Month: January 2025

Saturday Six Word Story Prompt: Struggle

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Prompt for Week #122 January 25, 2025 – January 31, 2025

Title: Politically Assassinated

Six Words: Four more y e a r s of undeniable struggle.

It’s time for Shweta Suresh’s Saturday Six Word Story Prompt! This week’s theme is “Struggle” and here are the prompt details:


Welcome to Week #122 of the Saturday Six Word Story Prompt. Click here to read the guidelines for the Saturday Six Word Story Prompt series. (Psst! I have changed the guidelines recently.)

Prompt for Week #122 (January 25, 2025 – January 31, 2025)

Struggle

Click here for the 6WSP image.

I will do a roundup post each Saturday (or Sunday if I run out of time!). So please be sure to participate before time runs out! I can’t wait to read your stories. 😀 I hope that you’ll be back for next week’s Six Word Story Prompt. Have fun! Thank you for participating. Until next week, folks!

P.S: If you have any doubts/suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. The comments section is all yours!
P.P.S: Use the tag 6WSP and don’t forget to pingback to this post!

If you’ve got six words to contribute to this week’s theme for the prompt, head on over to Shweta’s page to add your creative child to the mix. I know this topic will more than likely birth/spark several discussions or bring out the most creative parts of ourselves. Have fun, folks!

Photos From This Past Weekend

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My new phone “understood the assignment.”

“Pretty in Pink”. Saturday, January 25, 2025. I was about to visit my mom in Greensboro, NC, for a few hours. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Pretty in Pink #2. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Sunday Morning Workout. January 26, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
My plant babies: Lyric, Kosmos, & Dora. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
My plant babies again. Sunday, January 26, 2025.
My “fake, outside plant babies.” They are not named since they aren’t real. Lol! Sunday, January 26, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
My other fake, outside plant baby. January 26, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Dirty Snow Mound & Jernee Timid. Sunday, January 26, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Zumi Tye is being mischievous per usual. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Sunday dinner: the veggies are kale, yellow & orange peppers, onions, and tomatoes.
The complete Sunday dinner: country fried steak, coconut Jasmine rice, and the veggies from in the pot above. Sunday, January 26, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt

It was a lovely weekend. I’m glad I could truly enjoy spending time with my mom. I did quite a bit of reading, watered my plants, cooked, and loved on my personality-filled pets. Here’s hoping you had a great weekend, and that the week is being kind to you, too.

Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?

Home To Nowhere: Part III

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Microfiction: Kelsey’s Parents: Kimya & Kazi

AI Generated Image of a Black couple hugging & smiling on a green couch, wearing neutral colors, surrounded by soft lighting & candlelight. Created with Canva.

Kelsey’s parents, Kimya and Kazi, have given their lives to raising a beautiful, intelligent, God-fearing, encouraged-to-question, and free-thinking group of children. They are full of life, love, and determination. They don’t fear having hard discussions with their family, but this subject . . .wears them out.

Kimya was Kelsey’s birth mother, Leila’s best friend. Kelsey’s father, Kamal, was Kazi’s younger brother. When Leila found out she was pregnant, in true rejection form . . . Kamal broke up with her–denied the child–shunned Leila from that moment forward.

Kelsey was born. Leila asked Kimya and her boyfriend (at the time), Kazi to christen the baby as her godparents. They vowed to do whatever they could to care for Kelsey if needed.

Shortly after Kelsey was four months old, Leila took her life. Kamal, finding out the news two days later, took his. Kimya and Kazi stepped in: a best friend–a brother–godparents–parents.

Kelsey would be theirs. They would raise her as theirs. She would know true, unconditional, and undeniable love. And she has.

The day they both dreaded is here.

Part I and Part II

Childhood Trauma: You’re Beating It

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A Book Review

What Happened To You? Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt

Some medically charged books help and there are some that harm. I can attest that this one has helped me.

Authored by the incomparable Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce D. Perry, What Happened To You? Conversations On Trauma, Resilience, and Healing is a page-turner. I highlighted passages, made notes in the margins, and became one with illustrations, diagrams, and charts. There is a plethora of useful information as it pertains to childhood trauma and how we advance in life from it as we age.

Below is the review I shared on Amazon and Goodreads:

“I Now Know Why I’m Resilient

And if you are a survivor of childhood trauma, maybe this book can help you understand why you can “bounce back,” and “endure” things even when you begin to believe there’s no way you can.

