The Doe’s Latest Stories

I’m a Truck Driver: How I’ve Spent a Life Behind the Wheel

Some of my earliest childhood memories belong in the front of a truck. My friend’s father ran a local freight delivery service that distributed hardware supplies shipped in from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. The semi-trucks would dock at his small terminal, and my friend and I would help unpack and load it into his dad’s straight truck. Then, we’d ride along and watch him make stops on his delivery route. We were only 6 or 7 years old, so we couldn’t help much, but I loved sitting up high and rolling around town. As a kid growing up in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, I kept chasing that feeling. I spent most days riding my bike around the neighborhood, pretending I was driving a big rig, and though my brother and sister were much older, I remember having a big gravel driveway where my friends and younger cousins would pave roads to race our bikes. It wasn’t until I was 14 that I got hooked with a real taste of the trucking business.A distant relative, Justin, hauled livestock for a living and asked me to help him pick up cows, pigs and sheep from various local farms. We’d get the animals on Monday and drive to a slaughterhouse in South St. Paul, where we’d unload them and wash the manure out of the straight truck. Then, we’d spend the night and head back to Sauk Centre with freight before repeating the cycle on Thursday. I wasn’t allowed to drive until I got my chauffeur’s license at 16, but sometimes, Justin would let me behind the wheel of his semi and encourage me to back the 40-foot trailer into the docks. In those days, there would be a bunch of older gentlemen watching me—a stressful experience but one that made me feel pretty cool. Today, at 65, I’m still in the driver’s seat. Throughout a 37-year career working for Minnesota’s transportation department, I always kept my passion for driving, taking on trucking jobs over weekends and holidays to supplement my income and continue a life on the road. Since retiring in 2010 from that gig, I’ve transitioned to trucking full-time, traversing interstates in a 2007 Peterbilt 386 through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, where I haul just about everything. Over the last decade, I’ve tallied over half a million miles. It’s tough and lonely work, something my wife and I have gotten used to throughout our 47-year marriage. I’ve had some close calls, endured cramped quarters and met plenty of characters along the way, but I love the feeling of taking an adventure each week, rolling down the open road, looking out at the wide-open pastures and feeling a sense of freedom. These days, I’m a dying breed.

These days, I’m a dying breed.

The Written (and Unwritten) Rules of the Road

I never thought about trucking as a career. I graduated from high school in 1973 and a few months later started employment at MnDOT, where my brother worked. I’d put up sign postings and paint messages on the road, eventually graduating to maintenance work patching holes, fixing guardrails, mowing grass and plowing snow. The job didn’t pay much—my starting rate was $3.16 per hour—but it had good vacation and sick leave. In my day, the longer you stayed at one job, the better it got, and I eventually moved into a supervising role in St. Cloud for my last 10 years there. Still, I needed to get my driving fix, so I hauled freight for my cousin Mary’s trucking company on weekends and holidays. I would even take vacations just to lug around grain, machinery, milk replacer and animal feed with a semi-truck all over the five-state area—Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas. After getting married in 1975, I’d also haul milk every other weekend, picking it up from farms and dropping it at a reload center. I would go on to work two jobs—sometimes even driving coach buses—for the majority of my life. Of course, driving a semi-truck requires lots of training and caution. One of the first things I learned was not to back into anything. A sticker on most truck mirrors says “GOAL,” which stands for “Get Out and Look.” Whether you’re at a truck stop or a docking station, it’s crucial to get out of the vehicle and determine the trailer's angle before proceeding in reverse. Just last week, a trucker was trying to back into a parking space too fast, causing nearby drivers to blow their horns to prevent an accident. Watching your mirrors is even more important on the highways, where cars always look to pass and sneak around your 18 wheels. Most drivers don’t realize that passing me and leaving minimal room ahead could lead to a rear-ending at the next red light. Why would you want to be in front of an 80,000-pound truck? Nowadays, if you try to pass a car, they’ll intentionally speed up—as soon as you get back behind them, they slow down. That’s produced some close calls in my career, like when I was driving a little too fast in an Illinois snowstorm. I was behind a semi that abruptly slowed down when firemen began directing us to take an off-ramp. As I peeled off to the right, I nearly bumped a car in front of me and slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding an accident. I just about had to change my underwear. Under the rule books, you’re allowed to drive 11 hours in one day and can be on duty for 14 hours a day. The longest I’ve driven without stopping is about seven hours, but in my older age, I usually only last a few hours at one time. Sitting all the time, my legs are getting stiffer, and I’ve learned to be careful exiting my truck so they don’t give out. Often, I’ll find a truck stop or rest area to stay for the night and retire to the back of the sleeper, where I’ve got a cooler to keep sandwiches and drinks and a microwave to heat up canned beans or soups. It’s pretty comfortable. I especially love the spring and fall, when it’s 60 degrees at night and I can open the windows in my bunk to get a nice breeze. Still, truck stops can be dangerous—and gross—areas. Some cowboys will speed into stations in seventh or eighth gear, and it’s really easy to get run over. The worst drivers will also litter outside their vehicles, leaving garbage on the ground like pigs. Walmart used to let truckers park in their big lots, but too many left behind piss bottles and personal trash by the curb, so the store stopped letting us park there. On occasion, you’ll see prostitutes—colloquially known as “lot lizards”—circling packs of trucks, asking drivers if they’d like a little company, but that practice isn’t as popular anymore. The bigger issue is sex trafficking of minors, and most semi-drivers receive training about what to look for and phone numbers to call in case they see something suspicious. Thankfully, I haven't witnessed anything yet.

I just about had to change my underwear.

After Four-Plus Decades, I Still Love Driving a Semi-Truck

In 1994, my wife and I bought our first truck, a 1987 Kenworth T600, hired a driver and started our own business leasing trucks to local companies. When I bought the T600, it smoked a bit, but the dealer had just overhauled it and believed it would clear. But after five weeks, we discovered the camshaft was shot and the air conditioner was broken. We had maybe gotten one or two checks so far, so I had to get a loan and borrowed $10,000. My wife freaked out, but our driver gave us some good advice: “If you can't take this, you better get out. This is truck driving.”Eventually, we bought three more trucks and hired a few more drivers to work full time. It’s hard to find good, loyal drivers though. Many of them pivot between companies, chasing better pay rates, but most of the time, those don’t last. Generally, a trucking company will pay drivers based on the percentage or mileage of the freight they’re carrying. A typical freight line might give the truck owner an 80 percent split to carry freight worth a dollar a mile, but some companies split differently if the freight costs more. When it comes to pay, if it's too good, it ain't true. If it's really good, it ain't going to last.We downsized to just one truck after I retired, and now I’m the only one driving. For most of the last decade, I’ve been dropping off frozen turkeys to Walmart, Cisco and Aldi distribution centers throughout the Midwest and some Southern states. My route usually takes me to six different stops and lasts about three days, and I do my best to make it back home before the weekend. I like routine. I like knowing the same procedures and people I’m working with each trip. Luckily, the truck line I work for has treated me well and ensures I can take off when needed. I’ve also become very familiar with the best rest stops and restaurants after having been on the road for so long. I try to have at least one good, hot meal a day; sometimes, that means stopping in Mendota, Illinois, a favorite small town with ample parking, but more recently, that means finding a Denny’s off the highway. I’ve been getting the sirloin steak and salad there, and now I get 15 percent off my meals with my AARP card. In between, I scroll through SiriusXM to keep me busy, listening to Classic Vinyl, the ’60s and ’70s channels, and occasionally the trucker's channel, which discusses popular issues in the trucking industry. My CB radio is also crucial to get alerts from other drivers of incoming traffic and weather. The hardest part is loneliness. While driving, I do my best to call my wife, kids and friends, who have all learned to adjust to my lifestyle and schedule. The average worker comes home around 5 p.m. and will get to spend time with his partner and family, have dinner and watch the news. When truckers come home, however, their limited time is most likely spent fixing and catching up on all the yard and housework they missed throughout the week. It’s easy to miss home when you walk into a bathroom truck stop, try to brush your teeth and there are a couple of guys grunting and farting and shitting. Not everyone is cut out for this life, which is probably why most drivers are my age. I vowed to drive for 10 years after my retirement, but our truck was recently overhauled, motivating me to keep going for a couple more years. It still gives me joy. I love looking out the window and watching farmers in the fields, crossing into new states and seeing the differences in landscapes and people. And yes, if you ever pass me on the highway and pump your fist up and down, I’ll be sure to honk the horn.

Butch

December 18, 2023

The Choice I Wish I Didn’t Have: The Abortion Scar I’ll Always Carry With Me

A woman has a right to decide. That’s the typical argument of a pro-choice person. This is also what I repeatedly told myself when I made that choice. A choice I will carry with me for the rest of my life.When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I felt relieved because thousands of women would no longer subject themselves to a traumatizing experience that I still regret to this day. Despite that relief, I felt alone, as most women in my community, including close friends and family members, rallied together to speak out against the Supreme Court’s decision. “My body, my choice” posts and hashtags were posted in feed after feed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if those individuals have had to make that choice themselves or understood the negative repercussions it could have.

I was deeply conflicted.

I Chose to Get an Abortion Out of Fear for My Future

I made that choice nine years ago. Although I try to bury it, the procedure is as clear to me as if it happened yesterday. As much as I wanted to have a child and start a family, at that time, I didn’t feel like I was ready for several reasons. I was 23 and in college, just a semester short of completing my undergrad. I was afraid that a child would hold me back and that others would judge me for it. Looking back now, trying to make sense of that decision, I realize that there was always a negative stigma built around children being such a burden to women; as I saw it then, women could not be successful if they had a child.I made that decision mainly out of fear. I was raised in a traditional Filipino Catholic home with a strict mother. I thought that if I kept the baby, there would be pressure for the baby’s father and me to get married, and I feared that I’d have to give up on pursuing my undergrad. I questioned my future and the likelihood of disappointing my family. I’m a nonpracticing Catholic with a firm belief in science and logic. I believed in God, but that did not mean that life did not have gray areas. Because the abortion was a procedure legally available to me, and one that could be kept a secret, I ultimately carried through with it.When I arrived at the clinic, I tried not to think about how I felt or what consequences I’d face. I focused on how I’d be in and out, back to living my everyday life soon as if nothing had happened. I repeatedly told myself this to keep from changing my mind because I was deeply conflicted. During the procedure, I wanted to find every reason to say that I didn’t want to go through with it, but I remained silent.The doctor informed me that I’d be awake but groggy during this procedure and that the anesthesia would take several minutes to take effect. I heard the device switch on, which sounded like a vacuum with loud suction—a noise that reminded me of being terrified by a vacuum when I was a little girl, running away from my mother as she plowed through the carpeted floor. I always thought that the vacuum was a monster, ready to suck the life out of me. Ironically, as an adult, I was the monster allowing a vacuum to end the life of my unborn child.The procedure began. I felt the pressure, and then I felt the suction. I held my breath as I felt the doctor maneuver the thin tube around my canal. I held the nurse’s hand throughout the procedure, my right hand tightly sandwiched between her two hands. I remember painfully looking up at her in tears.It felt longer than I anticipated, and I wanted it to end. Then, the suction stopped, and the doctor swiftly removed the tube and the clamp simultaneously. I breathed in deeply, letting out a trembling exhale and whimpered. The nurse brought her head closer to mine while still holding my hand and said, “You are no longer pregnant.”These words still painfully haunt me to this day.

