This piece is a reflection of growth, identity, and the quiet battles that shape a woman over time. Kodi is both a character and a lens, someone through whom I explore the impact of love, trauma, motherhood, and self-discovery.

Throughout the semester, I found myself drawn to writing that felt honest rather than polished. I wanted to capture what it feels like to be in the middle of becoming when you are aware enough to see your patterns, but still learning how to change them.

This work blends narrative storytelling with emotional truth. While some moments are heightened for effect, the core of the story is rooted in real experiences and observations about relationships, survival, and the shift from depending on others to building trust within oneself.

My goal with this piece was not to present a perfect character, but a real one flawed, evolving, and searching for clarity in the middle of uncertain

One day in front of her mirror, it just clicked. She was here in this apartment with this man who should have only been a friend. Running from her mother’s home and unable to cope with being alone, she took refuge and built a home where there should have been none. All her life she felt unworthy of certain things to the point that they seemed impossible to her. Family and motherhood was a hidden desire she felt would never come to her, and so she lived freely out of her desire for love and lack of reverence for the process of creation inside of her womb. Then one day she found herself with child, and her mind began to explode. She had just found out that not only could she be a mother, but she could be a mother to a child from a partner she never desired, and that the genes of this man would flow through that child.

It was there that she knew the foolishness had to end, that life was not a game, and as she sat in the doctor’s office and heard no heartbeat, she knew that she had been warned. From there Kodi decided then and there that she would only date as she desired and not as she felt she had to. She was going to be a choosy lover. She would no longer accept crumbs.

As she sat in her mirror on this sunny Saturday, fresh off of a relationship and still sharing space, all she could think of was Antonio, a long-term dream lover she had tossed in and out of confusion with. For some reason this day her mind flooded with a million reasons why they were perfect for each other, and somehow or another they summoned each other up.

Although she had a lingering thing for Tony, she had told herself that this was the time for her. That she would take her time and go where she wanted and take the first time as much into a relationship.

Kodi had her eyes on Q and her heart on Tony.

At the same time, she had been financially stressed, trying to figure out how to make a way for herself, and during that time she called on the most stable man she knew, Wayne. Kodi had always felt so safe with Wayne, besides her first love Wayne was the only man who had ever had her in such a state of contentment. It was like no matter what, she was locked in with him, and with  Wayne, it was never about anything other than him. To her, he felt like everything.

So whenever she felt unsure or her world felt unstable, she would run to Wayne for refuge.

One call to Wayne late on a Friday night after a long day in the office, she expressed to him how things had to changed. She was fed up with working dead in jobs and being in salons under owners who did not share her values and without hesitation he made every desire she had a reality. 

For the first time Kodi had a thriving business with the man she loved but couldn’t have Wayne ,the attention of one who had her attraction Q, and a relationship offer from the one she thought she could never have Tony.

With Q Kodi couldn’t bring herself to place all her bets on a man she didn’t know fully, simply based on her attraction and assumptions of compatibility. She had given Wayne every opportunity to choose her and although he always made himself available to her, that was as far as it went.

Kodi needed love. Availability, and attention weren’t enough, so she chose Tony.

Being the woman she is, it grieved her to continue doing business with Wayne, because of their history it felt wrong to be keeping this from Tony. Although she was sure to keep the relationship platonic on her end, she knew that the chemistry would not allow for this arrangement to prosper long term. She knew that one day he would test her and she would fold.

With this information, Kodi cut ties with Wayne with much gratefulness expressed and in her heart thanks to him. She held on to the feeling of love in all that he had done because she had never had anyone show up for her in this way. She bottled it all up and embarked on her journey with Tony in bliss.

While business was still thriving, Kodi found herself working less and spending any time she could with Tony. She had been in many relationships, but this one… this one she had no plans of leaving. This one validated her in a way that she had never been validated before. All her life she had been taken by the men she valued and tossed to the side, but this time here was someone she valued saying to her that he seen value in her.

She opened herself to him and she let him inside to stay, and quickly the two became three.

Like any other woman, Kodi had always dreamt of who the father of her children would be. The late-night belly rubs and watching him talk to their child, that amazing pregnancy sex she had always heard about. But instead of any of this, Kodi found herself home alone night after night alone as Tony worked the clubs. and when he was there, he never touched her. She couldn’t understand what was happening, and whenever she asked Tony, he said that it was the pregnancy that made it weird. Now up until this point, Tony and Kodi had never spent so much time together. They had always seen each other here and there, and Kodi had always valued the fact that Tony didn’t ever want anything from her but to spend time. It made her feel like he cared about her and not just her body. She never considered that it could turn into an issue.

