A bio condensed:
I was born in Puerto Rico.
I migrated to New York when I was about four years old, then settled in Chicago, Wisconsin, and Mexico City before my mother chose (at last) Corpus Christi, Texas to raise us.
I am the third of four children on my mother’s side:
᩵My older sister, Sujey.
᩵My older brother, Luis.
᩵Myself.
᩵My younger sister, Thais.
It's apt to mention that my younger sister and I share the same biological father, whereas my older sister and brother share the same biological father.
My own father had an additional daughter when I was ten years old; her name is a conglomerate of my own and my younger sister’s name.
And so it goes on my father’s side:
᩵Myself.
᩵My younger sister, Thais.
᩵The youngest, Taishamar.
After graduating from Flour Bluff High School in 2004, I married my boyfriend of four months who I’d met at church. I was eighteen.
Tyler Benjamin (my son) was born on the fourth of December, 2005 (three months shy of my twentieth birthday).
The truth is:
I've incurred many mistakes as I attempted to navigate a broken family, a broken marriage, and my own broken dreams.
Breaking things became habitual.
By my late twenties, I’d traveled to, lived and/or worked out of:
᩵Most of the continental United States
᩵Mexico
᩵England
᩵Ireland
᩵Haiti
᩵Singapore
In 2013, I met *Keith Outlaw:
A relationship that had initially started out playful and casual, quickly developed into something meaningful and substantial.
Keith Outlaw asked me to marry him in 2015, and we were wed on the third of April, 2016.
We've been inseparable since.
*Together we’ve traveled to:
᩵Mexico
᩵Costa Rica
᩵Dominican Republic
᩵Various parts of the United States
In 2017, Olivia Iris Outlaw was born…
And that’s where you come in.
If you're here, chances are, you’ve heard about Olivia.
Olivia was God’s wake-up call on *our lives, and my own faith substantiator.
In this truncated biography, I’d love to paint you a pretty little picture of myself, but the truth is… it isn’t always pretty…
Who I was is not who I am, and who I am is a mash-up of traumas healed, lessons learned, and heaping measures of love, forgiveness, and grace.
After Olivia’s death in 2022, little (if any) of who I was remains.
Well, at least in the way that it was, and I’m grateful.
The plan moving forward is having no plan of *our own, as it were.
Gone are the days of white-knuckling situations and solutions that were never meant for *us.
The only thing that remains in me is a desire to sojourn gently, to live in the Truth, and to walk in the Light.
* Asterisk applied when speaking on Keith's behalf.