Later, Becoming a Mother Made Me Realize I Didn’t Have to Give Anything Up

I will always live to regret what I did. This has been an unbearable emotional burden to carry, and now being a mother of two boys, I know there was no good reason to justify why I did it. My decision was out of convenience because of what I felt then.Becoming a mother has shifted my perspective in many ways, notably in ways that could have shaped a different decision back then. My two boys are the best things that have happened to me, and the world did not stop for me because I chose to be a mother—because I did not let it.The more research I’ve done on this controversial topic, the more I discover that, logically and scientifically, it doesn’t make sense to me to prioritize one life over the other. Although I understand that there are special circumstances that warrant getting an abortion, such as rape, incest and medical conditions that endanger both the mother and baby, I believe the narrative that terminating a pregnancy is a woman’s right regardless of her reasoning is hypocritical and needs to be challenged. There are other ways to support each other as women than to deprive lives.Similarly, the narrative that an abortion is a common, everyday medical procedure is problematic. It sensationalizes ending the lives of unborn children, and I find it no different from sensationalizing murder and suicide. Supporting these narratives, in my opinion, perpetuates the idea that women don’t have any other choice and they must choose one over the other: a career over a family or their life over another’s.Having a baby is scary. There are many uncertainties, fears and worries that stem from an undefined future. As much as we try to plan and prepare ourselves, we’ll never know what can happen. But having a baby is also filled with an overwhelming sense of love and hope that we can, in turn, instill in our children.We hope that they grow up to save the world. We hope that they have better opportunities, better relationships, better chances and better lives than we did because there’s a possibility that things will get better. We choose to have faith that it will. Otherwise, why would we be living? Children give us that hope. They grow to question, wonder and dream—things that we adults have done and should give children the chance to do.

I will always live to regret what I did.

What I Know Now: Abortion Is Not the Only Option

As women, we should ask ourselves if we should let fear and uncertainty dictate denying a life. That very choice would be to deny the possibilities of a better life and a better world. A choice that will continue to perpetuate fear.As the proverb reminds us, it takes a village to raise a child. As a community, we can all benefit from working together to be proactive rather than be remedial and resort to abortion as a solution. We can be proactive with better policies that support working mothers and fathers. We can choose love. We have the choice to support our community, build stronger foundations to help uplift the difficulties and burdens parents face and raise our children to think beyond themselves as individuals. We have the choice to rally together on this highly controversial subject and choose to prioritize educating our youth about prevention through contraception and the other choices that women have, such as adoption and safe haven laws in certain states.Everyone has a different experience that shapes their opinion on abortion. Unfortunately, my experience is living with the reality that I chose my life over that of another. Although I don’t think it's right to shame any woman who has made this difficult choice, it’s one that I’m not proud of.

M on the Moon

December 18, 2023

It Was Easier to Love My Body at the Height of the Pandemic

For some strange reason, it was far easier for me to love and accept my body during the start of the pandemic and the isolation that came with it. As a body positivity advocate, I feel like a fraud for feeling like this, for disliking parts of my body I once preached to love.

There wasn’t anyone around to judge my body or what I chose to wear.

I Felt Free to Accept My Body as It Was

Growing up, I had a tough relationship with my body. I was never a slim child or teen, and I’ve never been slim throughout my early, mid or late 20s. I battled bad body image throughout school, but at 18, I discovered the body positivity community on social media and felt like I was on the right track.Having always been a bit bigger—plus size, if you will—it has taken a lot for me to get comfortable with my body, and the lockdowns at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to be the ultimate solution. For me, the series of unexpected stay-at-home orders in 2020 felt like a chance to heal and explore—maybe even to find self-love. I learned to love my body in ways I never knew possible and began to accept what society had taught me to loathe.Keeping myself isolated and secluded from the world in order to stay safe meant I only had myself to compare myself to, leading to the biggest boost in my confidence in ages. There wasn’t anyone around to judge my body or what I chose to wear. I wore bikinis for the first time in years, and I found ultimate happiness when frolicking around my home in nothing but knickers and a T-shirt.Finding my footing with body positivity, I documented my journey on Instagram through photos of my body, stretch marks, cellulite and belly rolls. Inspiring others and seeing myself in this new light allowed me to truly accept my body in an entirely different way than ever before. Instead of disliking it and comparing my flaws to the perfections of other people, I learned to love everything about my body and what it does for me.

Once Lockdown Was Over, I Feared Being Fat Again

When stay-at-home orders began to lift and life resumed to a new normal, things started to go downhill. Negative thoughts and harmful old habits slowly crept up on me: I found myself comparing my body to other people again, worrying what they thought of me, my body and my size.My sparkle slowly began to fade as a more normal life returned, and I soon felt the need to change my body. Fearing fatness after finding peace in the word, I became worried that I was heading in the wrong direction. I’ve completely reversed all the progress I’d worked so hard for.I felt—and still feel—like a complete fraud because I'm supposed to be a body positive advocate who loves her body, accepts it for what it is and is confident no matter what. But instead, I’ve been struggling with constant negative thoughts all year. I constantly ask friends and family if I've “gotten bigger” or if eating a certain food is “bad.” That self-love and understanding I’d built in quarantine was swiftly and immediately erased when the world opened up again. I’ve backslid so much that I fear I’ll never reach my peak positive self again.

I feel like a fraud for disliking parts of my body I once preached to love.

I’m Trying to Dismantle Old Habits

Midway through spring earlier this year, I hit a real rough patch with my body positivity journey. Feeling like I was “getting bigger,” I succumbed to buying an exercise bike to tone up. In my teens, exercise was a grueling task that was only done to lose weight, but I didn’t want to lose weight this time—I only wanted to maintain it. I thought working toward maintenance would help keep negative thoughts at bay. But ever since, I’ve had diets on my mind, toying with the idea of fasting, drinking slimming shakes and adopting restrictive habits. Knowing that kind of lifestyle would be detrimental to my mental and physical health is the only reason I haven’t succumbed to those extremes…yet. Feeling like a fraud isn’t fun. Promoting body positivity and self-love online while I secretly battle with feeling ugly, disgusting and like I need to slim down isn’t great either. But I am working on myself again and ensuring I take my own advice. Reading through old social media posts where I preach about loving the skin you’re in, moving for joy instead of as a punishment and eating good food to nourish my body in an intuitive way are all helping. And I’m wearing clothes that make me feel good. I’m faking it until I make it.Sometimes, when I get home and look in the mirror or see a photo somebody took of me on a night out, I’m overcome with wishing we were back in lockdown so I could be that version of me again—the me who loved her body and didn’t care what people thought, and the me who truly accepted every inch for what it was and how it served me. But I'm working on it. I’ll find her again.

December 18, 2023

I Wish My Mother Would Die So I Can Get On With My Grieving

“Look at how cute you were!” The text from my mother was accompanied by a photo of me at around 8 years old, when I was a flower girl at a relative’s wedding. The bride and I wore white dresses; we each held a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath. My smile was naive, milk teeth showing. I was missing one in the front. I’d seen the photo before but not for years. A rock formed in my stomach; I knew it was me, but I didn’t recognize myself as that little girl. I tapped the screen to close the text app. I wept. My parents divorced when I was 5. At 7, we moved in with my mother’s old flame. He drank. He’d soon turn violent, and my mother would follow suit on both counts. We didn’t know that when the photo was taken. I was a precocious child and a voracious reader. I knew big words but not always what they meant. I was probably also a little sassy, a combination that didn’t bode well around grown-ups who liked to drink and sometimes got violent when the empty beer cans began to pile up. My childhood had scores of fill-in-the-blank details regarding alcoholism and domestic violence. However, this story is not about those years.

My Mother Turned Me Over to Foster Care

The violence and alcoholism escalated. I lashed out. In homes like mine, this often happens. Someone becomes known as the black sheep, and the family pins their issues on them. I was that sheep. My mother gave up custody when I reached 13 and turned me over to the family court system. Over the years, my placements ranged from juvenile detention to residential programs to group homes. The goal of the foster care system is to reunite children with their families, if possible. My social worker was kind and saw a bright something in me that she knew the system would crush. When I was 14, she helped my mother make plans to move to Arizona near our closest relatives. This was a beacon of hope, a carrot on a stick; once my mother moved away from her boyfriend, I’d be able to go home. I talked about the move with my counselors and the other kids. That summer, I had a hard time thinking about other things. Moving to Arizona was a mantra I couldn’t get out of my head. “You’ll go home as soon as we can get your mother on her feet,” my social worker said. I studied her dark ponytail and glasses. She was younger than my mother. She’d never lied to me. It was easy to believe what she said. “How soon?” I asked. “When will I get to go to a new school?” I weighed the possibility of moving right away and starting my first day of high school in Arizona rather than another placement.

My mother gave up custody when I reached 13.

Escaping Foster Care Proved to Be an Endless Waiting Game

“When are we moving, Mama?” I asked. I was on a day pass. On Saturdays, I was allowed out for a few hours. We went for Italian food at a strip mall restaurant every week, then we’d run her errands. I pushed spaghetti around on my plate. I’d always order water and the cheapest item on the menu so my mother could save up for the move.“Soon. I just need to get some things in order.” My mother dragged a piece of bread through the sauce on her plate. It was always a similar answer: “I need more time.” “Soon.” “Be patient.” It took me a long time to realize she was only ever saying, “We’ll see.” Later, she’d drop me off at the residential center and go home to her boyfriend. Summer came and went. I started high school in the same center. I spent holidays there when some of the other kids got to visit home. Home was still unsafe for me with my mother’s boyfriend there. I trusted my social worker and my mother. I believed she was moving. Someone would have told me otherwise, but there were delays. I didn’t know what they were, but it was easy to convince myself that I was at fault. I considered the delay often, wondering what I’d done to make her mad. I needed to be better: better behaved, better grades, better daughter. I obsessed over this but never arrived at the correct answer. “Good enough” fit. I vowed to make myself good enough that she’d finally move and let me come home. Fast-forward through my teenage years. I bounced around from placement to placement. Moving to Arizona lost its form as language. It was as much a part of me as my hair color or the shape of my hands. My mother was moving. All I needed to do to get her there was to be good enough.

I Blamed Myself for My Mother’s Lack of Love

We never moved to Arizona. I believed I wasn’t good enough. I turned 18 and aged out of the system. Fast-forward through my 20s. I was angry but lashing out only at myself. There was nobody around to tell me certain things weren’t a good idea. There were drugs, some worse than others. I took my clothes off for money. I pierced and tattooed myself in regrettable ways. I went to jail. Twice. I was not good enough, and I was hell-bent on proving that to myself and everyone else. Fast-forward a bit more, because I got my shit together in an exceptional way. “Good enough” and “moving to Arizona” had been there since I was a teenager and they’d never left. It was the only way I could relate to my mother. Thus, without realizing what I was doing, I spent many years demonstrating that I was good enough. I got an education and a good corporate job. I have initials behind my last name. I married well. I spent lavishly on my mother; I had no idea how else to demonstrate “good enough.” I had anxiety. I had mood swings. I had insomnia. I had medication to dull everything to a perfectly flat line. However, regardless of my achievements, I never stopped trying to be good enough. Sometimes, anxiety paralyzed me when I’d leave my mother’s house. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t need to. I had a pill for that. Circle back to my cell phone, the text message, “Look at how cute you were!” and the photo of me as a flower girl. “That little girl had no idea,” I sobbed to my husband, referring to my photo in third person. It was an ugly cry. I was red-faced and shaking. I wiped my nose on my sleeve. He wrapped me in his arms, unsure of what to say. My tears dampened his shirt. He knew every inch of my history. “She might as well have been following a bouncy ball toward the edge of a cliff.” The child in the photo had never been hit, kicked or slapped by a grown man. She’d never let strangers pay to touch her.

