April was kind of a traumatic month. Some great things happened, most notably the birth of my grandson, but we almost lost my daughter in the process. Some other family stuff happened that I really can’t go into publicly, but it was several degrees of bad. But I got through it. I managed to only lose my shit a couple of times. I maintained as much as I […]
The Only Way Out is Through Read More »
I’ve been where you are. You’re experiencing attractions you can’t explain, feelings nothing in your past have prepared you for. And you’re terrified. You would be so ashamed if anyone in your life found out, so you soak yourself in shame, you deny that these feelings are real. And maybe you’ve overcompensated, trying to show the people you love that you’d never be like those people, the people everyone is
An Open Letter to the Queer Kids who are Being Raised in Christian Families. Read More »
Today is Easter Sunday, and Easter has always been a special holiday for me, because it commemorates a cycle of renewal and rebirth. I no longer consider myself a Christian, but the resurrection is the part of the story of Jesus that makes the rest of it matter. If I still believe in anything – which some days I do, and some days I don’t—it’s in the person of
Some Thoughts on Jesus Read More »
I heard the now Grammy-winning Brothers Osborne song, Younger Me, today and really listened to it for the first time. And it kind of got me in my feelings a little, thinking about my relationship with my younger self. I was so angry with him for the longest time. I thought he had ruined our life, that he’d been a coward. And yeah, there were sometimes he could have been
To My Younger Self Read More »
I am not at the point in my life where I have begun thinking about its ending. Maybe I just have some weird subconscious idea that I am immortal? But I have been thinking about things I’d like to do while I’m still young and healthy enough to enjoy them. Is this a bucket list? You could call it that. I don’t love that term, but it’s the term we
Yesterday, someone I know hit me with a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and my initial reaction was like ‘Wow! Fuck you too!’ I didn’t say this, of course. I didn’t react at all. The person meant well, I think, but that is just such a classic microaggression, and it’s not hard to understand why I have such a visceral negative reaction to it. I think it’s
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin Read More »
I belong to Apex writers and am part of the Accelerators group, led by Forrest Wolverton. In Accelerators, Forrest uses brain research to help us unlock our writing and career goals (It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist). Last week, we were talking about the rituals we all use to get us in ‘the zone’ for writing, and it made me think about how we all do that,
My Writing Rituals Read More »
The other morning, I was awash in gratitude. Gratitude for my life, and the people who are in it. Grateful for my two jobs. Grateful that I have a home that I love. Grateful that my body is healthy. I have not always felt this way. I spent a lot of years at war with myself, hating myself, hating all of the things that I was and resenting all of
Gratitude and Grace Read More »
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, and it’s led me to a revelation. I love Brown’s work as a researcher, how she explicates our inner emotional landscapes and describes how our inner needs drive us. I don’t always agree 100% with her definitions, but she always gives me something to think about. Anyway, Atlas of the Heart is an attempt to map and
Life lessons. We’ve all experienced them. It takes some of us a little longer than others to learn certain things, and I am no exception. So here are some lessons I didn’t learn until I’d been beaten over the head with them a couple of times. 1. If I’m going to remember something, I’m going to have to write it down. I don’t know how many times I had to
Things it took me way too long to learn Read More »