Greetings! Happy 1st of the month. Today is also April Fool’s Day that so happens to fall on a Man crush Motivational Monday. It’s only right that I share my thoughts on this beautiful start of the week. First I want to say that I am officially in hiding until Gemini season. I decided that my second brother is the only living Gemini male I’m willing to put up with. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not compatible with Air signs. So that’s a no for me on the following zodiacs: Aquarius, Gemini, Libra.

I titled this blog “Why do fools fall in love?” because that is a valid question. Why DO fools fall in love and why is that they are considered fools? Is it because they are falling or because of the love? Either way I have definitely been a fool one too many times in my love life. I learned my lesson. In my 20s I was very willing to go head first into a love situation. Now that I am 30, I proceed with caution.

I’ve only been 30 for about 4 months and I already love my life way better in my 30s. It just keeps getting better. I didn’t have all of this hope in my 20s. I have no more doubts about love or relationships anymore. It is as if I have been cured from the bitter broken heart that I once carried. Congratulations! That is the beauty of healing. Last month was literally MARCH MADNESS. I am still not over how crazy that month was for me. I felt like I was celebrating my flirty 30 birthday all over again.

We are officially in Aries season which is fire signs. I’m not too crazy about fire signs but I can appreciate the burning sensation they put inside me and by that I am talking about passion. My father was a fire sign and my mother was an air sign. I wish they were alive so I could see how compatible they were because a fire sign and air sign might be a solid match. I think a good match for me are water signs. Earth signs are okay but we are too similar. Water signs give me more of a balance. MY zodiac is Capricorn and yes I do cap.

Capricorns are typically loyal lovers but we are still very much a GOAT. Not only is Capricorn a GOAT but we are dual. We have feet and a tail which means we can get on land or water and be fine. Versatility has always been my thing. I love being versatile with my look, my makeup, my clothes. Sometimes people cant handle too much versatility.

When you have too much going on, it is so easy to get distracted and lose focus. I used to think being versatile was a skill and it is. However, not everyone receives versatility as an asset. Some times people can see it as an inconvenience or even worse a threat. When it comes to loving a person, I believe in versatility. Like in the book, 5 love languages.

Respectfully my love language is all of them.

You have to really know yourself before you can truly know another person. That is why I’m glad I spent all of my 20s being celibate. I decided to have sex in my 30s because I figured I wasn’t a fool anymore like when I was younger. When it comes to sex, I believe you should be mindful of who you share your body with. I am speaking from experience. When I lost my virginity the 1st time, I should have been more mindful of the person I decided to give my body to. I’ll refer to him as “Tattoo artist”.

Tattoo artist guy should be considered my first love but I don’t consider that a loving relationship. Therefore I can proudly say that I have not been in love with anyone other than myself. I used to be crazy about Tattoo guy. He was from Brooklyn and he was an Air sign but I won’t say which sign. “Man, he probably put a spell on you so you wouldn't like anyone else.” These are Michelle’s words not mine.

I’m convinced that someone put a curse on me to become a fool when it comes to love and relationships. When I sit back and think about some of the things I used to tolerate for the sake of “love” when it never was really love to begin with. I learned my lesson for the last in final time at 30.

At my big ass age of 30, I would be a damn FOOL to put up with some of the same crap I did when I was a teenager and in my 20s. I’m not going to lie after I turned 25, I started dating way better guys. Although dating better didn’t necessarily mean I was getting treated any better. I had to ask myself “Why is he acting like that towards me?” Whenever you have to ask yourself that as a woman, it is probably time to evaluate the energy you’re giving. For example, when woman complain about men being “trash” or “aint shit” which I used to be one of those women. I was the “niggas aint sh!t” mascot. I promoted it so much that I should’ve gotten a check for it. There’s no surprise why good guys started to fall back from me. If you think all men are trash you might have some internal garbage.

I’m a firm believer in you are what you attract which is why change is good. If you want better than you have to do better. You cant complain about other people when your own mirror reflection is dirty. Unfortunately, this is the harsh truth that people don’t like to accept. It’s easier to blame it on men but as a woman I have to admit that I’m responsible for the men I allow in my life. I always have to hold myself accountable when it comes to the foolishness I put up with in relationships. This is also why I am done with the foolishness. At some point, it gets old and tired. Being toxic if exciting and fun when you’re young but after a certain age, I’m going to need you to get it together. A lot of why I had so many toxic men I was dealing with is because deep down I was toxic myself.

What made me change is when I accepted that I am not maintaining good relationships. It is my fault for entertaining relationships that do not serve a beneficial purpose in my life. It is my fault for tolerating things from people that are not okay for the sake of love. Once I put the fault on myself, I was able to fix the problem. It takes me years to find 1 person to like. Every time I would have my eye on a guy, I would discover that he’s either abusive, narcissitic, toxic, emotionally unavailable or ALL THE ABOVE. Then one day I stopped picking guys altogether to see what I attract without trying.