Regardless of my achievements, I never stopped trying to be good enough.

I’m Ready to Mourn My Mother and Grieve the Childhood I Never Had

What is the opposite of a damaged human? The answer is that photo. I was shattering in my husband’s arms, remembering what I’d been through: physical violence, abandonment, longing for my mother to love me enough to move to Arizona and all the ways I laid down in the gutter in anger at myself. I pulled away from my husband. “Look at how cute you were,” I repeated my mother’s text message between sobs. “You did this to me,” I spat at her, sobbing, even though she was many miles away. I collapsed into my husband again. “You never moved. That little girl had no idea what was coming.”I had a powerful moment of clarity: I’d spent decades trying to be good enough when it was no longer feasible for me to “come home.” Our entire relationship was based on what moving to Arizona meant to my teenage self. I haven’t spoken to my mother in a few years. You’re not supposed to say this out loud: I wish she would die. I’ll mourn, not for the loss of her as she is but for the loss of the mother I never had. I’d like to get it over with. I want to grieve for that little girl, begin to heal myself and finally move on. It won’t break me, because I’ve built a solid support system in my life. However, I know it will try.

December 18, 2023

I Don’t Know If I Should Forgive My Homophobic Family

I don’t remember my first kiss. I remember my second kiss, the kiss I told everyone for seven years was my first kiss because I was so ashamed of my real first kiss being with a girl. Years of lying and internalized homophobia completely erased any memory of my first kiss. I can’t help but wonder what else I’ve lost because of the homophobic environment in which I was raised. As a lesbian living in Oklahoma, I grew up around constant homophobia. Of course, nobody—myself included—realized I was gay while I was living there. I spent 21 years thinking I was a heterosexual woman when I didn’t even like speaking to men. I know there are layers to this. Obviously, I was in denial about my sexuality—that much is a given. I still get caught up in that even though I would regularly make out with my best friend; I still thought I wasn’t gay. If I were gay, wouldn’t I just know? “This was just about experimenting,” I thought. Everyone does it at some point! That level of cognitive dissonance makes me wonder if perhaps part of my own denial was rooted in a subconscious desire to keep myself safe.

It was beaten into my head that gay people should live their lives silently and in hiding.

I Realized I Was Lesbian Over the Pandemic

It wasn’t unusual for families to kick their kids out in my hometown if they were gay. I was lucky enough to make friends in high school who showed me that everyone isn’t like that. To be clear, my family didn’t ever kick me out or threaten to do so, but they made it crystal clear that the “gay lifestyle” was not one that they accepted or thought my sister or I would be a part of. I remember the first time I met gay people in real life (that I knew of, anyway); my dad introduced me to a lesbian couple with whom he’d been working for over a decade. He later told me that he didn’t mind them, specifically because they “didn’t rub their sexuality in [his] face.” From an elementary age, it was beaten into my head that gay people should live their lives silently and in hiding. I’d watch TV with my family only to hear negative comments during the rare times there was any kind of queer representation. “Ugh, I don’t know why that is necessary,” or, “I just wasn’t raised to think that is OK,” or, from a grandparent I thought was more progressive, “Ew, so they let fags on TV now?” The word “gay” was rarely ever used, as if it were dirty and we’d catch it if we spent too much time even hearing queer terms.I was two years into my college and over a thousand miles away from my hometown before I realized I might possibly be into women. Even when I came to this realization, it was only because I was surrounded by queer friends and realized that everything they said about being queer felt like they were taking thoughts I didn’t even realize were inherently queer directly out of my head. It took a pandemic and months of isolation and self-reflection (plus a not-so-subtle comment from a lesbian friend that every man I had ever found attractive looked like a woman) to realize I wasn’t into men at all—to realize I was a lesbian. Since then, I have become vocal about LGBTQ+ rights, as well as my own lesbian identity on social media, much to the apparent chagrin of my family. When I came out publicly, everyone on my dad’s side of the family stopped talking to me. I spent two years almost entirely outcast from my family. I wasn’t invited to holidays, family events or even my cousin’s wedding.

I’m Trying to Understand Parents Who Forced Me to Repress My True Self

My family now says they’re not homophobic. In fact, they “never have been” and they’re sorry I’ve ever “felt that way.” The kid in me who never felt accepted by her parents wants to believe them, if not just so I can have the relationship I have always craved. I want to be able to ignore our past. I want to be able to have a relationship separate from opinions on sexuality, but how can I do that when so much of my identity is related to being a lesbian? I often look back and think about how my life would have been different if I knew I was gay growing up. Would I have had a girlfriend before college? Would I have avoided my abusive relationship for almost a year? I watch movies and TV shows about queer teens that have come out in recent years and think to myself, “This could have been me, if only I had known.” The perspective has shifted a bit—all the signs were right in front of me.As a freshman in high school, I regularly kissed a female friend and had suspiciously close female friendships that typically ended in explosive friendship breakups. I had absolutely zero interest in men—even when I was dating them. Of course, ignorance probably played a role in my denial, but I think, for the most part, I was so scared of what could happen to me if I were gay that I couldn’t even let myself consider it. I want to push down my feelings toward my family. I’m torn between wanting to form a relationship with my parents for my younger self and cutting myself off from my family to protect my queer identity and my future self. Sometimes, I can succeed in repressing my feelings of resentment toward my mother, but forgiving her for 18 years of conditioning me to hate a fundamental part of who I am feels like a betrayal. It’s not just a betrayal to my younger self but a betrayal to all of the young LGBTQ+ kids in hostile home environments who may not have the opportunity or ability to fight back. Coming to terms with and understanding my sexuality was a process that came with a great deal of grief, self-loathing and abandonment from family and friends alike. I had to grieve the idea of myself created in the image of what people wanted me to be. I had to grieve the aspirations I had for the future, which I wasn’t attached to until I realized they no longer fit in the picture. I’m still realizing daily that things I have dreamed of for years were never my dreams to begin with. The more I discover about myself, the more I realize I hardly knew myself at all. I was a shell of who I could be, who I’m desperately trying to be now, masquerading as anything everyone else wanted me to be.

I’m torn between wanting to form a relationship with my parents for my younger self and cutting myself off from my family to protect my queer identity and my future self.

I Still Can’t Trust That My Family Loves Me Unconditionally

Now I’m faced with a family who says they love me for who I am, a family who wants to see me, spend time with me and have a relationship with me. I’m out, I’m loud and I am proud of who I am, but when I spend time with my family, I feel small, defenseless, exposed and uncertain. I’m constantly reminded that while they may say that they accept me for who I am, they wish I was someone else. Someone who agrees with them, who marries a nice man and settles down to pop out a few kids—definitely not a vocal lesbian with tattoos, piercings and an inclination to start arguments with just about anyone when necessary. Can they even love me if they have to compartmentalize my personality to do so? Can they love me if they would choose to have a different baby almost 24 years ago if it meant that baby would be straight? I want to believe that they can, but the 14-year-old queer kid who thought she was a disgusting mistake for kissing her best friend is having a much harder time accepting that. My gut says I should leave my family behind and rely on found family and myself. Unfortunately, my heart still has a hard time letting them go, and I find myself wanting to see the best in them and hoping that one day they will change. Why is it that after 24 years of proving to me who they are as people, I still find myself not believing them?

Lesbihonest

December 18, 2023

My Parents Pressured Me to Get an Abortion: I Didn't Do It

When I was a senior in high school, I found out I was pregnant. I wasn't expecting that. I was only 16 years old.When my parents got the news, they immediately started talking about abortion. There was really no other option in their heads. They told me that having a kid would ruin my life. My dad was away for work when he found out. My mom had called him, and when my mom handed me the phone, the first thing he said was that he was making an appointment for me at an abortion clinic. “Go and listen to this woman. Hear what she has to say,” he said. That's the only doctor's appointment my dad has ever made for me in my life. The following day, my mom drove me to the clinic. The lady left my mom in the waiting room and brought me back. As I was sitting down, I told her that I was against abortion when it comes to myself, so don't even try to put any words in my head or make me go that route. “That's not what I want,” I told her. “I'm just here to please my parents.” Which is a waste of time. That was the shortest doctor's appointment I've ever been to. Afterward, my mom drove me home in silence.

Having a 16-year-old daughter get pregnant would make them look bad. They don't like looking bad. It was embarrassing to them.

My Parents Made an Appointment at an Abortion Clinic Without My Consent

I didn’t know how to take my parents pushing me this way. All these adults were trying to make decisions for me, and standing up to them was rough. Another reason why they pushed it was that to my parents, having a 16-year-old daughter get pregnant would make them look bad. They don't like looking bad. It was embarrassing to them. Abortion had never crossed my mind until I found myself in that position. I was against it, but only when it came to my body. If someone else is in the same situation and wants to get an abortion, by all means, they should have that right. We should all be able to make our own choices with our bodies. When I became pregnant, “choice” was a word I heard a lot. I was only 16, and it was my choice to make this kid. It was not this kid's fault. Maybe she was only a seed at the time, but the idea of getting an abortion didn't sit right with me. I knew if I got it, I'd regret it.Even after taking me to that appointment, my parents still tried to push me to get an abortion. They hated whenever anyone else talked about me being pregnant. There was a point where I ended up packing all my stuff up and moving in with my grandpa. I just couldn't handle it anymore. When I got pregnant, they punished me—they took my phone and my car—which was just crazy to me because I was already pregnant. I don't know what they were trying to do, but it had already happened. It was really rough. I wouldn't have expected less from them though. My parents aren't religious, but they were strict with me when I was growing up. I wasn't allowed to sleep over at any of my friends' houses. My parents think material things are the same as love. They think that because they gave me everything I asked for growing up, that I was well taken care of. They thought that was everything. And it's not. Now that I'm a parent, it affects me more. That's not love. My daughter knows she's loved because I tell her. Material things aren't everything.

What My Parents Didn't Realize: I'm an Independent Woman

They weren't really about the boyfriend thing either. They knew about him and where I was every day, whenever I got together with him. But I was already pretty independent by the time I got pregnant. I've been working since I was 15 years old. I had a really good job at the district attorney's office, and I worked there until the end of my pregnancy. My boyfriend didn't have a job though. He was a bum, at home every day smoking weed. His family wasn't so helpful to him. At the beginning of me finding out I was pregnant, he was living under a bridge because his sister had kicked him out. His mom wasn't really in his life. It was just a big old mess.He came with me when I moved in with my grandpa. We were basically just hopping from house to house. Eventually, my parents ended up letting him move in with us. It took a lot for them to do that, but again, what could they do? I was already pregnant. They helped out a lot. They helped my boyfriend get a license. They paid for his driving classes. He ended up getting a job, and a lot changed. His daughter and I gave him the motivation he didn't have before. He just needed that help. He'd never had it, which is why he was a bum.I knew getting pregnant was shocking to my parents. But the way they handled it was to jump straight to me getting an abortion, instead of sitting me down and talking through all the options with me and making sure I knew what might happen with each. Thankfully, I had a say with my own body. My parents didn't have control over what I did with it.

I had a say with my own body. My parents didn't have control over what I did with it.