The thing is, she hadn’t seen this as a red flag because the physical and platonic interactions were 50/50, and the gaps in time made it feel balanced. However, now that they lived together, it was obvious, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She found herself, for the first time, feeling insecure. It was the first time in her life that she hadn’t been desired, and it was so early on.

Kodi started to wonder what Tony was really doing while he was at those clubs, but she was too big and pregnant to go anywhere and find out. Some days she would drive out late and circle the venue just hoping to find a clue.

Then one day, while she was riding around with her newborn, making plans to visit family, she needed somewhere safe to stop and feed, and the venue Tony was working was near. It was midday and safe, so she stopped and figured, why not go see daddy since we are right here.

Tony had been asked to pick up a shift that day for his friend and partner Ony, who had to be out of town. As Kodi pulled up, she saw Ony’s wife. They both had newborns and quickly greeted each other. She had also just randomly stopped by. She told Kodi that she was there to see Ony, which was odd since Tony was supposed to be covering for him.

As she began to feel a sense of distrust and anger, both men walked out looking confused and guilty, with an alibi prepared. We took photos of them with the children, and they both left and continued their day of club life while we left with the babies. 

After a while, Kodi concluded that the business was more of a ploy to be on the party scene than it was a lucrative venture. Tony pulled out not at Kodi’s request but that didn’t stop him from blaming her.

On Valentine’s Day, Tony surprised Kodi with a candlelit night in, decorated in all the Valentine’s splendor. With the lights off and candles burning, they sat there looking at each other in silence. Kodi, in a shy way, straddled him with the hope of some sort of energy from him to get her going and there was none. Maybe she could have done more, but she never had to… this was new.

More than anything, Kodi found herself in a situation that felt like there was no way out. The only thing she had control over was herself.

Being in this space really forced her to determine the kind of woman she wanted to be. She wanted intimacy, but she also wanted her family.

For a second, she considered splitting the two. She figured she could meet one need with one person and be peaceful in her home with another.

She openly discussed her concerns and needs with her partner, even bringing this conclusion to him. He was unmoved which validated her feelings even more. While she should have taken that as her time to end the relationship then and there, she wasn’t truly ready to let go.

She decided that since she had no control over her relationship, she would take control of her experience in the relationship. She figured since her life with Tony was so peaceful, and since he seemed incapable of loving her romantically, that she would fulfill that other void herself.

At the same time, Kodi began to seek guidance heavily by way of reading constantly. She stumbled onto a Buddhist book that essentially preached that there was no true right or wrong and no true end to anything and that we have the option to choose the reality we want to have and who we want to be.

This validated her decision, and then she began the book that would propel her into a completely different life, Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav. After she finished this book, she realized that she had still been living her whole life in response to other people’s decisions rather than based on her own truth and that this was no different.

While she felt validated in her choice, she realized that her living a double life would be going completely against both the life she truly wanted and the kind of woman she actually wanted to be, and she repented and turned away.

After years, Kodi came to an understanding that that relationship pushed her into a fight with herself that she needed. Prior to Tony, she had only looked at love through the context of sex, desire, and feelings. She had never considered her own flaws. She had liked to be satisfied, and she wasn’t used to being challenged.

With Tony, she learned to consider someone else. She learned to assess herself more than others, and she learned that loving someone is an action, not just a feeling.

As a young woman suffering from the lingering effects of childhood sexual trauma, Kodi’s sex drive was insatiable before her relationship with Tony. She was, for the first time, in a relationship with someone she valued enough not to want to break trust or their relationship. She had a family now, and she adored her family more.

Now Kodi finds herself in a place she never thought she’d be surrounded by people who are nothing like her. She finds herself like a character on stage in an audience of people who are lost and looking at her as a light. Ironically, Kodi had never been more lost, but her reality didn’t matter because even at her lowest, she was vibrating higher than her new environment.

Kodi Had spent her entire life in what is considered to be the city to her family who were all from deep down in the south. As much as she held a deep love for the country and all of its beauty in her heart, she’d never even entertain the thought of a life there. After years of trying to reconcile with herself, her relationship was over & she had two choices, jump back into the rat race or make a plan forward. 

You can image the shock to both her and her brother when he offered to take her and her daughter in after her separation. By this time it was less of a shock for Kodi and more of a release to finally be free from her circumstances. The way she felt, she was just about willing to go anywhere on earth besides where she was. Even with that being true Kodi found herself in a place much unlike anything she had grown to be comfortable with & surrounded by an environment that caused her to feel this sense of fear. Not because she was unsafe but because she was afraid of appearing too big in a small place. Perception is reality & Kodi knew that it wouldn’t take much for her to become a target just because she was different.

Kodi was now deep in the woods. This wasn’t  the kind of place with street lights. Way back off the road where you can’t see your own hand in front of your face under the nights sky, only a millions of stars twinkling up high. The atmosphere was beautiful but her brother had always been one to strive for things and even get them, but he had never been one to care for or maintain them. 

