Vulnerable

By Nakisha Adams

Take a moment to reflect on relationships past and present and what they may have taught you. What you thought you wanted and wished for, to the moment when you realized you should have been more specific in your requests. This is a journey of reflection, release, and re-directing focus, from what is wanted to what is needed. That need and want from not only someone else but also yourself. Follow the story of five relationships – The Good, The Bad, and The Fling. Told through short stories and poems, these stories and poems, will not only help you discover some things about yourself but also help you discover what you may have lost searching for your comfort in someone else. Sometimes what you really need has been there all along, just waiting on you to be ready, waiting on you to finally release that baggage of your past and deal with some things you were scared to look at within yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781643783468

Nakisha Adams

Nakisha Adams is a mother and business owner. She loves to assist others in helping their communities prosper.

Book preview

About the Author

Nakisha Adams is a mother and business owner. She loves to assist others in helping their communities prosper.

Dedication

To my past, present, and future self.

Copyright Information ©

Nakisha Adams 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Adams, Nakisha

Vulnerable

ISBN 9781641823234 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641823241 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781643783468 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023910877

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

I want to thank everyone I have crossed paths with who has shown me pieces of what a relationship should or could be. I was able to take small things from those experiences and use them to finally get to a point where I was content with who I was and realized my validation of me was more important.

Introduction

I believe most young girls imagine their happily ever after. I know I did. I was surrounded by it. Why would I not think that happily ever after could not be possible? It was in the fairy tale books and movies. The prince came in and saved the princess. It did not matter if he slayed dragons, climbed towers, or kissed her to awaken her from a spell, it all ended with them living happily ever after. The End.

I modeled my relationships with my dolls to be the same way. She had nice clothes, a nice car, a dream house, and of course, him. It was never her being happy with the fact that she had nice clothes, a car, and a dream house. Happily ever after involved finding the prince. The End. As I grew older, I knew that my happiness would involve the same. Nice things and my prince. It did not matter that I was pretty, smart, stayed out of trouble, and should I stay on the right path, I would be successful. My story, my happily ever after included a prince.

So, there I was being successful by what others would measure success to be, but unsuccessful in relationships. I could not understand how a girl who was pretty and intelligent and had every opportunity afforded to her could not be successful in relationships. What was I doing wrong? Was I intimidating to the men I chose? Was it because my background did not come with enough of a struggle? Was I in ways too passive and in other ways too assertive? Was I not edgy enough or was I too stuck up?

These are the questions I was faced with over the years as I dealt with relationships that did not work out. The failures of these relationships left me with traumas I continued to suppress and bury deeper in an effort to avoid them. I had failed to realize that when you attempt to bury things, eventually, they reveal themselves and force you to deal with them, no matter how afraid you are.

Those traumas made themselves visible. I am not speaking of traumas in the essence of dealing with daddy issues or things from childhood and adolescence. My trauma was in the form of things I chose to overlook or deal with for the sake of a relationship. I compromised in a lot of ways because it seemed as if the things that were supposed to work did not. It was not me telling myself OK Nakisha you need to meet someone halfway and compromise, it was more OK, Nakisha you need to be like this so he will not leave.

The scary part about that way of thinking is that I did not feel I was doing anything wrong, therefore, it did not present itself as a problem. I did not look at myself in the mirror and say Girl, if he can’t appreciate what he has, then his loss, when the time is right, the right one will come along. Instead, I looked in the mirror and said, What did I do wrong, why am I not enough? It is funny that I went through life and was able to recognize everyone else’s traumas and what it would take for them to be healed and free of those traumas. I would look at other women in troubled relationships and think to myself, Girl, you are too pretty to be with someone that treats that way or if I was her I would leave. Only I was her and was oblivious to the revolving door of hurt I continued to enter.

I finally had that moment where I had to be comfortable to admit that my happily ever