A Constant Communicator in Every Possible Way
As a child, and even through my adult life, I vividly remember how my father would chide me in his playful way about how I always strived to communicate. During those times of light-hearted teasing, he’d joke about my extreme focus on communication, an intense need to keep in touch. At the time, I knew…
Keep reading
Personal Identity in Progress
Last year, I graduated with a doctorate in English, reaching the highest academic level possible in this field at the age of fifty-two. The road to earning this wonderful degree contained numerous challenges, particularly as an older student with self-confidence issues. To be clear, nobody ever made me feel uncomfortable or inadequate. In fact, everyone…
Keep reading
In Serious Mourning for a Gym
Well, it finally happened. After weeks of speculation, rumors swirling from one gym to another, I found out the news that I’d been dreading. Yesterday, I arrived at my gym to discover large announcements pasted on all of the front doors. At the end of this month, it will be shutting its doors for good.…
Keep reading
Overcoming My Fearfulness
Although I’ve always been a shy person, especially in unfamiliar social situations, fear never seemed to restrict me. It didn’t complicate the way I navigated through life’s many complexities either. During my youth, when introversion debilitated me the most, I still focused on various goals, methodically working toward their accomplishment without feeling afraid. But as…
Keep reading
The Advantages of Age
Recently, I celebrated a birthday. I’m fortunate that this annual occasion occurs during the warmer months of the year. So indulging in frozen yogurt decadence and enjoying a long, scenic walk, two of my favorite pasttimes, are quite achievable activities to mark this anniversary. But as I get older, thoughts on the physical consequences of…
Keep reading
Caring is the Key to Everything
Lately, I can’t help but marvel at the horrendous level of negativity surrounding us at all times now. It seems to me that hate, cruelty, and regressive policies designed to remove rights with brutal efficiency monopolize the air space far too often. Sometimes, the speed with which these new laws are generated and the continous…
Keep reading
Proud to be ‘Woke’
Most of the time, I’m a pretty composed, level-headed person, at least on the surface. It takes quite a lot of prompting for me to release the anger that silently churns so often within the deep corners of my mind, far in the background depths to avoid offending anybody. But my rage cannot be suppressed…
Keep reading
Hate’s Unfortunate Effects on Society
Lately, my thoughts have been gravitating with persistent alarm to the culture of hate that continues to blossom further and further in America. This terrible mindset steadily creeps along, extending at a rapid pace from the margins of society into the mainstream. Since right-wing extremists have gained control of the House of Representatives, multiple facets…
Keep reading
It’s All on us: The Voters
At the beginning of this year, I wrote about my determination to be hopeful for the future despite all of the troubling realities that we face as a nation. Much has transpired throughout the intervening weeks that cause me to feel great concern, though I refuse to lose hope. Yet a certain political party’s quest…
Keep reading
Hope Shining Through the Darkness
Now that 2022 has concluded, a year of immense political complexities and hateful strife looming from the last presidential administration, I feel the need to look forward with a sense of hope. It’s an eager desire for long-term positvity to blossom in our world, surpassing the corruption and intolerance, after so much offensive division. This…
Keep reading
We Deserve So Much Better
I admit it. On a consistent, quite unwavering basis, I’m a worrier. Even when no immediate threat appears to be hovering nearby, I tend to feel a constant swirl of dread nevertheless. This unfortunate inclination has a great deal to do with my general anxiety. Fearfulness is a dark reality that I must always confront,…
Keep reading
Decency Quietly Rising From the Abyss
Over the last few angst-ridden years, with stories of hate-driven violence, political hostility, and conspiracy-theory madness, my outrage had slowly numbed to a frustrated acceptance. During this chaotic time, it became quite clear to me that no amount of reason could stop this pervading lunacy from its infectious hold. But in witnessing the recent mid-term…
Keep reading
How Teaching Has Given My Life a Meaningful Direction
From a young age, the thought of ever becoming a teacher would’ve stirred up horrendous images of torture in my mind. Nothing could have convinced me that engaging students might actually give my own life more meaning. Back then, I’d rebelled against the hopeful, yet unspoken expectations to work hard in my classes, to focus…
Keep reading
Devising My Personal Legacy
The older that I become, the more reflective I am about where I fit into the world and the potential imprint I could feasibly leave behind. While I realize this intricate process involves confronting my own mortality, I also believe it’s more complicated than an acceptance of the inevitable. Indeed, such an effort seeks to…
Keep reading
Always an Avid Learner
Recently, I earned a PhD in English. This vigorous, quite enriching process involved a commitment well beyond any other effort I’ve ever experienced in my life. From the constant studying and extensive reading to the writing of in-depth, analytical essays and dedicated teaching of composition courses as a graduate assistant, I lived and breathed my…
