life lessons
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I have died before. Thirty-eight seconds on an operating table. I cannot tell you exactly what happened in those brief moments of death, but I can tell you what I felt and why it has stayed with me ever since. Those thirty-eight seconds stripped my life down to its bare truth. They showed me that
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Why do you hurt me?was the prayer I never said aloud.It lived in my mouth like a dying bird,fluttering, breaking its neckon the cage of my molars. You looked at me likesomething ungrateful.Something wild you forgot to tame.I didn’t understand.Not when I still thoughtblood meant safety,that family meant shelterand not war dressed as tradition. Later—I
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The witch said, fear me, but I didn’t.And I won’t. Fairytales don’t survivewhere real living begins.No spellbook can outdo the acheof waking up and still choosing grace. Energy is a circle,not a dagger.What you put out comes back, not through magic,but through truth.Through consequence.Through the quiet way life returns what you give it. Call it
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Friendships and relationships. Missed, hidden, and mourned There’s a part of coming out no one really prepares you for. People talk about the joy, the freedom, the sense of finally stepping into yourself. And that’s real. But there’s another side too. A quieter, harder side. One that lingers. It’s grief. The Ones I Never Got
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Lately, I’ve been feeling the weight of time. It’s hitting me that I’ve lived more years than I probably have left, and no matter how I try to shake it, the truth stays. One day, I won’t be here. And that day is coming faster than I ever imagined. One morning, people who love me
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The other day I was going through some old family photos and came across a picture of one of my great grandfathers. I stopped and just stared at it. The truth is, I know almost nothing about him. I didn’t even know he ran a small store in the Soulard area of St. Louis. That’s
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what faith really means. Not the version wrapped in rules or ritual, but the kind that grows quietly inside you. The kind you don’t always have words for, but you feel it. It shows up in how you love. In how you choose kindness. In the way you
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“I am German and am waiting for the Germans to come back; they have gone to ground somewhere,” Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary. He was the son of a rabbi and a World War One veteran who chose to stay and somehow survived. The warning signs were there then. They are here now. Trump’s
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A lot of people keep asking this, so let’s be clear. If you’ve ever seen Mexican flags waving at protests in California, or Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, or anywhere in the Southwest, and wondered why, it’s time for a little history and a lot of truth. California, along with large parts of the
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I’ve never understood the idea that there’s some man in the sky who demands we only marry the opposite sex. Really think about that — you’re telling me the ultimate force of love and creation is obsessed with our bedroom choices? That’s not divine, that’s control dressed up as religion. If your God insists on