Not Aborting My Teenage Pregnancy Was the Best Decision I've Ever Made

I know I would have regretted having an abortion. Having my daughter was life-changing for me. It may sound crazy, but that was the greatest thing that could have happened to me. Her dad and I have both grown so much since then, all in good ways. Now he's a supervisor at his job. We're on our second baby. We're living on our own. Life is great. Now I think my mom loves my kids’ dad more than she loves me. My dad still makes comments to this day that I “ruined my life.” I don't think that he means to intentionally, but whenever he's talking to my younger sisters, he'll say, “Don't go and ruin your life like she did.” It still bothers me. I'm 21 now, and you'd think he'd be proud of me. My life has gotten way better since I had my daughter.Not everybody's story ends like mine, especially anyone getting pregnant at 16. But my daughter's 4 now, and I still look at her like, “Wow, this is what they wanted me to kill. They wanted me to get rid of her.” And now they love her to death. It's just so crazy to me how my daughter loves my mom. One day, I really want to tell her the story, but I have mixed emotions about it. I don't know how it'll make her feel or if it'll change her relationship with my mom. But I think if she were to ever be in the situation I found myself in, I would let her know what my parents were trying to do with me. I'd let her have the choices that my parents didn't let me have.

Pinky

December 18, 2023

Sex

What I Discovered About My Femininity When I Masturbated Almost Every Day for a Month

My preoccupation with daily self-love arose during my early 30s. I was newly single after 11 years in a relationship.I was enduring the particularly evil type of heartbreak that afflicts people who still love their partners—ex-partners—but have to leave them because the person in question struggles with addiction. Addiction is a truly hateful disease, and after 11 years of loving a good man who continued to actively use, I took the self-immolating step of leaving him.

My Journey to Self-Love Was Fueled by Self-Doubt

I was looking for any way possible to transform my body from a site of pain (heartbreak causes aggressive inflammatory responses in the human body; it is called heartache for a reason) and revulsion (nothing makes you hate yourself more than someone saying, “I want to use drugs more than I want you,”) into a place of pleasure.To be honest, I would have settled for mild discomfort.Masturbating was difficult because my heartache only compounded the relentless social messaging of shame surrounding my female body: disgust with the way I look and smell, how my hair looks, the size or shape of each part of me.Being vocal about self-pleasure is the only thing more shameful than being a woman. Living in a society that is obsessed with women in porn, but silent on women’s pleasure, is extremely damaging.Despite all of these things, I hoped that the practice of staunch, resolute wanking might help to undo some of that damage.I approached this quest keenly aware of the oft-cited orgasm gap, where only 65 percent of heterosexual women report climaxing every time they have sex compared to 95 percent of heterosexual men. (Shout out to the queer women of the world—doing the lord’s work with and for each other with much better odds!) I took strength from the data, which showed solo self-love has a much higher success rate for women. I was also desperate, so I was going to do it anyway.

Being vocal about self-pleasure is the only thing more shameful than being a woman.

The Sex-periment Begins

During my one-month wankathon, I let Michelle Obama be one of my self-love guiding lights. I recalled her wise reminder at regular intervals: “We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to-do list.” I put myself right at the very top of my own to-do list and got to work.Day 1: The first day was difficult. I felt silly and embarrassed. I thought the experiment was stupid, and I thought I was stupid for trying to feel good at all when my grief was killing me. I channeled this energy and had a kind of angry, stupid wank. The fact that it was successful and I really did feel better afterward helped me realize that successful masturbation doesn’t require a very sexy frame of mind or a turn-on. It can be used as a deliberate strategy to change your state, like exercise or music or drugs.Day 4: In my search for any kind of guidance on how to survive the heartbreak I was caving under, I started reading about witchcraft and ancient folkloric rituals. Notorious witch and pleasure maven Doreen Valiente spoke to me through this passage in her book, The Charge of the Goddess: “Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. Therefore, let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.”I liked that. I found it comforting and powerful. On day four, I recited this charge aloud whilst I ran my self-love gauntlet; I made myself laugh a bit because I felt like I was casting a spell, but the laughter was kind and playful, not mocking and ashamed. And then, I had an orgasm, so…Day 7: Not going to lie, I started getting a bit sick of it by the end of the first week. My period was due, and while the period-horn is real, pre-period un-horn is also a thing. I wanted everything to fuck off, including myself. I did it anyway because masturbation is known to reduce pain and welcome sleep, and I was deeply interested in being asleep.Day 14: This was a really fun one. I took it to the bathroom and got a leg up on the sink; through the huge wall mirror, I could have a good look at what was happening there. I felt that familiar wave of disgust at seeing myself, but then, I remembered a lesson from my years of studying sociology: Your first thought reflects the culture that you were raised in, and your second thought reflects the kind of person you are.I looked myself in the eye in the mirror and gave myself a little friendly smile, and then, I carried on with my duties. It was mega. I felt triumphant afterward for not letting that poisonous little voice, which is not natural or inherent to me, win the day. It felt like a wank against the patriarchy, which is totally my kind of thing.Day 20: Day 20 was the first day that I missed, and it continued on for a few days. It was the day I got news that a family member had died suddenly. I was devastated, distraught with grief and shock. My body was doing its best to protect me from the overwhelming enormity of those feelings by going completely numb. I learned that desperate grief can make me disassociate and that disassociation is incompatible with pleasure. I didn’t even cry a lot that day; I just stared a lot and got through the day as best as I could.Day 24: I took up the mantle again on day 24, and coming back to my body felt like a kind of homecoming. I found so much comfort and relief in my own touch and the remembrance of feeling good. I was still sad, but I wasn’t only sad; that felt like an important milestone. Day 27: My sister sent me a vibrator in the post because she is a legend. We were living in different countries at the time, so the package had to go through customs, and she had to declare the contents on the box, which was obviously hilarious. The little bullet vibrator was encased in the rainbow flag of our people (the queers), which also made me glad. Honestly, I don’t love most vibrators; I find them to be too much. But this was a welcome variation since I had not been using toys for 26 days. With this new toy, it was all over very quickly, so I did it twice. You know, diligence and whatnot. Day 30: The final day of my onanistic undertaking was completed with a theatrical flourish. I set up a full spa night, complete with both a face and foot mask. I lit a candle and made the evening last for as long as I could bear. It was a really nice change to what was sometimes a more perfunctory execution of a task. Day 30 felt romantic, something I don’t think had ever felt about myself before. It was a fulfilling, relaxing end to a month geared toward self-love.

My sister sent me a vibrator in the post because she is a legend.

Here’s What I Learned

It’s really cool and handy (sorry) that masturbation and orgasm are so good for our health. The benefits are pretty astonishing for something available for free and at a moment's notice.At the end of the month of masturbation, I did feel less desolate and pulverized than I did at the beginning. Some of that was thanks to the passing of time, but I am certain that some of it was also down to my commitment to spending time with myself in that very specific way.There is something powerful about deciding to prioritize pleasure in our own lives. Something about a ritual of touching, noticing, and feeling your body makes self-abandonment in other areas of your life more difficult. Masturbation is not a cure-all—but if it is safe and appropriate for you to do, I highly recommend a lovely little wank to lift the spirits.

Frozen Lemon

December 18, 2023

Religion

I Hid My Jewish Identity Throughout High School

I ran into the house in a wild panic. My friends would be over in a few minutes, and there was evidence everywhere. Those stupid photos that I hated so much. Damn those photos. Frantically, I ran around removing them until the truth was hidden once again.Why were they on display?They were of me as a 13-year-old. A doppelganger of Pugsley Addams. Shaved head, chubby cheeks and a little potbelly — a supermodel I was not. But it wasn't my resemblance to a TV character that I was worried about. It was my surroundings. And what I wore on my head. I had to remove the evidence. The truth could not be revealed. Ever.

The truth could not be revealed.

I Was an Outsider at My Christian School

I cried all night.Why couldn't I play football with my friends? I pleaded with my parents. Tomorrow was a Saturday, and we had an important game against our archrivals. Instead, as they were entering battle, I would be forced to sit a scholarship test. A test on a Saturday! Despite my protests and threats to fail the test on purpose, I missed the game and sat the test. And my competitiveness shone through — I was awarded a scholarship.So instead of heading to the local public high school to start seventh grade with all my friends, I would be heading to an elite private school in a wealthy suburb, where I knew no one. I soon learned the school practiced two forms of religion — Christianity and money. I followed neither. I was a…I couldn't tell them. Why do Jews have short arms?Why do Jews have big noses?Hey, watch me throw this one-cent piece in the gutter and see if it attracts any Jews.This was the schoolyard banter every day. “Jew jokes” were de rigueur, and as I progressed through the grades, they got increasingly racist. Soon, they revolved around the Holocaust and the atrocities that occurred.Hey guys, I heard a new one last night. What do you call a Jew that…In my stomach, I felt sick. Even typing it out now, I feel awful. At the time, I would offer a weak smile and a fake laugh. I wanted to get out of this situation.Yeah, that was a great one. Haha. I was a coward. I was spared my self-loathing as the bell would ring and we would shuffle off into school assembly to begin the day.Each morning would begin with the Lord's Prayer and some school hymns. At first, I would pretend to mouth the words, for I didn't know them. I had never been taught — I didn’t even celebrate Christmas. But I needed to fit in, so I studied my lines like an actor playing a role, which I guess I was.I was constantly in trouble at school. Detentions, threats of suspension. Part of it was to prove to the others that I was cool, for there is nothing cooler than the attention seeker who disrupts the class at school. Or so I thought. I created an image I wanted my classmates to see—a rebel, cool kid, prankster, clown. A range of characters who could mask the real person, all so they wouldn't ask questions or ever uncover the truth.

I Was Terrified of My Classmates Learning I Was Jewish

In an attempt to not turn me into a hymn-singing, Lord’s-Prayer-reciting, 100 percent Christian, my parents made me join an all-Jewish football team.I hated it.Here, too, I was an outsider. All the other boys on the team went to a Jewish high school. I was the pseudo-Christian who sang hymns each day. A fake Jew who masqueraded as a Christian. One day, the all-Jew crew and I played a side that featured a classmate. As we ran onto the ground, Greg saw me and looked shocked. I wanted to do a U-turn and run straight from the field. My parents watched from the sidelines, cheering, rugged up in the winter chill. I had chills of a different kind. My secret was uncovered. I barely went near the ball, and when the siren sounded to end the game, as my teammates headed to the change rooms, I sprinted to the car park.The next Monday, I called in sick to school. And the next Tuesday. Eventually, my parents forced me back to school, and I had to face Greg, who knew the secret.Now I felt sick for real. It was just before the third period when I crossed Greg’s path. Greg looked at me and kept walking. Perhaps he felt sorry for me. Maybe he didn't care. He kept silent for the next four years. I continued to laugh at the Jew jokes. At the age of 13, according to the Jewish religion, a boy becomes a man. This is celebrated by having a bar mitzvah.Over several months, for two nights a week, I learned Hebrew in order to recite a passage from the Torah for my bar mitzvah. It made me long to take a scholarship test. New Testament by day. Torah by night. On the day of my bar mitzvah, we celebrated with my family, and a photographer was on hand. A photographer who I would curse for the next few years. She captured the moment perfectly. Chubby Kid, with a kippah on his head and tefillin wrapped around his arm, standing in a synagogue next to an Orthodox rabbi with a bushy beard and a big black hat.Chubby Kid the Jew.I would have preferred to be naked.My mother loved this photo — the synagogue one, not a naked one — and had it blown up and hung on our living room wall. “Look at the chubby Jew!” the photo screamed.So whenever someone from school came over, I had to take down that damn photo and several others and hide them. If they uncovered the truth, my school life would be over. My entire life would be over. Damn those photos.

