George Bernard Shaw wrote, "if you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you best teach it to dance." Oh how some of us toil to be rid of our pasts or our character flaws or our deepest, darkest secrets. Maybe instead, we ought to hang out and have a little fun with…
The Boy I’m Gonna
.. a (semi) fiction short .. My first complaint was that Jim didn’t hold my hand in the back of the cab. Granted, he had already held other parts of me (and held them pretty well) but we were dressed in our finest - he in a nice grey suit and navy tie, me in…
Widening Rings
When you first start feeling less afraid, you want someone to pinch you. Is this real? And do I deserve it? After the exhaustive stretch of hyper-vigilance and over the shoulder gazing, of expecting lurking danger at every turn, the realm of trust and serene neutrality can feel like a trick. Sleight of hand only,…
Valentine
In the wake of tales of you I root for you, I love you You you you you I met my first serious boyfriend when I was nineteen and roughing it in rehab. Relax. It's not as dirty as it sounds. Nick was a southern gentleman from the outskirts of Atlanta. The first time he…
the story and The Story
Long before I set out on a spiritual path of recovery, I felt some sort of kinship with some great beyond. Even as a child who had little interest in Sunday school and no discernible relationship with God in a religious sense, I prayed all the time. I prayed out loud before I went to bed…
When the Rug is Pulled: Humility, Identity, and Other Such Things
When I first began my teaching career in 2011, I prided myself on two things: my ability to connect with students and my classroom management. I wasn't always the best lesson planner or designer of rubrics, and I certainly wasn't always fired up about professional development and the state of education, but I could create…
Continue reading ➞ When the Rug is Pulled: Humility, Identity, and Other Such Things
The Through Line
"The stable solution is the individual who tells the truth." Like any relatively young person stumbling along and thirsting to learn, there is plenty that I don't know and understand. Because I tend to write so personally and from direct experience, much of what I state on here vacillates and changes. As I have grown up…
