Letter to My Parents: Jan 2026

An open letter to my parents, in case anyone still in their orbits cares enough to ensure that it gets to them and that they read it:

Hi Dad, Hi Mom.

Off the bat let me address why I did this publicly: Neither of you will speak to me one on one and allow my voice to be heard - your track records prove that. Dad, we haven't talked in over a decade. Mom, you repeatedly shush me, constantly, when I say something you don't like or can't control. Frankly, I'm done trying to communicate with either of you through both barriers, and I can think of no other way to do this because I refuse to speak to either of you alone again without a person of my choosing there.

A fact, I would add, that most people I talk to find deeply upsetting when I mention it casually. We won't talk about the emotional labor required on my part to be able to do so, because it used to be that when I mentioned that it ripped me to shreds every time. I'm doing better, though.

It occurs to me, given the lack of communication between us, that you may not know your kid. Sure, you know the kid you raised and the image you have of me then and your dream of what you wanted me to be. Again, see how the word “you” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Because the reality of it is at the end of the day, I am an entirely separate human being with different experiences and thoughts and values. I am not discounting the way you raised me, nor am I forgetting where I came from.

So, let me tell you a little bit about who I am today. I am happily married for over ten years now to my lifelong devoted partner, who no matter how much I “screw up” around, has yet to do anything but come at me from a place of love and compassion and support and wanting to understand. We have disagreements. We talk through them. Nothing we have encountered over the course of the last decade has changed our minds about who we married or how much we love them. It is a beautiful, healthy marriage.

We don't have human kids. Neither of us want them. We both have complex neurological conditions that require an immense amount of fortitude to navigate any given day through. Schatzi, Baelish, and Finn, our three cats, are our babies and we spoil them as such.

I am working as a Research and Instruction Librarian. I love the core of what I do, getting to teach students how to use the library to research and how to evaluate the material they do find. It's somewhat painfully ironic to me that I teach information literacy every day, and yet I can reach neither of you with the same message. But I pour my heart and soul into my work approaching everything I do, whether it be teaching in a classroom or writing informational guides, or brainstorming and creating new ways to reach my students, with clear intention and empathy and compassion and understanding. Because perhaps the failure, the need comes from a lack of communication or understanding, or perhaps they simply don't know what they need to know. Either way, I encourage help seeking behavior with no value judgement attached, other than to serve their own curiosity in whichever way they will. I don't ask the political affiliation or religious thoughts of my students, I don't judge when they tell me what topics they are looking for information on. I simply help them find it, and let them make their own conclusions.

Personally and professionally, I try to live by a very simple set of tenets: learning is paramount, asking questions is necessary and never to be judged, communication is essential, curiosity is beautiful and healthy, and tolerance is a cornerstone. Because I have traveled across the world and I promise you, all humans are the same with the same wishes and worries and problems, and at the end of the day if we treat everyone the way we'd like to be treated life turns out a lot better.

Pain of the Daughter: Jan 2026

I went to hug you. To reach out, to offer comfort in a moment when you were clearly overwhelmed. We were there to go through what precious things we have left of our grandparents, your parents, because I couldn't bear the thought of them sitting in a box in a back room of a home they poured their lives and heart into. A home that is now an echo of the decades of life that passed in it before.

It wasn't going to be an easy or emotionless task for any of us. I'd made my peace with our work for the day and was as ready to face it as I could possibly be, but you were really struggling. So I reached out: “Hey, mom, I know this is really hard but I'm here -” but before I could even take half a step towards you with my arms outstretched, you put a hand out in my direction to stop me. It wasn't directly in my face, but it may as well have been.

A critical, pivotal moment. I retreated, and set to whatever box was closest. But it was the last time I'd retreat from your control over the situation. It will be the last time.

Normal people don't lie awake at night questioning their parents' love for them. They don't doubt that because of the way they choose to identify or the company they keep that their parents will outright reject them and refuse to engage with them in anything other than arguments and criticism. They don't fear even talking to their parents because they already know the response is going to hurt. I love you but I can't accept who you are or what you do. I love you but we're not going to talk about that. I love you but. But. But. But. Normal people don't have to fight anxiety spirals and breathe through tears just to go to sleep. Normal people don't see love as conditional - they don't ostracize or criticize.

On Growth and Finding a Voice: Jan 2026

You ever really sit down and have that moment where you realize you're undergoing a major existential identity shift that requires a re-arranging and re-framing of thought and beliefs you held to be air tight?

The number of things I believe in that have utterly blown up in my face is staggering. Things that we're told are rock solid, foundational truths, aren't so black and white when the isht hits the fan and reality sets in. Because no matter how you try to ignore it and shelter in place and remain in your bubble, evil still can and does happen daily. By choosing to not acknowledge and face it and name it, we let it grow. Fester in the dark, slowly amassing its power. And then, once it does come to light, what do we do?

