2020 “won” but there is no competition when a new year has come 2020 was a year full of loss, on both a personal and global scale. The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the entire world, and how humanity moves forward from this point will never be the same. One popular meme claims that there was […]
I have decided that I am going to take the time to recenter, refocus, and clarify my life. I am taking the steps I need to focus on the things that are most important for me and my mental health going forward. The first step I decided on was that I lowered my reading goal […]
This reflection was written on the twenty-fifth day of NaNoWriMo in 2020. I do not know why I do not meditate more often. I know that it would help my mental health — I always feel so much better about myself, and much more centered in general when I meditate, but for some reason I […]
The garden is overgrown. Slate had been laid across the dirt to create the patio, but weeds have grown up, died, and grown again between the slabs. I remember when I was a child I would get on my hands and knees and pull on the weeds, the hot summer sun beating down on my […]
Work continues to be overwhelming in the extreme, so I took another dip into my archives and pulled out some material from one of the other periods in my life when I was incredibly overwhelmed; grad school. Here are a few musings from November 2018 about why I write things down, with a side of […]
In this endless game of choose-your-own-apocalypse, its easy to forget that the world was a struggle before 2020. As I was wading through the waters of my Google Drive I found these notes from October 2019, and was reminded. I’ve decided to share them, both as an opportunity to explore this as a time capsule […]
At this point, it is a cliche to say that I am unsurprised by the actions and ideology of J.K. Rowling when it comes to trans individuals and their identities. I have lost much of my hope regarding whether or not she will come to see us as we see ourselves, and not as the […]
We’ve all seen the memes: 2020 is canceled, person throws garbage labeled 2020 in a dumpster, etc. So much about 2020 has been so strange, the wildfires, the pandemic, the fact that it took so many people this long to realize what life is like for those of us who are Black and the fact […]
A year and some months ago, in March 2019, my worldview was entirely different, both in its scope and in its perception of reality. I was taking a critical race theory class at the time, and I was quite frankly frustrated by it, partly because of the material (which was at times triggering) and partly […]
I’ve loved the Harry Potter books for nearly all my remembered life. Getting lost in the Chamber of Secrets my solace and my fortitude on that wet night in September 2005 when I stayed at a friend’s house because a flood had destroyed our apartment. Harry’s scream of primal rage in Order of the Phoenix […]
“Values don’t matter unless they describe behaviors and people are held accountable for them.” @PaulSchmitz1 Those words have been echoing in my brain ever since I attended the AADO-CASE Conference on Diverse Philanthropy and Leadership last week. What do I value? Where do I spend my time? Who do I spend my time with? Thinking […]
I’ve always been kind of obsessed with the word “normal.” And these days it’s coming up much more frequently, because people are talking about how the normal has disappeared. In the wake of COVID-19, what many people once considered “normal” is now gone. And it’s creating panic. People are hoarding toilet paper. Grocery store shelves […]
There is a common and cliched saying, which goes something along the lines of “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” There have been multiple riffs on this, and I don’t mean to reinvent the wheel here, but I am interested in using a few different lenses that I’ve come across lately to […]
I had 18 resolutions for 2018 and 19 resolutions for 2019, so can you really tell me that you weren’t expecting this? That said, this is the year I’m capping it, because coming up with 20 resolutions was actually pretty difficult. But here they are: Read 120 books (average 10 books per month) Improve my […]
Part I: Personal Reflection 2019 came with so many changes in my life it makes me dizzy just to think about them. Most of these changes aren’t really things I want to talk about with the internet, since they pertain to my personal and private life, and not all of the stories are only mine […]