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Being Mariah Carey is a job

My music was my life. Music was the only plan, ever.

So I didn't associate him with the current collection of catastrophes. He seemed at best an ally, at worst an innocent bystander. I needed someone. And I needed to believe that not everyone was against me.

Chaos filled the air with the sounds of cursing, grunting, and howling. The entire house seemed to be shaking.

I don't wonder anymore. Now, I know for certain that there's never been and probably never will be a "perfect" family. But I have finally found stability in the family I created.

Some of us need to be rescued, but everyone wants to be seen.

You don't ever know where strength will come from.

There would be hell to pay, I knew. I truly believed I was actually risking my life, but I felt life wasn't worth living if I couldn't have what I'd had that night.

My brother was broken early on, and the only tool he had to defend himself was destruction. He would fight everything, his demons and everybody else, especially our father.

I romanticized so much about that night that I believed it was part of my destiny.

In my teens, living in a constant state of exhaustion and exhilaration became my new normal.

I discovered a quiet, soft, light place inside my voice - a vibration in me that brought me sweet relief.

It was difficult to leave what seemed like a dream, but I was also anxious to get back to work.

I couldn't bear to let you go yet
So I threw caution to the wind
And started listening to my longing heart

Though our relationship was just a moment in my time line, Derek served a very high purpose in my life. [...] He was in the right place at the right time, and he was there for the right purpose.

DJ was a love IN my love, not OF my life.

Singing was a form of escapism for me, and writing was a form of processing. There was joy in it, but I mainly was survival (and it still is).

I was well trained in the art of turning shit situations into fertilizer

my truth is for you, and I hope it inspires you to live in yours.

The monster in the media is only satisfied when you are destroyed.

After I was broken, I received a blessing.

I didn't let my spirit die.

It has caused me so much pain and confusion.

At the first real wedding I ever attended I was the bride.

How can I hope to make you understand
Why I do what I do?
Why I must travel to a distant land
Far from the home I love.

I don't think I had cried openly the entire time I had been in the relationship with Tommy. Crying with him would've taken too much cleanup, and the emotional cost was too expensive.

Every little move we made built toward a bigger idea: freedom.

The thunder of profanity, fists, and feet drowned out all other sounds, so I didn't hear when the cops burst in.
I didn't know if they had some to save us or kill us. It was Long Island in the 1970s, and two Black males were being violent - the appearance of the police almost never meant that help had arrived.

I never thought I would be strong enough t leave Tommy. I thought I would just continue to deal with it.

We all had varying degrees of tough shit to go through in my family, but in this way, we fundamentally differed. I didn't think the world owed me anything.

When I was a little girl, my older sister seemed to live on the wind.

I roared at her, imitating her exaggerated tones.

That was the last straw. I really did leave my body.

Acting was both a dream and something I felt I needed to do.

I sang for my life.

Trees will do that: make you stop and breathe.

What was important to me was that the extras and other people on set - from actors to crew - knew that I was serious, ready to learn, and ready to work just as hard as them.

I didn't have the language for it, but I carried the burden of how it felt.

I tried my hardest to accept all my mother's unfortunate choices in men. I even tried to impress them.

A deeply suppressed sadness I had buried inside since the first painful blow from someone saying I was not white enough or Black enough, which translated into "not good enough", both rose and began to dissolve, and a longing to connect took its place.
It was as if suddenly I could SEE him.

Those people who have hurt me, over and over, whom I have escaped or walled off, are deeply significant in my story, but they are not central to my existence.

Removing myself from toxic people I love has been excruciatingly painful

For me, this is the steepest cliff edge. If I can make it to the other side of this truth, I know there is relief of epic proportions awaiting me.

Mess causes anxiety for me. I began to put things in order, an activity I commonly do to recenter myself. I thought if I could bring some order to the chaos in the house, even in a small way, that I could stay in my body. But I kept slipping.

My memory is a sacred place

I was nineteen years old and had already lived a lifetime of chaos, surviving only by my own scrappy determination.

The years between us might as well have been centuries.

There is nothing more powerful than surviving a trip to hell and coming home covered in the light of restoration.

It was the beginning of another level in my healing process.

I couldn't tell if it was a festive or tragic occasion.

I've often felt it was a struggle to just have fun, the keep that inner child alive. Bit I remembered that promise I once made to myself, that I would never forget what it felt like to be a kid. I would never let my little girl go.

Ultimately my father trusted reason to help him exist in an absurd world.

And though he had frightened me so many times as a child, I, too, saw him as a smart, strong man.

I gave him my conviction and the combination to my moral code.

My mother had stolen me from my sleep, then turned me over to the authorities. There was nothing left to do but surrender.

Life has made me find my own way to be in this world.

President Obama, the First Lady, Sasha, and Malia were in the front row, directly in my line of sight, beaming with dignity.

I have always written songs from an honest place, using my own lived experiences and dreams as a source.

He looked like a king. He looked like a father.

Looking back now, I can see that in my early years, there was significant neglect.

One must pick one's battles wisely, and I wasn't about to come for someone who I had already left behind. I was on my way.

"Mama said he was disobedient, wouldn't put on his coat, so he died," Vinny says.

That's one function of makeup - even while giving a natural look, it can serve as a war paint, an invisible force field. It often does for me. It shields me from people literally getting into my pores and under my skin.

I wanted to luxuriate in the poetry of the dull reflections of the opulent crystal chandelier bouncing against the dark.

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