During my celibacy journey I got so concerned for myself. I decided that I cant trust myself when it comes to picking the right guys. I always choose what is familiar and unfortunately I am more familiar with trauma or abuse. I am not here to put myself down but I have to be self aware. Every guy I was attracted to in my 20s had some type of trauma.

Only a fool would think that trauma bonding is a love language. I am here to assure you that it is NOT. In fact, I’ve matured so much since I turned 30 that now I realize the less trauma a man has the better! There was always that need to want to connect with what someone else has been through. I always go through my phases that lead to stages of growth. I went through a phase when I was madly in love with this guy in the Air Force because both of our mothers passed when we were babies. I swear I thought this guy was the one. I knew I would “understand his pain” and “what he was feeling” but the truth was that man did not feel the same way about me. I am assuming that he figured his mother passing as a baby did not effect him the way I was effected by my mothers passing. The main reason was because he still had his father who also served in the Air Force. We did talk briefly but we never dated because he magically got a new position working for the secret service. I was happy for him but I wondered if he did that on purpose to get away from me. All of this was before I turned 25. I remember when he left the Air Force base I was stationed at, I was devastated. I was so distraught that I wanted to get out of the Air Force.

WHAT A FOOL!

When I separated from the Air Force, he was the only person that knew the reason why. To this day, I still don’t like talking about my military career. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a disabled veteran who served their time. There’s nothing to discuss in detail. I had to understand why trauma bonding is not always acceptable and appropriate. Whatever trauma bond I tried to have with Air Force guy was triggering to him. I’m sure the girl he wanted to be with did not have the same struggles as I did. When I finally moved on from buddy, I promised myself I would never trauma bond with another man again.

Unfortunately I was capping per usual. It took me 6 months to realize the last guy I was talking to was another failed attempt to trauma bond. Except this time his father passed as a baby but his mother is still alive. When I discovered that his dad died when he was 2, I thought that meant something special. WHAT A FOOL! I realize now how crazy I was to consider that a meaningful connection. I have to give myself a round of applause for creating my children book series “Birds in the Sky”. WHY would I so desperately TRY to trauma bond with someone over one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life?

Here is why you don’t trauma bond with people to build meaningful connection. A trauma bond does not mean anything significant when it comes to meaningful relationships. A trauma bond is when you can relate to a person because you understand the significance of the trauma they experienced but this is when it gets tricky. When you trauma bond with an unhealed person, you just get burned. That’s the best way I can put it. Trauma bonding is only acceptable if all parties involved are working towards healing but even that is subjective. People can be in different stages of their healing journey.

Certain topics and conversations may be triggering for the person you have a trauma bond with. Some times people don’t want to trauma bond because they don’t want to relive the pain. Some people block out their trauma and may be insulted by the fact that you are attempting to bond with them. If you don’t know, trauma is a form of energy. That’s why I said you have to be accountable for who you allow into your life. When you have been traumatized, there is a certain frequency you operate from as long as you are still stuck.

I talk about healing because that is the only way to protect yourself from yourself. I’ve been on this journey for years and although I made progress I still have a lot of self work I need to do. Particularly when it comes to relationships, I want better for myself. I’ve been reading Britney Spears memoir "The Woman in Me”. I’m at the part where she talks about how stupid and foolishly in love she was over Justin Timberlake. He eventually left her and made her look like the bad guy. This woman was pregnant with his child, had to get an extremely painful and traumatic abortion all for him to leave.

While I was reading I couldn’t help but ask myself “Why was she so in love with him?” Why do us women do such foolish things for the love of a man? I’ll tell you why. It stems from a lack of love. When you are not loved properly, you do not love properly. You do not understand what it means to be loved properly so you accept pretty much anything. I used to be the Queen of bare minimum. Now I’m Mrs. Above and beyond! I need all of that energy. Accepting the bare minimum was only because I received the bare minimum when it came to love. Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I couldn’t tell.

Holidays are just any other day for me with the exception of my birthday and New Years. I called my family to wish them a Happy Easter. What I didn’t know was that my depression would be triggered. Growing up I was always forced to extend myself to others. “Make sure you call this person or make sure you talk to this person.” How come these people cant make sure to reach out to me instead? I mean if they really cared, wouldn’t they want to talk to me? Why should I reach out to people who have no interest on doing the same? What is that anyway? I’ll tell you what that is. Programming.

I was programmed as a child to give a F about people who could really care less about me. For the life of me I am working on deprogramming a lot of what I was taught and reprogramming myself. My advice if you ARE going to trauma bond with a person, I suggest to have some boundaries in place. When I called my family to wish them a “Happy Easter” I didn’t get the warm welcoming I was hoping for. Instead I got scolded. “What are you doing on TikTok? How come people always call me to tell me about what you do? What are you doing on the internet with Mahotiere?”