Keep reading
A Grateful Nod to Empathy
As a writer, I tend to examine topics that deeply matter to me in exhaustive detail, often considering multiple vantage points. To some people, that course amounts to overthinking and I’ve been accused of this action on numerous occasions throughout my life. But such an allegation overlooks the fact that this need to delve into…
Keep reading
Finding Happiness in Dark Times
Like the heroines who populate my stories, I tend to fixate on certain issues that frighten me. By exploring grim scenarios in my fiction and examining these real-time topics within my blogs, I feel less terrified of the underlying implications. Somehow, I gain more control of the agitation that always operates at the back of…
Keep reading
Traumatic Effects
Over these last few weeks, I’ve explored different aspects of my upcoming murder mystery Detached, with one particular theme primarily weaving through the layers of analysis. It’s a silent yet significant presence that reveals itself in different ways, invisibly anchoring the numerous elements that compose the story’s overall texture. This integral facet is trauma, which…
Keep reading
Emotionally Alone
When I first began writing Detached, it fulfilled a therapeutic need for me. In fact, weaving this story together through its many worthwhile drafts, which, I believe, strengthened the overall story, helped me cope with my own sense of powerlessness. At that time, I’d just endured the most traumatic chapter of my life. It involved…
Keep reading
How Violence Generates and Deepens Isolation
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing blogs to describe different aspects of my upcoming novel Detached in the context of today’s complicated and quite troubling world. With each passing day, I see more disturbing connections to explore, to dig into with greater depth. Although these various political associations build upon my past reflections…
Keep reading
My Freedom to Believe
For the last few years, I’ve felt nothing less than pure terror. There are many reasons for this endless fear. Witnessing America’s horrific movement toward fascism is one source of my fright. The recent Supreme Court ruling to diminish women’s identities into the horrendously simplistic form of incubators has also inspired this trepidation. But even…
Keep reading
Secondary and Scared
Because I’m a writer, I feel much more comfortable adopting the role of an observer. In fact, I prefer to watch the world around me from a distance, thoughtfully considering what I see, than to make any attempts to influence its dynamics. However, such a stance assumes safety, where no real need to be assertive…
Keep reading
The Consequences of Immoral Chaos
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been transfixed by all of the dramatic developments occurring in our political and legal systems. To be honest, I feel frightened by the unraveling of protections as well as the gradual merging of religion and government. Both of these aspects of American life, among other strikingly dangerous reforms, appear…
Keep reading
Life’s Already Difficult Without Intolerance
Because I’m a writer, I often feel better able to express my thoughts by typing each word, meticulously refining and polishing every sentence, rather than articulating these ideas in a rush of conversation. Somehow, vocalizing my experiences never comes across with the same forcefulness as writing them out with careful attention to explore an overall…
Keep reading
The Delicate Balance Between Freedom and Disengagement (with Hope for a Better Future)
As a child, I used to look forward to adulthood with an intense eagerness, a time when I could be in total charge of myself and my life. The limitations that I had to navigate then, ranging from my parents’ unmistakable expectations to the scholastic demands made by various teachers, left little room, I felt,…
Keep reading
Secrecy as an Unfortunate Tool for Survival
Over the past few weeks, I’ve reflected upon aspects of the writing process in the context of my own personal experience. It’s been a useful method to me for framing the various layers that I feel circulate within my upcoming murder mystery Detached. I guess that achieving a better understanding of myself helps me more…
Keep reading
The Cultural Price of Alienation (and the Hopefulness That Exists Beneath the Surface)
As a writer, I understand that one’s own work is always open to interpretation. It’s not up to me to provide a definitive explanation of the texts that I produce, though this topic is something that I’ve increasingly considered as my novel Detached nears its publication date. While I’ve been writing from a young age,…
Keep reading
Writing as Therapy for My Fears
I am a fearful, anxious person. Fright drives me in everything that I do. It’s a constant presence, no matter how calm I might look on the outside. The only way I can dominate this ever-present uneasiness, productively confronting its terrible intrusion, is to write.
Keep reading
Numerous Decades in the Making
Ever since the age of thirteen, I knew I wanted to become a writer. Ironically, that awareness evolved after I received the quite justifiable punishment of losing my television privileges. While in the eighth grade, a totally depressing year of middle school boredom and teenaged resentment, I decided not to do my schoolwork any longer.…
Keep reading