23 years of stained walls, water leaks, neglected septic and dirty furniture collected from this person and that person. Mice traps and one or two roaches visiting here and there thank god there weren’t more. When work is out, drinking is on. From breakfast to bed time there is a drink in hand, a cigarette lit and curse words flying through the air. Plenty sleep through the day and tv playing. Kodi made it her goal to create comfort and an environment that was true to herself inside of this environment that wasn’t without being offensive to her brother. Kodi lives with her older brother (12 year difference), her 6 year old daughter and she shares a bathroom and laundry space with her brother & his male cousin who lives outside in an RV.

Kodi found herself being very neurotic. It’s true that she had since becoming a mother always considered purchasing a gun simply because she felt it irresponsible to be out in the world so vulnerable with her child and no real way of protection her as she was a very small and weak woman physically but up until now it had always been a thought that she wasn’t very found of. 

One day after receiving the money from the sale of her home and her refund from her college semester Kodi found herself randomly in a gun shop and she was now the owner of a gun. It wasn’t uncommon for the women of her family or those who came around to feel threatened by Kodi, not because she was coquettish by any means but simply because she was everything these country wanted to be which was at no fault of her own. 

It was nothing for men with no claim to her to make up stories of being with her that weren’t true all for the sake of their own glory. While it wasn’t something she cared for, what she hated more was the unknown feelings of the women attached to these men. Now all of these things were human in nature and posed no real threat and it’s not that Kodi felt that she would ever have to harm anyone but she did finally take the gun from its origional packaging and placed it in a safe near her bed. She taught herself to load a clip just in case. 

It wasn’t only the stairs of the women and the eyes of their lustful men but it was also the struggle. There was so much of it around her. She looked like money in a place that was void of it and they could not see her struggle, only her light. 

For the first time Kodi was in a place in her life where she felt completely lost, afraid and stressed but she was a striver beyond anything else. Outwardly Kodi would appear to that demographic to have more than what she actually did and in all fairness she was a woman of strong faith who was supplied with her every need & maybe she was better off than many. Her fear was being a target, maybe irrational because she wasn’t by any means rich and they didn’t see her this way at all. Maybe somewhere inside of her she put herself on a pedestal as if they did. She figured what if these people see me constantly coming and going and buying and they decide to take me for all I have. 

She also heard the comments of her brother about her comings and goings and she began to sneak and hide the things she would buy. For months she slept on a deflated air mattress waking up daily with back pains all because she didn’t want to place anymore orders and appear to be living it up on her brother’s dime. She constantly tried to give him money to help around the house as well as purchasing food and household essentials, cleaning and cooking. He seemed to reject it all and was simply happy to just have her around despite how uncomfortable it made him. 

She had decided that she would not allow these things to scare her or make her uncomfortable, but that she would use this opportunity to grow and learn to work with people. She used her awareness to maneuver through her environment with peace and humility and she decided that her presence was there to be a light in a dark space, and she would hang on to a couple grand just incase for her exit plan although in reality she would run through ever dime as she battled with her on going struggle with anxiety & her life. 

While uncomfortable this was exactly what Kodi needed to keep her on track. She needed not to get to comfortable so that she could remember that this was temporary. While it would have been easy to run off and rent an apartment after the separation, Kodi had lived enough in the cycles of her life to know that if she did that the struggle would never stop and that cycles would always repeat until she changed it. 

She did not want to survive anymore, she made up her mind that she would thrive and the only way for her to do that was to find a way to build wealth and a strong foundation for her and her daughter. The issue in her life had been that she had always placed all of her hope and dreams on love and never on herself. It was always that her life would Magically come together with a man and never that she could pull it together for herself. 

She had always leaned on someone, she had never built up trust in herself. She realized that up until this point all of her misfortunes could be marked by what someone else had done to her or problem that someone else had caused, but now she had removed every obstacle and she had highlighted every issue and so that now meant that if she failed this time she would have nothing or no one to blame but herself & this was crippling. 

It was not that she had gone her whole life looking to blame anyone for anything, it was just that she has had so many experiences that allowed her to do so self consciously. Although she was a 35 year old woman she was very much still a child in her own heart. She had never had space to develop as a woman internally and now she was expected to be responsible for not only her own life but also for her daughter’s. Kodi found herself in a constant state of functional disorientation. It was still her responsibility to show up daily for her daughter as well as school and to pull her weight at home since she was living for free after all, but internally she was ripping at the seams. 

The only place that she found solace was in her literature classes, where she had space to breathe and release everything inside of her that she had bottled up for so long. It was here that she felt in place in a world where she always felt out of place.