I continued to laugh at the Jew jokes.

My Grandmother’s Story Made Me Ashamed of My Shame

My secret remained for the six years I attended that high school. Aside from Greg, none of the other kids found out, and not even my mother realized how often I removed her precious Chubby Kid photo collection from the wall. It was just after I graduated from high school that my grandmother was interviewed for a documentary on the Holocaust made by Steven Spielberg. She had survived Auschwitz but had seen her parents and younger brother die during the Holocaust. As she told her tale with tears in her eyes, I watched on and felt ashamed. She had bravely fought on despite her loss, survived numerous horrors and fled her home as a refugee to start a new life. What would she say if she saw me nod along at the Jew jokes — particularly the more offensive ones?It was the moment I knew I had to come out of the closet, something I should never have entered in the first place. If someone made a racist joke, I would tell them off. If someone asked what religion I was, I would tell them. I was proud to be Jewish. The fake characters were banished, and the mask was removed. I had hidden my identity, something that many people cannot do. Something my grandmother didn't do. She had stood proud despite the atrocities she faced.It was weak on my behalf. I would no longer be ashamed. And that damn photo of Chubby Kid the Jew would remain on the wall of my parents’ house for all to see.

Rocky Road

December 18, 2023

Drugs and Alcohol

My Friends Hate My Sober Boyfriend

It used to be that when something good happened, I celebrated with a drink. If something bad happened, I would drink to forget. Something that started out as fun became a habit out of boredom. I ended up with multiple bruises from falling while blacked out, a sprained ankle and a jammed finger just because I wasn’t conscious enough to watch what I was doing.

Drinking Got in the Way of Fulfilling My Obligations

It didn’t help that my friends couldn’t ever think of anything else to do other than meeting up to get drinks. Although there were times when I wound up taking care of others when they’d had too much, there were also many times when I was the one throwing my fist at people who were trying to take care of me. Drinking would result in me being late for work or missing it completely, canceling things that I had already paid for and having some people distance themselves from me because I was too much of a mess. I was drinking when I first met my boyfriend. I woke up in a daze that day. My mother had passed away less than a year before, and the only way that I knew how to deal with grief was by drowning it. A friend of mine, whom I had rarely spoken to, had invited me to a small holiday get-together at her apartment. I worked late the night before, but naturally for me at the time, I continued to drink after work. I had every intention of going to the party, but I slept in. In my dream state, my mother appeared to me, and we talked about how she was deceased. I will never forget what she said.“What do you mean? I’m here with you, and you are here with me.”She had passed away from an illness, but she went into a coma first. It had been almost a year, and she told me she wasn’t dead. I went on to explain to her that she was. Then, she suddenly told me to wake up and go to the party. I stumbled in late with two bottles of Prosecco in hand, and there he was, sitting in the corner alone. Without thinking about whether or not he would think I was batshit, I said to him, “My dead mother came to me in a dream and told me that I had to come here today. So here I am.” He was honest, thoughtful and definitely not scared of me. And he was over 15 years clean. He didn’t seem to care that I was drinking, but it would be a topic that came up more in the future whenever I drank to the point of inebriation.

Being with someone sober has saved my life.

I Realized I Was Using Alcohol to Suppress My Emotions

My friends hate the fact that my boyfriend is sober. Being with him meant that not only would I stop being the fun party girl that my friends loved (or pretended to), but his sobriety also forced them to look in the mirror at their own issues. They were also covering their pain with intoxication. They also drank when they were stressed out. They also didn’t have any other bright ideas about what to do outside of our local dive.The truth is, although I was also apprehensive, being with someone sober has saved my life. I grew up in a family with a lot of substance abuse issues. My mother would take any type of medication she was offered, and my brother died from a mixture of drugs. I never felt that I needed a fix, but I had immersed myself in a city with a culture that felt like you had to have booze to have fun. After meeting my boyfriend, who had been sober in the same city for longer than I had lived there, it became obvious that it wasn’t a requirement but a hobby that was formed from whom I hung around.When I first started seeing him, I listened to the advice that my friends had to give. Some told me that they feared a sober partner would try to control me. “He’s going to constantly be comparing you to himself,” others would say. After much thought, I realized that people were projecting their own trepidation onto my relationship. If I listened to them, I would still be drunk and alone. I would end up losing out on something great just because I took advice from an outsider looking in who had their objections.I’ve had relationships with people that were only founded on drinking, and they didn’t last long. I had friends who would refer to me as a drinking buddy, as if there wasn’t anything else that I could bring to the table. My boyfriend saw me as something more than that. He saw me as someone who was adventurous and passionate and was dying to get out of a dimly lit bar to live my life and do all of the things that drinking with my friends was holding me back from. I’m not sober. I never felt I needed to drink, but I felt like sometimes I couldn’t figure out anything else to do. My boyfriend has never pressured me to become sober like him, but he has encouraged me to look at my actions. It’s hard to follow through with our goals if we’re constantly looking out of one eye while struggling to keep the other one open. I learned that sobriety isn’t just about having a drug addiction but about a state of mind. Many people can stop the drug but still be an incredible pain in the ass with a negative view of life. I didn’t feel like I needed to ever stop drinking completely, but I could see myself quickly turning into a relentless, bitter old soul with no room for improvement. I needed to focus on fixing my mentality and working through the wounds of my past instead of repressing them.

I’m not sober. I never felt I needed to drink, but I felt like sometimes I couldn’t figure out anything else to do.

A Relationship With My Sober Boyfriend Provides Clarity That Drinking Does Not

Being with someone sober has shown me that life is what we make of it. When you don’t have a vice to rely on, you become clearer in your thoughts and patterns. You become more emotionally mature. I could never fully heal from my past before because I wouldn’t allow the pain ever to sink in. I wanted to go and party with my friends and forget about any sort of suffering rather than do healthy things for my mind and spirit. Drinking to black out might have made me forget momentarily what was hurting me deep down, but it didn’t erase it. One night out could turn into many, and its negative effects on my physical and mental state could last a lifetime. Unfortunately, I know many who have gone far too soon because of this behavior.I feel that my relationship is more fulfilling than one that meets in bars and stays there. We take short trips together to plan outdoor activities instead of booze-related events. We have hiked mountains, swam in oceans, camped in some of the most beautiful spaces in the world and learned new hobbies together. I started focusing on myself more, even while I was with him. Many people form codependent bonds, but ours allowed us to focus on ourselves even while we were together. I began doing the work deep down that I had been putting off for too long. I started painting again, which I hadn’t done since high school. I started doing athletic activities and things that were good for my body instead of poisoning it daily. I found more soul-fulfilling things to do with my time, and I was with a partner who encouraged me to be creative rather than be in the center of a superficial scene.I know that when my boyfriend shares thoughts, he means what he says. I know that he is always listening and won’t forget our conversations. And most importantly, he decided to do the work he needed to do on himself, as tedious as it might be. This type of introspection that comes with sobriety is something that most of us retreat from, whether or not we have an addiction problem. It’s the type of work that requires us to look at our flaws and assess our path in life, and it’s the type of work that is impossible to do when we’re impaired. Maybe this is what is so frightening to others?

Madonna

December 18, 2023

Politics

I Was an American Expat Living Abroad: It Sucked

On March 7, 2020, a few days after I landed in Europe, I voted in the Democratic global primary. I tried to psych myself up for the occasion by wearing a cute blue beret and a white dress that accentuated my bump. This was before masks were recommended, so I added a splash of red lipstick to complete my patriotic ensemble and headed to the murky basement-cum-polling place. The docent reminded me that it was, after all, a building older than our shared country of origin. The ritual of voting was familiar, and it was a relief to hear so many American voices in one place after seven days of Swiss.As I was leaving, one of the booth volunteers told me that as a person living abroad, my vote counted for up to four times as many delegates as it did in my state of origin. A YouTube video from Democrats Abroad confirmed it; whether you identify as an immigrant or an expat, your voting powers change when you move to another country. I felt a wave of nausea, partly from my pregnancy but also because it felt sickening that I had more say in the path America took from thousands of miles away than other voters did from within its borders. I looked down at my belly and considered what I was running from and what responsibility still sat on my shoulders as an American. When I confided in the other Americans living abroad, they were sympathetic to what life under Trump was like. They nodded and frowned, and then they carried on with plans for brunch and events with clever names like the Bacchus Caucus. To read the front pages from your homeland while living abroad feels like that moment after you wake from a dream of a dead loved one, when you realize how impossibly far away they are and how desperate you feel for a hug. The most popular defense mechanism among expats that I saw was regurgitating the terrible headlines and shaking one’s head in pity or performative shame. But many also simply grew more distant from their homeland the longer they stayed abroad, like getting acclimated to an alpine lake.That summer, the brutal murder of George Floyd sparked protests against the patterns of police brutality that continue to plague the United States. My insular city eventually followed suit. Many of my U.S. friends, particularly in the July 2020 due date groups, warned each other that tear gas is an abortifacient, since protesters were being indiscriminately gassed in cities. I WhatsApped with other expats. “Just stay home,” a few of them said. “Protesting is just for show here.” One came with me to the protest; they were Black and queer, and they didn’t have the luxury of distance I noticed in white expats. Swollen and two weeks from delivery, I panted in the humidity, and they waited with me in the shade when I said I couldn’t breathe. Then they encouraged me to put my mask on since we were non-white femmes at the front of the march and would likely be in photographs.

To live abroad is to become detached, floating in the ether far from the placental roots of a homeland.

I Became Detached and Homesick as an American Expat Living Abroad

Once, I took a philosophy seminar with a college athlete who grew agitated at the generously lenient grades he got on his essays. He told me how it stung to be treated like an inattentive spectator. The swamp cooler droned on while he complained, his words dripping in privilege, and I brushed it off. Later, in Switzerland, I found myself frustrated that the community of expatriates wasn’t demanding I look unflinchingly at the horrors happening on our home soil. Their clemency felt undeserved, and I slowly realized the ways that distance soothes us, the ways it protects us. I guess that now is a strange time to mention my uncle died from police brutality. I didn’t truly confront that until I was far from America. Looking back, I have more empathy for the ways other immigrants handled the pain and trauma of that summer. Many expats were disconnected because they had so much else to occupy their time—like language tests or navigating how to open a bank account abroad, processes that can easily eat up two full days or more. Some spent their days on picnics and postcards while our homeland lurched with grief. To live abroad is to become detached, floating in the ether far from the placental roots of a homeland. This isn’t a glamorous vision but rather one I had as a pregnant mother at high risk of my son detaching and drowning inside of me.When everyone says they’re going to just move abroad, I cringe. I distinctly remember licking Cheeto dust off my fingers in history class, learning all about how people moved to America to escape tyranny. People laughingly referred to former president and failed businessman Donald Trump as a Cheeto Mussolini. When I moved abroad, I realized I had an overly simplistic view of the world. None of the grocery stores in my new city even had Cheetos, which is not a tragedy but an indicator that I didn’t even have a shared cultural vocabulary. I had two variants of homesickness. One was for country; this I felt in my gut. Another was for culture, food, language and people; that I felt in the back of my tongue, where it grew from my throat. I wasn’t familiar with the feeling of sparkling Perrier water. My home city didn’t have an Ikea or an H&M. When I did find a fellow American, they frequently lacked the same cultural capital as me. It added a layer of loneliness to the heavy Swiss winter.