For some reason my family finds the time to gossip amongst themselves about me instead of picking up a phone to see how I’m doing. I was upset because I’m thinking “Why are they worried about what I post on TikTok when I was homeless for almost 3 years? I don’t see nobody calling me about that!” After that phone conversation I realized that it may be time to accept the harsh reality truth. Sometimes family really isn’t everything. In Britney Spears book, she talks about how her break up with Justin made her depressed. She talked about how close she was to his family and how his family was pretty much her family. She explained how her family never felt like family to her because they always treated her like she was invisible. I never knew I could relate this much to a white woman. My family treated me the same way. I felt so invisible around my family that I created imaginary friends.

When Birds in the Sky dropped, I didn’t bother telling my family. As proud as I am of myself, I know they don’t care. Nothing I ever do is ever really that important to them. Since I was kid, I always wanted their approval. I wanted them to tell me I was doing a good job or just receive encouragement. One day I realized I was waiting for something that was never going to happen. That is when it hit me.

A lot of the toxic relationships I had in the past stemmed from my childhood trauma of abandonment. Being neglected, ignored and ostracized play a big role in this also. I have to understand that part of why men treat me in a way that I would consider unacceptable is because I was treated poorly already by people I loved.

Again, this is not my way of putting myself down in anyway. I am just being reflective. My father and my real Uncle Cami’s birthday month is in April. I want to use this entire month to focus on my healing.

Writing Birds in the Sky is something I did to help heal my heart and it worked. My story is not just for entertainment. I’m hoping it can really help someone who is going through a dark time. When you struggle with trauma and you experience a break up, that can take you over the edge. I think of my dear friend Torian (God rest his soul) who committed suicide when I was 16. He just turned 19 and in his note he said he felt like a "burden”. Torian was homeless at one point when we were teenagers. He lived with my sister maybe a year or two before he passed away. When I was younger I didn’t understand why he would do it. I felt guilty because I thought as a friend maybe I could have said something or offered to help. I had no idea he no longer wanted to be on earth. As I grew older, I started to understand what he was feeling when I was going through homelessness. I have to say Thank you to those people who continued to keep me lifted up in prayer. I had no idea I would be hitting rock bottom and stay there for as long as I did. I kept asking my family for help. I felt like a “burden”. At some point, I had to accept the fact that my family made a choice to not help me at all.

Experiencing a heart break while also going through personal hardship is not the move. That’s why I didn’t want to date or fall in love after my apartment fire happened. I didn’t feel comfortable dating during such a vulnerable time in my life. Now I understand there’s never a right time to fall in love.

In conclusion, falling in love is not the goal. Growing, glowing and flowing in love sounds like a vibe. I’ve had enough of the trauma and tragedies. That’s why I went ahead and put it in a book. I done turned my trauma into treasure. We cant be so familiar with toxic behavior that we become immune to good people who want to be good to you.

Although I said I didn’t want to date or fall in love while I was homeless, I decided to do it anyway. There I go capping again. My reasoning behind this choice was to get comfortable with vulnerability.

I am happy to say that phase of my life is over and I am on my next stage of growth. Sprinkle Sprinkle Shera Seven made me realize how masculine I was being especially since becoming a barber. I felt like I had to compete with men. Ladies, if you ever feel the need to compete with a man you LOST.

Dating men while being homeless taught me the value of someone holding a safe space for you to be vulnerable. In the words of G-Eazy “It aint safe! It aint safe!” I made the foolish mistake of being transparent about my situation. It reminded me of what one of my barber friends Koda used to tell me “Cant be too honest!” I learned my lesson. Being vulnerable is risky. Being in survival mode and trying to date is not advisable. I believe if I wasn’t healed, I would have gotten taken advantage of.

Thank God I am no longer homeless and Thank God I am no longer a fool for anyone. I’m in my bag. Today on April Fools I woke up as soon as the clock struck midnight. It was just like the Nicki Minaj song: Phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells,

"What you gonna do with your life?"
Oh, Daddy dear, you know you're still #1
But girls, they wanna have fun

Those lyrics live rent free in my head when I think about my father Dr. Sauveur Mahotiere. If my father were alive I’m sure he would wonder “WHY is my daughter being a FOOL for this FOOL?”

I’ve learned my daddy lessons. Regardless of what I experienced after my father passed, I still know the man he was and I know how much he loved my mother. I hold on to that. I keep my mind on that.

I think about my Uncle Cami last words before I got the call about his passing. He says to me “Do not love people who are not nice to you. Do not love people who do not love you. You don’t need that.”

Rest in power to my father Dr. Sauveur Mahotiere

Rest in paradise to my real Uncle Cami Lapierre

Thanks for letting me share!

-Malon Mahotiere