| This is the 550th story of Our Life Logs® | Growing up, I would hear people say things about my mother. She was a crackhead. A prostitute. They talked about her like a dog, but I knew differently. I always loved her. In fact, the gossip made me love her even more. They didn’t understand her—heck, I didn’t understand her fully, but I wanted to. I wanted to know her story. Growing up, I knew that my mother had a lot of childhood trauma. I knew she was raped by her uncle, whic

It was a tough reality to come to terms with: now I had an opioid addiction ​and ​a global pandemic on top of that to worry about. I was

She named me Bradley Currie Jenkins, giving me her last name because her boyfriend, my dad, wasn’t interested with me...

We had many adventures and shenanigans together. Unfortunately, both Stephen and I were influenced easily by peers...

Growing up I watched my mom and sister struggle from their symptoms and try medication after medication to achieve some relief...

With tears in her eyes, she softly said, “I am glad you are here, Papito, and even if you’ll be in a wheelchair, I still want you to...

My parents fell in love in prison. Not many people can say that! Back then, detention centers were co-ed. My father...

Sadly, every beautiful story is entangled with a monster. The monsters that haunted my life and broke my sweet laughter were violators...

My childhood was a tangled mess of emotions that I still have a difficult time unraveling. There were some good memories...

My childhood was full of laughter, smiles, and love...I thought back then that nothing could bring me down...

All the while, I felt a sense of urgency to get a medical degree. I knew that I could try and make a difference in the lives of those...

It was odd to me how my mother married a man who didn’t seem to understand either one of us. Our passion, empathy, and sensitivity...

But the most prominent memories from my childhood involve my hands gravitating constantly towards my face and my skin...

There are some days that stay in our memory longer than others. They are often the turning points in our journey: when something...

I planned to climb out of my castle and ride my white horse to victory. To me, it sounded simple. Unfortunately, no one told me that a...

My father owned an ice cream shop a couple blocks from our house. His dream was a colorful candy store but with the blistering heat...

Lying in a steaming bath-tub, water lapped against my naked body. The pressure of the clear liquid surrounding me made the bruises on my...

My father left my hometown of Harrison, Arkansas when I was still a baby and never came back to us, and my mother’s on-again-off-again...

Being the granddaughter of a famed, yet tormented writer is both a blessing and a curse. My grandmother and the other women in my line...

I’ve always heard people say that nothing good ever happens after midnight. For the longest time I found that to be true of my birth...