Swiss Laws and Customs Made Life Completely Different

As foreigners who made under $100,000, we didn’t have to pay any taxes the next spring. It was like the U.S. government, which begrudgingly fed me with welfare coupons when I was a child, was now treating me like a much-missed guest. Despite the lies you hear from trust fund backpackers, you need to have a certain level of income to move abroad. I went quite suddenly from being a teacher and the sole breadwinner to being an immigrant on a spousal visa that forbade me from working. It was foreign in and of itself to interact with the Google and HP employees who jetted in and out of 12 countries a year on vacation. Yet even though we were making more money than ever, we were considered poor by Swiss standards, which felt discombobulating. Who can ring up their mother and explain to the woman who’s been a janitor all her life that here, you are considered poor? Since I wasn’t the breadwinner, I wasn’t allowed to see my husband’s side of our shared bank account, a surreal reminder of the rights I had back in the U.S. that I took for granted. At one point, we considered divorce. The pandemic and living abroad had been cruel to us. But when I checked how to file, I found I wasn’t allowed. In fact, they’d confiscate my passport if my husband asked them to, a way to prevent parents in custody battles from absconding with children. If you’ve ever had a hard day where going to the store felt impossible, imagine doing it in another language, getting stared at the entire time, lugging home food you don’t even want with labels you can’t even read. You’ve spent half a paycheck you mistakenly thought was generous, and you constantly have unexpected bills each time you check the mail. We got a bill for $300 each year for the privilege of having a television, even though we didn’t, in fact, have a television. Nobody will pause and explain the laws to you either. If you struggle to place a bottle of wine on the strange conveyor belt and it cracks, remember that you’ll need to ask for help in not just another language but another etiquette system. Everything you do is potentially rude, and every trip to the optometrist or interaction with a plumber is a trial. Most of your loved ones stay behind, and few of them will be green with envy. If you’re lucky, they remember which country you moved to. I looked forward to being removed from the hellscape of America, but I realized far too late that you can’t bring your grandma, your trusted pharmacist or your best friend with you in your suitcase. We lost two grandparents and an uncle. I missed weddings, graduations, funerals. One of my former students, a 14-year-old whose mother was my former midwife, died in his sleep. I wished I could have hugged my student one last time. I had to beg my doctor for a prescription for Benadryl just to sleep.

Everything you do is potentially rude, and every trip to the optometrist or interaction with a plumber is a trial.

Learn How Other Countries Treat Marginalized People Before Moving There

Politics aren’t better. You probably won’t even be able to vote for local elections. What expats rarely tell you is how short the list is of proclaimed paradises, where getting a visa isn’t a dastardly impossibility. Now factor in a scope of freedom far more narrow than politically gotcha headlines would have you believe. You might only read how much minimum wage is or how there are never mass shootings. Nobody tells you when a country doesn’t have any economic opportunities for people of color; some countries won’t let you buy a gun, but they also won’t let you get married if you’re queer. I’m back in the U.S. now by choice. There were dozens of reasons. Among them, my experience was humiliating, alienating and impossibly lonely. Don’t be ignorant of our global interconnectedness. If you’re considering moving abroad in the wake of political events, remember to seek out the experiences of Black, Indigenous and people of color, as well as queer and trans people who’ve moved to your chosen country. I had a fantastic support system out in Switzerland, and I still barely survived. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and if it is, there are signs in another language that scold you to stay off it. You’d do well to listen.

Heidi Goseek

December 18, 2023

Media

Biases Come In Many Forms—and Neutrality Is One of Them

As a journalist and as a social activist, I am passionate about the power of words and language in our lives. Especially when it comes to discussions surrounding marginalization and discrimination, little words can have a big impact.I believe that journalists, including myself, owe readers deliberate word choices that clearly define a point. The language we use has the potential to have repercussions in our society, and with so many words to choose from, we must choose right.

The Words We Use Matter as Much as What We Say

Consider how language has evolved to be more inclusive of women in the workforce—terms such as fireman, policeman and councilman have evolved to firefighter, police officer and councilor. As we progress, and collectively become more informed, our word choices shift to reflect the state of our world. With more information on diverse gender identities, language dynamics are becoming more inclusive and less gender-oriented. We move forward, and we take language with us.But a growing distaste for political correctness leaves many reminiscing about the good old days when word choices didn’t seem to matter. However, for those who bear the brunt of society’s anxieties and prejudices, they always have.Now certain words have begun to stand out. It’s easier than ever to identify the sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia in simple word choices. And in such a polarized world, words aren’t just words anymore: they are sentiments, positions and movements. Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend who told me he did not support the trans community, but he also wasn’t against them. Neither of us identifies with the group, but it seemed it was fairly easy for him to maintain such a distance that he never felt pressured to take a stance. However, I have many trans individuals who have been close to me over the years and have enabled me to see the kind of bigotry and danger they face. Objectively, trans individuals are subjected to hardships that cis people are not, and to hold a neutral stance is to accept the social climate toward them. To give an extreme example, if you were to see a young man physically abusing an elderly lady on the sidewalk one day, remaining neutral would mean taking the side of the man. By doing nothing, you allow him to keep his power, and you accept the harm from these actions. It is not every day that you see this man, but it is every day that society systematically abuses its marginalized groups. And once again, remaining neutral is accepting this power dynamic and its consequences.

To be a journalist is to conform to some notion of neutrality.

We Can’t Stay Neutral When People Are Being Hurt

One of the more shocking events in Canadian news history was the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves at the institutions many Indigenous children were taken against their will when European colonizers arrived in the Americas. As a white person living in Canada, I knew these places were bad, but I never realized how bad until the bodies of hundreds of children were found just outside the town I live in.The severity of the situation prompted many journalists, including myself, to pay attention to Indigenous issues like never before. But writing about horrific instances of discrimination is more than just writing; it’s learning, it’s growing and it’s taking a stance. However, to be a journalist is to conform to some notion of neutrality. When you’re writing about politics, you don’t voice your own views; you simply state the facts of the situation. Yet we live in an Oldspeak world where words by themselves will always convey implicit messages, no matter how hard we try to steer clear of stances.The Canadian government has always referred to these institutions for Indigenous children as “residential schools,” but as news spread about the realities of these places, many Indigenous activists began to put quotations around the word “schools,” a style choice I, too, adopted into my writing. The decision is not meant to be a polarizing one. It is simply recognizing the subtle sugarcoating of history and making an effort to modernize outdated language. These were not, as we would define them today, schools.However, my editor disagreed.“As a newspaper, it’s not our place to take stances,” he said. “Our job is to be neutral and simply relay black-and-white information.”What this position fails to recognize, however, is that neutrality is its own bias. People were hurt by these institutions; people are still hurting because of them. A dichotomy of power exists in our society because of this history, and to remain neutral is a nonchalant means of accepting this.

Would it be so terrible to evolve this thinking?

“Hypersensitivity” Isn’t the Problem

In the Canadian Press style guide, the section on inclusive word choices in writing represents this issue: “But don’t get carried away. To write human energy or human resources to avoid manpower, or person-eating tiger to avoid man-eating tiger is being hypersensitive.”I disagree with this sentiment, as I don’t believe hypersensitivity is something the modern journalist needs to run from. We often use words such as manpower because we have a culture that largely favors men. Would it be so terrible to evolve this thinking?I have found that in many issues around discrimination and socioeconomic oppression, neutrality is nothing but a listless fallacy. In such cases, one group will always be on top, and the dichotomy of power alone creates an implicit bias. To take no side is to take the side of the one on top. I figure if you cannot avoid taking a stance, you must be deliberate.Language is a weapon that we must wield responsibly. Take care in choosing your words and think about every bias you take, including that of neutrality.

Nira Soimi

December 18, 2023

Love

My Daughter Was Addicted to Meth: I Had to Let Her Go

I heard her car race up the gravel driveway, and within seconds, she was banging at my door, screaming. As soon as I opened the door, I could tell by the wild look in her eyes she was high.“Calm down, I can’t understand what you’re saying.” I attempted to make sense of the story between her screams and crying. Was her baby in danger? Where was he? In the car?“You have to help me! Why aren’t you helping me?” she yelled. “I’m trying to, but I can’t understand…” Frustrated, she turned away, and I followed her back to her car, glancing at the empty car seat in the back. “He has him!” she screamed. He, I assumed, was her ex-boyfriend and the baby’s father. Before I could answer, she slammed her car into reverse and sped down the street, leaving me feeling like I’d been hit by a typhoon. It was a feeling I was well used to after 10 years of parenting my moody foster daughter. But she was a mother in her mid-20s now. I’d expected the teenage dramas to have settled down by now. I went back inside and comforted my younger children. It wasn’t their first experience with her increasingly erratic moods, and they were scared.“She’s gone,” I reassured them, but within minutes, we heard her car in the driveway. “Go into the bedroom and stay there, OK?” I told them. “Put on a movie.”I rushed outside to stop her before she got to the door. Whatever was going on needed to stay outside. She slammed her car door, screaming and even more wild than before. I glanced up at the neighbor’s house, feeling embarrassed about the explanation I would have to make later. “Help me!” she shouted in my face. When she drove off again a few seconds later, I knew the only help I could give her was one she wouldn’t like: I called the police.

I knew the only help I could give her was one she wouldn’t like: I called the police.

I Couldn’t Believe My Foster Daughter Could Be Using Meth

Her drug use started at 14. My foster daughter had spent most of her childhood around her birth parents who both openly smoked weed, so when I smelled marijuana on her clothes, it hadn’t shocked me. As far as I knew, that was it. We had very open conversations, and our relationship was close and loving. She came from a family of addicts, and we talked about it with the hope she could break the pattern, something she desperately wanted to do. She was creative and bright, outgoing and positive. She wanted to embrace life and not waste it on drugs and alcohol. One day, she came home from a friend’s house shaking. “She shot up, right in front of me!” she said, her eyes wide. “I told her I never want to see her do that ever again. I can’t believe she does it!” Weed was one thing, but hard drugs? She was furious to hear about anyone doing that. When her cousin started getting into trouble with drugs and crime, she raged about it for weeks and in the end cut her off. Drama seemed to surround her, but mostly because of other people—the friends she chose, her birth family and the kinds of boys she dated. But when she got pregnant, split up with her boyfriend and entered a custody battle, things started to change. At first, I thought he was being manipulative. Her ex called me several times, bad-mouthing her and then threatening me. “You know she’s on meth, right? If you don’t help me get full custody, you’ll regret it!”“Rubbish,” I thought. “There’s no way she’s on meth.” Yes, she’d lost a lot of weight after the birth of her son, but her morning sickness had been terrible and it took its toll on her body. Every time I saw her, she was her usual self, laughing and playing with her son and my younger kids. Surely I’d notice if she was on meth. I decided to tell her what he was accusing her of. She’d need to know for the custody case anyway. “Of course not!” she said. “He’s the one who does drugs!” It seemed believable. I’d only met him a few times, and he was nice and polite to my face, but he clearly had two sides to his personality.