I was raised in the South, surrounded by evangelical Christians. The heart of MAGA land, practically, in the Bible belt. I had multiple copies of the Bible and Bible study books given to me that I did read and work through. Diligently, because I was nothing if not a hard working child who strove to succeed and meet or exceed expectations of those around me. I went to Sunday school. I went to vacation Bible school.

Granted, these weren't regular things for me because I did primarily live in a household that didn't make religion a priority. Instead it made human values a priority: kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, patience, curiosity, learning, and love. Endless, bottomless love.

I have the fondest memories of my grandparents going all in on my interests. My grandmother would attend school awards events and cheer me on, no matter how many times I won. She loved to celebrate and share my work. She baked for EVERYONE and gave from the bottom of her heart everywhere she could. Mr Rogers tells us to look for the helpers. Oma was a shining example.

My grandfather, my rock and north star, also loved cheering on his girls. I have so many memories of being read to in the hammock or at bedtime - wonderful stories full of excitement and adventure and all of the things he prized as most important. Even after I was well on my way to reading aloud myself, I would beg him to read me a story. He always would.

He loved coming to my gifted class every year to talk about his homeland and educate us on the beauty of Germany. He kept doing that long after I left too, because he loved getting to see and talk to the new crops of bright young kids. And most importantly, he loved to read. And learn. Even in the most difficult years of his later life, when he would struggle with it, he would always say he'd be okay as long as he could read his stories. He was terrified of losing that and his mind - his greatest asset.

Both of them would always tell me they wanted me to write. They enjoyed reading whatever I wrote, even if they didn't fully get it or understand it. I guess I have a unique way of looking at the world and a singular talent for expressing things in words (that is not a brag - I am the least self assured person you know). They wanted to read and know and learn and understand.

For the last couple of years, I haven't been able to. Trapped in an endless well of grief and confusion, I lost my voice and myself somewhere along the way. And then, stuck in traffic on the 101 yesterday evening, I felt a gentle little spiritual bonk that somehow unlocked something critical - kind of like when Aang gets slammed into a rock and his Chakra suddenly opens (those who know, know). They wanted me to *write*. They didn't care about what or how. They wanted me to write because they knew how much I needed it. And they knew I wrote best from the heart.

Sorry it took me so long Ops - I'm a little slow these days, but I'm here, and I'm doing it.

On Renee Good: Jan 2026

I'm just going to get real for a moment and speak my own mind and truth instead of sharing posts that get buried by the algorithm. Maybe someone will see it. Maybe they won't. Either way, the catharsis of writing it gets it out of my head and keeps me from another sleepless night.

The thing that struck me the most about Renee Good, besides the blatant fascism and indisputable extrajudicial cold blooded murder, is that it could've been me. She was 37 years old, she'd gone out to protect her friends and neighbors. Something Jon and I would do in a heartbeat, and something we did when the jack booted thugs came to our city. We never encountered any in person, but what if we had?

I would've done the same thing. Nonviolent resistance. Looking at someone who is armed and violent and choosing love, saying "I'm not mad at you" is an act of bravery. It is the heart of a hero. When masked thugs reach for my door handle and tell me to get out of the car, I am also driving away.

That's important to keep in mind here. Masked thugs refusing to identify themselves, with no legal basis for stopping an American citizen.

A lot of people have said "if she had just complied." Did you hear the venom in his voice as he called her a fucking bitch after he shot her? If she had complied, what would've happened?

Any woman who has been abused or experienced violence at the hands of a man with no moral compass knows that tone of voice. Knows that venom, knows the danger, and knows the smart thing to do is to disengage. Get away. Of course, they've also already done the math of what happens when they do disobey - will the reaction be worse?

Turns out, it was. He shot her. Three times. What law enforcement triple taps an unarmed woman?

But back to the heart of the post. Because it doesn't end there. It continues with a government regime who immediately gaslights an entire nation about what happened and whisks the offender away into hiding so they don't face consequences.

As a woman also harassed and taken advantage of by men who experienced no repercussions, no change to their lives while the victims were left picking up the pieces of their actions and the trauma, watching this unfold in real time on a national scale is triggering.

Even more triggering is when you see yourself in the victim, and then you go looking for comfort or wanting to reach out just to see if this was maybe a breaking point for the people you love but keep at arms length and hope that one day they come to their senses through that love. And then you find your father posting how this woman you see yourself in deserved to die because she'd been brainwashed by the queer agenda and didn't obey. Strike one.

I have nothing but love for my father, but I'm done. I finally blocked the profile so I couldn't go searching again for another heartbreak. I can't keep believing in a redemption that clearly isn't coming.

I'm patently afraid to reach out to any of my maternal family, those who grew up with and alongside me, because I know their predispositions for MAGA Christianity. The ones who share it openly have already made their allegiances clear. I am all the identies they hate, I am the outlier. They've already ostracized me. And frankly, I am too scared of how much it would hurt to know the ones I do think highly of still would say the same things if I confronted them to their face.

These children of immigrants who came to the United States over six decades ago themselves to make a better life in a country that wasn't recovering from the horrors of facism.

