Deciding to go to therapy or to return to therapy can be incredibly daunting. This is a talk I give to my students at the beginning of every semester. It’s on my syllabus. I tell them how important it is to give as much attention to their mental and physical health as they do to their work and studies. Of…
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some kind of grace
Instead of doing a whole long blog post to recap my year (which I usually do mostly for the sake of my own obsessive record keeping and reflection), I’m going to tell you how deeply and terribly depressed I was one year ago today, and how I made it from that moment to this one, from that December 31st to…
this is not my life, it’s just a fond farewell to a friend
The hardest thing about growing into a healthier self is that you have to leave other selves behind. The only coping mechanisms you’ve ever had get cast off, and, until you learn to grow new ones, you’re just a turtle without a shell, naked and looking like a weird flat lizard. Sometimes it feels like a curse to know…
all we know is what would be our home
On the precipice of entering my twenties over ten years ago, I wrote in my journal: I am 20 years old in eight minutes, and I love everything. I’ve been trying to write something about turning 30 for weeks now but all that comes out is recitations. Recitations of my work history, my romantic history, the history of every album I’ve…
I Am Deliberate And Afraid Of Nothing
There’s something I really love about the last day of a year. It’s such an interesting moment where I feel I can look backward and forward in equal measure, remembering the year that passed, imagining the year to come. This year I am particularly grateful for this last day because I am beyond ready to say goodbye to 2017. Last…
coping & coping & trying to cope
When I wake up every morning now and curl back into the darkness that laid me to rest the night before, it is so that I might return to the spaces inside me where I have been most hurt. Last Tuesday, when the world fell away from me, from us, I distinctly remembered collapsing into my mother’s arms at the…
Why I Am Not Choosing Empathy
Out in this desert, I am in Trump country. Joshua Tree itself is fairly liberal and even a bit diverse {we’ve got a very small but solid queer community, as far as I can tell}. But the two towns that flank us, Twentynine Palms and Yucca Valley, are littered with Trump/Pence signs. On election day, I went to run errands…
That’s Why We Came Here
I think often about that Jonathan Safran Foer quote: Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living. I, like most of my friends and loved ones, have a lot of projects and lives I want to pursue, but limited time in a day, and a need for a stable income to…
A Decade of September 12ths
A friend of mine made fun of me recently for making everything into an anniversary. I don’t think this is my fault. Facebook is always reminding me, On This Day. Instagram has created so many hashtag holidays I swear it is always National Something I Love Day {Dog, Donuts, Ice Cream, Best Friends, Siblings, &c &c &c}. I live in…
Lately I’ve Been Listening to the Oceans
Lately I’ve been listening to the Oceans: Frank, Vuong, Pacific Lately I’ve been writing from all angles. It’s a word I can’t spell anymore without writing angels first, then deleting it. I used to write the name of this city as Los Angles until I started to hear it in Spanish in my head and never mistook a godly creature…