My Daughter’s Addiction Explained Her Erratic Moods and Disappearances

Over the next few months, though, her behavior became more inconsistent. Then, she befriended a few gang members and guys with known police records. She’d never been a great judge of character and had an interesting mix of friends, but this was a new level. Meanwhile, my own life was changing. My husband and I got a divorce, and my focus shifted to creating a new, peaceful home for my younger kids. I touched base regularly with my foster daughter and helped her with her baby where I could, but I didn’t have much energy for the increasing drama. “She’s an adult now,” I reminded myself. After years of helping her through breakups, friendship dramas and disappointments, it was hard to pull back, but it felt important. She hated it. “Just help me!” she screamed at me in the driveway as the police tried to calm her down. “We are,” they reassured her. “We’re taking you to the hospital.” It wasn’t the help she wanted, but it was what she needed. I stood back, out of reach, and let them take over.When I’d discovered she was on meth, things started to make sense. Her skin problems, her increasingly aggressive and erratic moods, her disappearances for days at a time. In the few minutes after she’d driven away, I’d quickly phoned her ex-boyfriend and found out why he had the baby. She’d gotten high, gone to see him and threatened to harm him and then herself. Knowing she’d followed through on threats before, he’d become worried, taken the baby and gone for a walk around the block, trying to figure out what to do next. The police dropped her off at the hospital, found her ex-boyfriend and dropped the baby at my house while they questioned him: no nappies, no bottle and no idea how long I would be babysitting for.The hospital discharged her later that day, and she was allowed to come and collect her child. She looked calmer and thanked me for babysitting, but I’d had enough. Was this kind of helping changing anything for her or enabling her drug use? How long do you keep helping someone who won’t help themselves? A few weeks later, she left her child with a friend for three days while she indulged her habit. I rang child protection services. They gave both my daughter and her ex drug tests, and a judge awarded full custody to the baby’s father. Maybe now she’d get professional help, I hoped. While the trial was on, she made threats to her ex, to me and to members of my family. We discovered she’d borrowed thousands of dollars from various friends and family—they didn’t know it was to fuel her habit, and she had no intention to pay it back.

She came from a family of addicts, and we talked about it with the hope she could break the pattern.

As the Parent of a Drug Addict, Was I Right to Shut My Daughter Out?

None of us had been helping the way we’d thought we were. She wasn’t safe around me or my children, and I decided I couldn’t have her in my house anymore. I grieved for the sweet, fun girl I’d raised who had dreamed of a better life, but that girl hadn’t been around for years. She’d died and someone else had replaced her. Drug addiction is like that. The only way to help her now was to set firm boundaries. I offered to take her to rehab or even to meet her in a cafe to talk, but I made it clear she wasn’t welcome in my house while she was using. She refused to see me. It’s been three years now. I’ve heard through other family members that she claims to be clean, but she’s said it so many times, it’s hard to believe her. There’s been no rehab and no signs of real change. Who knows? I hope she is clean for her sake and her child’s. Sometimes, though, you have to make the tough call. Maybe it’s not the right call to make—people have told me it’s harsh, and they could be right. Personally, though, I felt it was my only choice. I hope one day she gets the help she needs.

Not That Mom

December 18, 2023

Science & Technology

I Survived an Italian Holiday Without My Smartphone

I was involuntarily phoneless for 10 days. As someone who knows the pain of losing a loved one, it’s no exaggeration to say that I experienced all five stages of grief during that desperate period.It was the epitome of a first-world problem, but on the first day of my romantic Italian holiday with my new beau, I dropped my iPhone into a hotel pool. I made a pathetic attempt to rescue it but ended up waddling through the hotel lobby in my new—and rather soaked—dress with a device that no longer worked.I briefly considered how this avoidable accident might impact my life, but I couldn’t have predicted the emotions I was about to endure. Although I was partly on holiday to get a break from screen time, the immediate panic that set in once I realized I was without a functioning phone only confirmed how closely technology was tied up with my own sense of peace. Breaking my phone forced me to come to terms with the fact that I had reached a point of technology burnout. If I didn’t already realize how much my life depended on that little 4.7 inch screen, I was about to.During those dark 10 days, I quite honestly, and rather alarmingly, experienced all five—or arguably six, if you include anxiety—stages of grief. By no means do I wish to diminish the experience of grief; as a child who lost a parent in my early 20s, I know full well its impact on your life. But being forced to go off-grid and unable to communicate freely with my family and friends provoked familiar feelings of anxiety and trauma that I had only known in the depths of grief.Before my holiday, I had been experiencing digital fatigue after moving cities and trying desperately to keep on top of messages, work emails and calls. I often thought that notifications on my laptop had been warning me for months that my iCloud storage was at capacity—a perfect metaphor for my own life.

I decided to embrace the opportunity to remain offline.

Without a Phone, I Had to Rely on Hand Gestures to Communicate

It soon became clear that navigating this trip was going to become somewhat of a logistical nightmare due to that unfortunate poolside mishap. But along the way, I realized there were some upsides to being without a working smartphone. To start, my mum and my still-new-to-scene romantic partner seemed to hit it off after she tracked him down on WhatsApp when she hadn’t heard from me. For the rest of the trip, I decided to embrace the opportunity to remain offline.I spent the next day wandering through the romantic city of Sorrento, with its historic cobbled streets and beautiful plazas filled with alfresco diners and drinkers. The day proved to be nothing short of a Hollywood rom-com until my current reality hit home again. When my partner headed to pick up the rental car, I went off on my own to find a bathroom. Safe to say all the gelato stands look remarkably similar in Sorrento, and I soon found myself lost in a maze of residential alleyways with not a clue where I was or how to get back.Google would have been my savior at that point, but I was left without the powers of Maps and Translate at my fingertips. Trying to find my way back to the original gelato stand, I was forced to speak school-level Italian to a pair of bemused-looking locals who passed me by. It was not until I mimed the universal sign for licking an ice pop that their faces lit up, finally understanding what I was fumbling to say. They confidently pointed me in the direction of the main square, shouting a series of words I’d never heard before—let alone would be able to translate.Following their directions and journeying back to the square, I soon bumped into a friendly American family enthusiastically digging into double-scooped ice cream cones. A-ha! I must be close to the town square now. I asked them for further directions, and a few moments later, I walked down some steps and out into the familiar place where my man and I had parted ways.It was a half-hour of stress, frustration and desperation, but I’d made it back—without the crutch of a phone in my hands. I thought, even though not much of it was verbal, thank goodness for old-school communication.After a restful but rather challenging holiday, we touched down in the U.K. to encounter our final hurdle of the holiday: passport control.Without my own digital boarding pass, my international partner was forced to stay in my British citizen queue for 50 minutes before getting back in his own non-citizen queue for another half hour. I stood there waiting and wincing, feeling beyond guilty for the inconveniences I’d caused my beau on this holiday.“I owe you,” I said while his smile became increasingly weary.

It showed me that I needed to simplify my life.

I’m Working on a Better Relationship With My (New) Smartphone

When I returned home, the first thing I did was buy myself a new phone, hating the feeling of not being contactable at all times. Of course, it took another week before I could use it because I got locked out of iCloud. I felt desperate and, on one occasion, close to a panic attack during a three-hour bus ride knowing my family couldn’t reach me.I couldn’t believe how much that phone—as resentful as I was of it—meant to me. But since coming out the other side, with a working phone in hand, I have seen the whole ordeal as an answer to a prayer.The whole rigmarole forced me to free up space on my laptop, organize my files and photos and even led me to rediscover some old articles written by my younger self, which reminded me why I had chosen my stress-including job in journalism in the first place.It turns out that Italian adventure gave me more than just respite from the day-to-day grind. It showed me that I needed to simplify my life, do more of what was bringing me joy and be more comfortable getting off the grid every once in a while.

ThreeDots

December 18, 2023

My COVID Weight Loss Isn’t a Good Thing

COVID-19 made me sick. I still am, even though I am now in my fifth month out of quarantine. It was unbelievably scary to be by myself while being forced to confront the weirdest sensations, both physical and emotional. Being unable to support my body weight meant having to propel myself by clawing my way along walls or crawling around my home just to cobble together enough food to feel full before falling asleep. I lost pockets of time. My legs were too weak to pull me up or to propel me forward; my feet moved in front of me of their own accord while an invisible weight at the front of my body immobilized me. Dizziness and sickness surrounded me. The pain in my chest and everywhere across my body was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Testing negative got me out of quarantine, but the recalibration back to “full health” over the following weeks left me having to relearn basic functions while dealing with debilitating dizziness. I have not reached back to myself yet either. My doctor could not grasp what was wrong—despite the myriad of testing—yet I had to adapt everything I do: how to dress, how to prepare food, how to take care of myself. I didn’t write or type for weeks. No one talks about how anxious this makes you afterward. I felt unsafe in my body when trying to engage socially; that feeling has not fully gone away. When I tried to take three flights of stairs at speed, the little monologue voice inside me whispered, “This is how you die.”

My post-quarantine body is not for the gaze of anyone to objectify or fetishize.

COVID Changed My Body and My Relationship With Food

I am still not well. But the most shocking and unpleasant thing I have to deal with now is the focus on my weight loss. Quarantine meant one small meal a day; I have lost all appetite since, and it is only slowly returning. Anything food-based feels so unbelievably wrong. It’s not a taste or smell issue, as mine remained intact. Preparing food was so overwhelming, tiring and often left me feeling nauseous. Eating would be fatiguing, but it made me feel worse internally while dealing with a physical battle. Emotionally, it could be upsetting, which I worked to hide; it sparked no joy, and the simple act of chewing could also contribute to painful symptoms flaring, sometimes for hours. In the aftermath of coming out of quarantine, I analyzed myself in the mirror, noting I could start to see my ribs, the concave of my hips, a more defined chin. I looked tired beyond belief. Trying to hide this has been futile. I am trying my best to remain independent in dealing with the fallout of a COVID-19 infection, on top of my disability needs that already existed. But this often feels like it is too much to bear. Young people are allowed to be sick, and COVID-19 can disable us too. We are not failures for being the exception to the expectation we should “bounce back.” Why is sickness deemed to be “sexy” when someone presents as having lost significant weight? It affords a sickening sexual currency in a patriarchal world. Older men have creepily commented that my apparent thinness has made me suddenly attractive. A female friend suggested I work to stay thin, as apparently I am now “beautiful”; this stung, as if to suggest my femininity was somehow enhanced by a disease that has left me struggling and could have contributed to an early grave. Work collaborators think it's appropriate to tell me, “We need to feed you up,” while pushing food toward me. I have worked hard to not need validation from external sources, but all of the comments opened up the chink in my armor. My post-quarantine body is not a compliment or a good thing and is not for the gaze of anyone to objectify or fetishize. Heroin chic was fashionable not that long ago. Female icons who dominated the cultural landscape of my childhood were praised for their tiny frames. One of my parents worked to counteract this, instilling the need for a healthy body image and therefore a healthy relationship to food. They played me Alanis Morissette and P!nk and showed me how magazine images were airbrushed to seeming perfection. Sugary snacks were often limited, while we were allowed to explore the world of cosmetics freely. I hated feeling cold all the time when just out of quarantine. I disliked the over-definition of my hips, my ribs; this is not healthy but has slowly improved since. It is indicative of a capitalist society that to be thin is to be attractive, to have a worth based on visual merit. Women’s worth is based on their body, and it is so often equated with money. The fetishization is profitable. But this is so inherently wrong, immoral. Feminist writers have documented how the insecurity is planted then later profited from. Sexism reigns supreme, from all involved.

I feel resentful that sharing food with anyone now always leads to comments about my lack of an appetite, how I look or even my dietary needs.