That includes my mother, who vehemently shushed my sister for trying to make a political joke around her last time. Who my husband and I walked on eggshells with to make sure that nothing got brought up that would start a fight so we could all just have a decent time in each other's company. Do you know how exhausting that is? Do you know how many sleepless nights I have had replaying going to give my mother a hug and her putting her hand up towards my face to stop me and tell me to back off?

Tell me what's left for a scared soon-to-be 37 year old woman who dares to love women and has a car covered in bumper stickers and would take to the streets tomorrow to do the very same thing Renee was shot for?

Untitled Poetry: Sept 2018

your name falls from my lips like a prayer

whispered into the darkness

hands caress skin, stroking my soul

riding the crests and troughs of ecstasy

sweet nectar flowing from within

your bright eyes shine through the blackness

I open mine to meet them

to greet them

to mirror the want and the need and the lust

I open my eyes and it is dark again

the hands are my own

and the nectar nothing but tears.

My Love, My Hero: Februrary 2019

You guys, story time.

MS and the craziness surrounding it doesn't just affect me. It's not just a strain on MY physical, mental, and emotional health. It affects my family and my household too. It affects my husband. Can you imagine having to suddenly send an email saying you're going to miss a meeting because you have to pack up and take your wife to the ER, because she can't feel or use her left arm well and her legs are buckling? Can you imagine watching her, for a week, struggle to even function halfway normally because she is being pumped full of steroids that cause her to have constant panic attacks, mood swings, nausea, all while trying to deal with the fact that suddenly her body will not listen to what she's trying to tell it to do?

All this, all you can do is watch. Fetch an ice pack. Offer a gentle hug. Listen to her cry. Then, suddenly, a few days after treatment, she's watching a commercial for some sort of egg scramble and she becomes HUNGRY for the first time in days, and at 9:30 in the evening you get up and fry her up a few eggs for a sandwich because hey, she's eating something other than a cracker.

And then the next day, when she finally feels like maybe she can eat a whole meal for dinner and she has a really random craving for a homemade burger and some fries - when she wakes up from an evening nap, there is is, a homemade burger and fries.

This man right here is my world. My rock. He has gone above and beyond for me everyday and I can't even begin to describe what it means to me.

The Men We Trust: February 2017

It was a hot Florida summer, the last before my senior year of high school. I, an overdeveloped girl of 17 was in my typical summertime outfit of short shorts and a strappy tank, sitting on the couch, trying to cool off and watching TV. He came into the room, handed me a note. “I’m going to go take a shower and masturbate. If you want to come watch, act like you’re getting clothes out of the closet.”

I recoiled in shock. He apologized like he’d made a mistake. The conversation we had an hour later when he finally managed to coerce me into being alone with him again was completely one-sided. I knew exactly what I had been doing. We had been playing a game, teasing eachother, and I had been a willing participant. He’d been watching so long.

I was 17. He’d been my stepfather for 15 years of my life.

Fast forward a few years later. I’d been dating a really nice guy a few years older than me. Gentle giant type, worked in medical. Sweetest person ever. Except one weekend, we were going away together to a convention. I stayed the night with him the night before we were to leave because it was an early departure. We wound up going to his friend’s party, and had a bit to drink. I passed out and he woke me up later and raped me. I cried. I went to the convention with him, we argued constantly. I ended the relationship when we got back home – never telling a soul the reason we’d had the “big breakup argument.”

I was 19. He’d been my boyfriend for months.

Fast forward again. College now, living on my own, meeting new people and having a good time. One night after a few hours bar hopping, hanging out with friends, I get a little too drunk to drive home. No problem, as I knew most of the bouncers really well, and one offered to drive me back to my place and make sure my car didn’t get towed. I knew his wife. I did the sensible, responsible thing.

Only when we got back to my place, I was dropped off, and then told that I “owed” him for the favor. Too intoxicated to fight back, to protest more than “this is wrong,” he raped me.

I was 21. His wife was my best friend at the time. She found a compromising photo of me on his phone a few weeks later, and blamed me for trying to wreck her home. It was my word against his. I cut all ties, and told no one else.

If you’re thinking there’s a common thread here, and that it’s that I should be blamed for being intoxicated in several cases, you’re dead wrong. Instead why not assign the blame where it’s really due, to these men who had earned my trust and then took advantage of that privilege in the worst way. It’s not like these people were strangers I met once, twice. Not like they were just people who snatched me off the street. They were people I trusted, people with power who chose to abuse their positions.

Why has it taken me so long, so many years of silence to speak up? Fear, anger, regret, remorse, self-loathing. In every case, I heard at least once that it was MY fault, that I had caused this to happen to me, that I was to blame for acting a certain way and inviting this behavior. The thing is, I’m not sure the outcomes would’ve been any different if I had acted any other way, and in any case, it’s irrelevant because it HAPPENED, and I will never get those moments or the aftermath back.

Yet I refuse to carry the shame any longer.