Sable Monroe

By the time I was around nine or ten years old, school had stopped feeling like just a place to learn. It became another place where I carried the consequences of adult problems I had no control over. I was late to school constantly. Not because I overslept.Not because I was irresponsible.Not because I didn’t care. I was a child. I wasn’t driving myself to school. My father would usually do…

When I was younger, I thought I was just picky. I had a very specific type. If a man didn’t look a certain way, I wasn’t interested. No negotiation. No curiosity. Just no. At the time, I didn’t question it. I just assumed that was my preference. But looking back now, I understand something I couldn’t explain back then. It wasn’t just attraction. It was safety. Growing up, the men around me…

I thought once I got back to Jamaica, I’d just ask around and someone would point me to my grandmother’s grave. That was incredibly naïve. As it turns out, finding a burial site and tracing family land are two completely different challenges. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been learning that genealogy isn’t just about collecting old records. It’s about figuring out who knows what, who keeps the…

A while ago, my brother asked my mother a simple question. “Where is Grandma buried?” Her answer stunned both of us. “I don’t remember.” I wish I could tell you there was more to the conversation. There wasn’t. Somehow, the location of our grandmother’s grave had become something no one in the family seemed able to tell us. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. How does someone forget where…

When I boarded the plane to Jamaica, I thought I knew exactly what this trip was about.I was going back to the island I had left just before my twelfth birthday. I wanted to show my adult daughter where I came from. I wanted to eat fruit that actually tasted like fruit again. I wanted to walk through places that had lived in my memory for almost forty years.What I didn’t expect was to come home…

Yesterday, I landed in Jamaica for the first time since I left as a twelve-year-old girl.This morning, sitting in my hotel room at seven o’clock, I realized something that surprised me.I feel like a tourist.Not because I’m staying in a hotel or because I have an itinerary. I feel like a tourist because I don’t know how to exist here anymore.I’ve lived more years in the United States than I ever…

I once spent $300 on a plane ticket to Michigan to fact-check a man. This was before video chat, before Snapchat, before FaceTime, and before people could casually send you ten photos a day proving they were who they said they were. We met on a modeling website. He owned a photography studio and had photographed some beautiful work. His style wasn’t really my style, but he had done a…

I used to think compartmentalization only existed in my childhood.Turns out, it followed me into adulthood too.Years ago, I dated someone long enough to know his patterns. By the time the relationship started unraveling, I could feel it before he ever said it out loud. Some people need proof. I didn’t. I could sense distance before distance officially arrived. The shift in tone. The energy. The…