The Obsession With My Post-COVID Body Is Sick

I have missed food, the pleasure of consuming a favorite meal, the sense of community this brings to the social fabric of our lives. Sickness is not attractive to me. Life is for living; my worth will not be defined by a body that has failed me or through the way it’s perceived by others. I have worked to recover. I still have so many steps left to work toward. The hamster wheel of appointments, follow-ups and letters is overwhelming. No medical professional seems to want to understand my situation. We set up healthcare on inherently ableist, sexist criteria. Navigating this has so often made me want to give up, but to be as healthy as possible is my ultimate aim in the end—healthy at an acceptable level to myself and myself only. My thinness is not problematic in a medical setting. Outside of that, it apparently suddenly makes me interesting, worth more. Patriarchal rape culture is a sore that has been allowed to fester in the pandemic, it seems. I’ve tried not being angry about this, and it has been fruitless. I feel resentful that sharing food with anyone now always leads to comments about my lack of an appetite, how I look or even my dietary needs. It makes me self-conscious, as if I somehow have to ask permission to just enjoy myself. Innocuous conversations circle around to how attractive thinness is. The misogynistic messaging has been internalized; failure to question what we are taught, and unlearn harmful things, will be our downfall in the end. Examining the body of someone else is not appropriate. Sickness is not attractive; when we see it that way, we fetishize. The sexism in this should be as unpalatable to everyone as it is to me. Being out of quarantine, only one person ever asks me how I am and how I am doing. To learn to be OK with yourself and deal with the murky perceptions of others is mind-boggling. I am tired.

Anna Parsons

December 18, 2023

The Lost Boys and the Land of Orange Sunshine: A Psychedelic Road Trip Into the American Dream

You can call me stupid, but there’s something hiding outside the frame of the picture-perfect scene in our American Dreams. Somewhere between white lines flashing over a dark highway stretching out to infinity, like Kerouac meandering in the rain, I was caught in a charade. With enough LSD to manufacture a hundred once-in-a-lifetime experiences, my friends Peter Pan, Cubby, Dago and I left Missouri for two months on the road crossing the American West, expecting the once-in-a-lifetime experience everyone talks about but misses out on. So before you call me stupid, just call me Nibs and know this story feels more like an acid trip than one down memory lane. It was 2018 as I juggled a clusterfuck in one hand with the residual effects of a high-altitude acid trip in the other. All the while the land of orange sunshine toppled out of the sky and onto my shoulders, flattening my dreams under Kerouac’s footsteps and the shadow of Desolation Peak.Cubby’s crammed into a pickle offshore two lakes and 10 miles down the trail of the only way out of the north cascades, leaving me to hike the last portion of a 55-mile trail alone with nothing left to believe but the word of Nibs, the lost boy inside my head. We fucked up. We tripped over the edge and crash-landed on the wrong side of the open road. But where exactly? I was trying to figure it out and with eight miles left sometimes I think I can still feel the acid, I just don’t feel the magic.

Who the fuck am I pretending to be?

Heading West

Peter Pan and Cubby knew each other the longest, from a Catholic grade school leaving them more godless than religious. I knew Dago more from buying the weed he grew out of his old roommate’s closest. Cubby, Dago and I moved in together and started spitballing ideas for a trip. Dago mapped out the details from Missouri to Utah, Utah to California, up the coast to the border and back any way but the way we came. If the details were a lost cause, Peter Pan would still be shirking responsibility, never growing up and leading the charge forward. Not to mention with Cubby scoring a hundred tickets to the land of orange sunshine, the plan may have been drug-induced, but it seemed sound enough. When we’d waited enough tables, striped enough parking lots and saved enough money to finally load Cubby’s truck and hit the road for I-70 west, we still believed we were about to do something great. Maybe it was the LSD, the stereo’s pot-scented rhythm or the fresh-cut summer jet stream making us believe the indescribable force under us could only be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The sun hadn’t risen yet as the hangover from the night before was shrugged off in Utah. Cubby, still too drunk to drive his truck, left it to Peter Pan. Peter wove through the canyons of Zion, headlights cutting through the last bit of night. As Dago and I passed a joint back and forth, Cubby was lulled to sleep by tires humming to the music on the stereo. I rested my head, imagining the truck as a firefly blinking off and on around curves, trying to elude a glass jar. The truck stops, overlooking the Virgin River cutting through a meadow of sunburnt grass. We’d follow the river carving out the Narrows into Zion. The sun was already bright in an empty sky; we followed a trail sliding into the river. Cubby and I decided to slip acid onto our tongues before getting our feet wet. One by one, the boys stepped into the river, wading along short sandstone cliffs. The canyon began growing up around them, funneling them deeper into the narrows when the acid hit. I stopped. The river’s currents rushed by, too busy sculpting red walls, dotted by green life in the cracks above, each bend a new hall from another portion of a never-ending dream. Spellbound and starstruck by the cosmic luck it took for a river to carve out another world within canyon walls, the Narrows swallowed the boys whole. Cubby ran his hand along the canyon walls, my oversized pupils snapped to Dago and Peter Pan splashing ahead, playing hide-and-seek in columns hollowed out by million-year-old eddies, stepping away from the current for a moment to themselves. I placed my hand against the canyon, my eyes sinking below the surface to my submerged toes, where the river meets the red wall. The shallow water pulled pebbles from their recess as the pebbles skipped and glided, tumbling against the canyon wall, leaving their mark on the world before being driven back beneath the millions that came before them and the millions that will follow. For a moment, the pebble escaped, its only contribution being the passing of time. That was the pinnacle of the trip. Not the climax. That came later.

I Stood Where Jack Kerouac Stood at the Top of Desolation Peak

From Zion to California, we chased that feeling, up the coast and kept going, following the plan as Dago recalled. In the North Cascades, the group divided. Peter Pan and Dago would float alongside the mountaintops. Cubby and I would trace Jack Kerouac’s footprints to Desolation Peak. At the base of Desolation Peak, Cubby and I awoke, the moon resting in Lake Ross. We dropped acid around 3 a.m. before ascending the trail in silence. The moon drifting behind blueberry-shaded mountaintops, we climbed up a bluff and around a bend. Pausing breathless, we were blown away by a nuclear sunrise detonating across the mountains in orange explosions glittering through the morning dew and winking to us with a thousand morning suns dripping off a million pine needles, each one burning their treasure behind our watering eyes. Well, I think the acid worked.What answers did I want to find in my memories? An experience? Then what experience and whose? Would the memory feel like the acid? Would it ever lose its magic? Was it all the same? Bleaching our brains on LSD like lost boys gallivanting across a neverland culminated only in my mind with searching dead ends for answers.Two miles left for Peter Pan and Dago. What am I looking for? I know the answer, I just don't want to admit it. At the top of Desolation Peak, where Kerouac wrote and I spent an hour coming down off acid, I saw a land clouded by smoke from a dream caught in wildfires a thousand miles down the road. I don’t know what I chased. I thought I could almost see you, Jack Kerouac. In Desolation, I know that I saw you. You spoke to me as I’m speaking now and all I have left to say, Jack, is that I don’t know if you’re a symbol or just another lost boy looking for a home. I don’t think you’re a myth anymore, Jack. I just think you’re a human. And even without angels pouring me heart-filled cups, your mother can keep her rosary. You’ll get no qualms from me. You’re too tangled in her apron to see past angels. You can keep your Desolation Peak and the burnt-out view too. Because if Kerouac points to angels, I’ll point to his ass and tell him to fuck himself. Him and all the shells of human tropes talking out of their ass and chasing after his generation’s used nostalgia can eat shit. Fuck Jack Kerouac. Who the fuck am I pretending to be? I’m following you, Jack. Who are we pretending to be? Is Nibs some Dharma bum or just Neal Cassady’s sidekick? Is that all I am? I want my own story, my own life. I want to be the main character; don’t you, Jack?

That was the pinnacle of the trip. Not the climax. That came later.

Our Supporting Roles Broke Down In the Middle of Our Road Trip

Our feet were buried on the last day of Oceanside before driving up the coast to the Cascades. I wiggled my toes under the sand. I told Peter Pan I didn’t feel like the main character of the story. When Peter said he didn’t know how that felt, I kept watching the sand. Waves broke against an overcast day with neither Peter nor I having much more to say.Leaving the beach, I was the only one sober enough to drive, which sparked Dago and Cubby to begin shit-talking over who’d sit where. Cubby said Dago is sitting bitch because it’s his truck. But Dago didn’t wanna sit bitch—he wanted to smoke cigarettes. And nobody’s gonna make Peter Pan sit bitch. So Dago sits bitch. Cubby on one side and Peter on the other when Dago began smoking his cigarettes, to which Cubby promptly rejected because Dago was sitting bitch and it’s his truck. That’s when nerves crack, and the surface tension breaks with Dago lunging, wrapping his hands around Cubby’s neck, choking him. Whatever magic was in the land of orange sunshine left with the air strangled out of Cubby. They struggled for a moment until I pulled over, Peter intervened, and Dago let Cubby’s head deflate from its purple balloon state. That was the climax. At least how I saw it. The Lost Boys were trying to paint reality into the orange sunshine, and this was the result. Cubby prodding, Dago snapping and me not caring until it spilled into my fun. That’s why the boys split up for this last hike. The acid and high-altitude sun fried Cubby, dehydrating him to malnourishment. They had tried to hike out, stopping whenever Cubby needed to rest. Each stop, though, meant being kamikazed by mosquito swarms, pushing Cubby deeper into a thousand-yard stare and me removing items from Cubby’s pack, hoping to keep moving. But when Cubby couldn’t go any further, I knew coming back for him was the best thing to do. That's what I remember. I wish I were more focused. My knee was bugging me, and these thoughts made me think there was more acid in my system than I realized. Then again, maybe I just want there to be. Why? Isn’t this exciting? Isn’t this the once-in-a-lifetime experience everyone wants? Where’s the rush? The excitement? Am I being serious or dramatizing this to be more interesting? Is Cubby in danger or just lazy? What are Peter Pan and Dago going to think? I don’t know, but I wish I didn’t think so much.

Our Once-In-A-Lifetime Experience Ended With a Rescue Mission

Lucky for us, a bridge came into sight. I was almost to the parking lot. I began running. I could see the row of license plates through the trees as the hill flattened. The trees dispersed. I was off the trail and in the parking lot. Dago and Peter Pan were smiling back as they made coffee. I told them about Cubby, and they thought I was joking. “Seriously?” they asked. I nodded, “Seriously.” But no one knows how to take this seriously.We’d been over the edge for so long, responsibility seems chaotic, and freedom is orange sunshine. We weren’t sure how we should act, even when the rangers radioed a rescue mission to recover Cubby. A ranger picked Cubby up by boat, taking him to a four-wheeler, escorting him to another boat that brought Cubby ashore where we picked him up. Afterward, we headed to the nearest McDonald’s. It was over. We all knew it and that’s where it ended, eating McDoubles and stealing blue Powerade in a plastic cup before starting back home any way but the way we came. Now, you can call us stupid. But at least you know when we start tracing white lines into a never-ending sunset against the backdrop of a picture-perfect scene, we’re outlining a dream that may flutter but it’s always fleeting, like the sulfur after the firework show we all missed and leaving us to only say, “Aww.” Because the smoke’s the last glimpse of the real thing, before the green flash leaves us with a floating spot where the sun used to be and a spark that vanished before we knew it was there. A spark Kerouac saw, only to be missed out by generations trying to trap nostalgia in glass jars. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I tried catching fireflies in the land of orange sunshine, and it never added up to the once-in-a-lifetime moment someone else painted for me.

GD Miner

December 18, 2023