set the record straight.

             
I mean who walks around with their insides out on a daily basis? We all have things inside of us and I’ve never told all of this information at once but I probably should have with Rich because I did want it to work. It got ugly when he started doing these interviews. Rich was in front of me one-way and then in front of the camera another way. I stopped caring after awhile.

              I developed a fuck the world, I’m free again kind of attitude. I started having relations with other women again and I don’t know if that’s my way of getting over it but being with another pretty woman is fun for me and I look at it as getting the opportunity to be affectionate with someone who I never really have to have an attachment to. I do want to be with a man but I’m attracted to women. With a woman I can still feel good and be pleased, and please her and get that release and feeling out of my system without getting hurt.

Chapter
Fifteen

             
I’m

sure the choices I’ve made
as far as the men in my life are a reflection of my father. I stayed in situations that weren’t healthy because for one reason or another that person made me feel something that I didn’t have as a child and I clung to it with everything that I had.             

             
Every once in a while he calls and asks to speak to me but I feel like it’s too little too late. I’m sure he’s seen me on television and even if he hasn’t then someone has probably told him. I couldn’t tell you if he’s proud of me, if he loves me or even regrets not being around. I can’t imagine not loving King so I think that somewhere inside of him he has love for me too.

             
I put myself and my child in danger because I stayed with a man that abused me mentally, physically and emotionally but out of my own selfishness I stayed because I was trying to create a two parent home, something I didn’t have. I endured all the hurt and all the beatings because when things were good, as crazy as it may sound Raul made me feel safe.

             
Envy seemed to put my mind at ease and he was so good at making me believe in fairy tale endings and that love is not only for the girls in the movies but for people like me as well. Unfortunately because I was so bent on being loved I overlooked everything that should have made me stay away from him. Through him I also learned that everything doesn’t have a happy ending and there are real villains and bad guys in life.

             
Draya taught me to be careful with the people I trust and to not be so eager to stand up for those who would blatantly lie to my face. She showed me passion and what it felt like to have a woman really be into me.

             
No matter where I am in life or in the world for that matter I think Maria and I will always stay in touch and have each other back if the other needs us. She helped me through some really bad times and with her I was able to get back on track and realize that I couldn’t just allow myself to waste away out of fear of the unknown. She is bold, fearless and sexy. She is everything I would want in a woman if I decided to be with one permanently.

             
If I could go back and do things differently with Rich I probably would. A lot of what went wrong was my fault and if anything I wish I had the opportunity to tell him the truth but everything in life is a lesson whether it’s good or bad and throughout everything I’ve been through I’ve learned my share.

             
I always wonder what my life would be like if I had my father around. While I applaud the women that are doing it on their own and raising their kids, a woman can’t teach a little boy how to be a man and a woman can’t show her daughter the things that a father can. I missed out on that. I will always be grateful to Brian, and Pedro but there’s nothing like having your own father there and I wish he knew how much his absence impacted my life.

             
One thing is for sure you only have one life to live and so far my life has been 25 years of nonstop back-to-back experiences of emotions, trials, tribulations, accomplishments, tests, battles, and all of it has made me into what I am now. I’m a work in progress. Yes, as much as I do well, I do just as bad, and as hard as I fight, I love even harder.

             
I’m all about loyalty maybe because I’ve never felt like I’ve been with someone whose given me full on truth, truth in life, affection, love, appreciation, truth in just accepting me for who I am and I’ll accept you. I really love the fact that I now have the opportunity to tell my story because at this point there’s no such thing as perfect, there’s no such thing as the glamorous life, there’s only going through what life throws at you and doing your best to get by. It’s about living for yourself and making sure that you do the things that you want to do in life. 

             
One thing people can say about me that don’t know me is yes I’m wild, crazy, and I don’t have a filter. I mean you’ve heard it all but if you strip me of everything you judge me on and just look at what I’ve been able to accomplish despite my circumstances, you know that I’m a fighter. I’ve been able to do things that most 50-year-old women haven’t done. It takes a while to get to where I am, it takes time to see what I’ve seen and it takes true strength to get through the things that I’ve been through.

             
It takes a lot to admit your mistakes and even more to fix them. The best thing about each of us is that I can do what I want with my life and you can do what you want with yours as long as you don’t let life break you and you get through it, can you really give a fuck what anyone thinks? All you can do is smile and love yourself because no one is like you.

             
Just like I’m telling my story, if you were to tell yours then you would be able to prove just the same. Moving forward I know I have a lot of making up to do because of the mistakes I have made and probably a lot more healing to do. As I grow and get better there’s more mistakes and heartache to come. I definitely want more love, more children, more experiences and more successes but most of all, I just want people to know who I really am and in time I’m sure that will happen.

             
I would never lose sleep over the opinions of others because if I did I wouldn’t get very far and I definitely wouldn’t be where I am now. There’s still so much more to do and I’m going to do what I have to whether the decisions I make are just more mistakes; there will be just as many accomplishments.

             
I constantly tell myself that despite my circumstances and the things that I’ve been through there’s always someone who has it much worse. Broken hearts are mended, and wounds do heal but you have to be able to appreciate the rain as much as you do the sun otherwise it was all in vain.

             
It’s exciting because I know my hustle and I plan to do more than just television. I would love to do the runway again, possibly movies, and because of my experience from
working with the Kardashian’s, I may be able to open up my own store. I might get my own show after Love&HipHop, who knows, the possibilities are endless and the sky is the limit.

              I’m just getting started and I’m only 25. The girl born November 8, 1987 at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Sonia Colon’s last daughter, the sister of Linda, Lisa and Josie, the daughter of Orlando Mena, now has a book to prove that my story is worth telling.

             
If there’s one thing you get from reading this I just want you to be inspired in some way whether its healing from a childhood experience, or if it teaches you not to react off emotion because you are in pain or to be smarter than the people you love or the decisions you make when you are in love.

             
I hope it teaches you to go for your dreams regardless of your circumstances and your upbringing or hell, maybe it’ll inspire you to read more books. Everything that I’ve been called intrigued you enough to pick this up and want to get to know more about me. I didn’t know this day was coming but my fingers are crossed because I want more days like this. Just remember that when the lights go off, the cameras are put away and the makeup is washed off of my face, I’m just like you.

The End

Thank You

First
, I want to thank God for listening to all my prayers that I sent up. I want to thank my mother for bringing me into this world because I wouldn’t be here without her. I would like to especially thank my son King for keeping me inspired and giving me the ammunition I need to keep going.

I want to dedicate this book to the important
women in my life, my mom, Lisa, Linda, Josie and Gisele. It’s because of women like you, that make me want to be everything that I can as a woman myself.

I also want to thank Star for pushing me and always saying that I needed to find the courage to tell my story.
He was the first one that was actually interested and would sit with me and have me tell him things about my past and he’s the one that came up with the idea for me to open up and turn it into a book.

Finally I thank Michele because without you this wouldn’t have happened. I thank you for making this happen in such a short period of time I couldn’t be more grateful and honored that you gave me this opportunity.
The fact that you’ve given me nothing but full on patience and rode for me, I thank you.