Reading What Happened To You? by Dr. Bruce D. Perry and the phenomenal Oprah Winfrey opened up a few windows to my heart and tapped into some areas that needed care and tenderness. I survived a whole heap of mess that could have been so much worse than it was, and I am glad it wasn’t.

Learning who we are and why we act the way we do starts with assessing what happened to us. What caused us to grow up with hardened hearts, lack of trust, unwillingness to love, fear of the unfamiliar, etc.?

This book dives into the many functions of the brain post-traumatic experiences and various methods geared toward healing and growth.

I love how both Dr. Perry and Oprah tag-team each scenario and offer their view of them and a way to move past the incidents and become somewhat whole again by learning how to regulate ourselves and gravitate toward safe spaces and environments.

If ever you feel as though you want to know more about why you continually hold on when you want to let go, reading this book is a great way to glean additional information about how you’re wired and why.

It is worth one’s time and attention, and you will certainly learn more about living through childhood trauma and how to maintain a positive outlook and a sustainable adulthood.”

Sometimes, we need a bit of guidance and a path we have not yet taken to show us who we are and why. This was “my yellow brick road.” Maybe you can benefit from it, too.

Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?

Saturday Six Word Story Prompt: Grief

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Prompt for Week #121 January 18, 2025 – January 24, 2025

Title: Downward Spiral; Uphill Battle

Six Words: Morning mourning–my new b e s t friend.

It’s time for Shweta Suresh’s Saturday Six Word Story Prompt! This week’s theme is “Grief” and here are the prompt details:


Welcome to Week #121 of the Saturday Six Word Story Prompt. Click here to read the guidelines for the Saturday Six Word Story Prompt series. (Psst! I have changed the guidelines recently.)

Prompt for Week #121 (January 18, 2025 – January 24, 2025)

Grief

Click here for the 6WSP image.

I will do a roundup post each Saturday (or Sunday if I run out of time!). So please be sure to participate before time runs out! I can’t wait to read your stories. 😀 I hope that you’ll be back for next week’s Six Word Story Prompt. Have fun! Thank you for participating. Until next week, folks!

P.S: If you have any doubts/suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. The comments section is all yours!
P.P.S: Use the tag 6WSP and don’t forget to pingback to this post!

I often feel like I have a life of mourning ahead of me–I’m making the best of it, growing how I should, and giving myself grace when I know I need to. Grief is a hard subject to tackle, but I am glad to see it as a prompt theme. Some things need discussion and it is helpful to express them creatively.

How about you? Do you want to give it a shot? What can you dream up about grief? What are your six words?

Pop-up Love

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An Audio Poem

Conversation between my friend and I, re: my belief that I should be an old person, and her telling me I will be one and hopefully, I’ll encounter someone just like me when I am older. That’s what I call Pop-up Love–love straight outta the blue when you least expect it.
Pop-up Love by Tremaine L. Loadholt

I joke about my belief that I should be
an old person with a friend who gets
the sillier side of me than most people
do–and what transpired was the birth
of pop-up love.

Earlier that day, an elderly woman
was being escorted down the hall
by one of our Techs, and someone
decided it a good time to make
hot cocoa. She looked into my
office as she hobbled by and straight
into my eyes, and said, “Did you put
on some hot cocoa?!”

I wanted to hug this beautiful aging
woman and hold on tight to her.
When I answered her, I smiled widely–“No,
ma’am. It wasn’t me.”
In that moment, I wish it were me–I wish
I had enough time to place two mugs
smack dab in the middle of that
hallway, sit in a crooked circle with her,
and down the creamy goodness of
a favorite pastime delight.

I could tell she was a pistol in her day,
making the men smile, and probably
some women, too. She had curly, wispy
hair, a lean-away from posture, and
a slow hobble that needed little-to-no
guiding. And all I could do was smile.
Smile and wish I could shoot
the shit with her.

But back to my friend who commented
lovingly about my eventually being old
and hopefully the older version of me
would meet someone like me.
Let it sit. Let it marinate.

When someone isn’t as open
with their love or their trust
and they decide to land a phrase
on you that could lift you up when
you least expect it–you’re doing what
God has formed you to do.

You are creating change.

And as I re-read her comment
several times that day and into
the next, I grew thankful for having
characteristics that meld into
the memories of my loved ones,
and they can rehash them when
the time is right.

Whoever thought my affinity
for the elderly would lead
me down a road of love
that was needed in a moment
where I was feeling I hadn’t had
the chance to feel loved as deeply
as I would like.

And then love pops up,
out of a place it usually doesn’t form,
and reminds me I am
still worthy and my flowers
lay at my feet.