There is something hauntingly intimate when you hold a secret between two people. Something that only the two of you know. A sacred knowing. What is it called, though, when the same secret is carried by millions? In 2012, I arrived through the gates of O’Hare International Airport. Home. My feet had landed on US […]
When Deconstruction is the New D-Word
by on February 5, 2020 Leave a Comment
I didn’t know the divorce rate for friendships going in. I thought when you said “best friends,” you meant “forever.” Like a blood pact without the blood. My glittery puffy stickers from third grade said so, as did my half a locket buried in a box. Friendships were supposed to last through it all. I […]
She Is Enough, She is Perfect
by on November 17, 2019 Leave a Comment
Trigger Warning: Mention of sexual assault and suicidal ideation *** I was born needing to be fixed. They didn’t have the fancy ultrasounds forty-some years ago, so I came out bloody and ready to breathe life into the world—except I could barely breathe. I was born disfigured; my lip was attached to the bottom of […]
The Red Couch: No Other Gods Discussion
by on October 2, 2019 Leave a Comment
I knew the Rosary and the Ten Commandments before I knew the Pledge of Allegiance. I knew the Stations of the Cross before I ever heard we had a constitution of the United States. When we were little the priest caught my brothers drinking the holy water and daring their buddies to do the same. […]
Stories that Change Generations
by on June 23, 2019 Leave a Comment
I have always known I was a storyteller. From a very early age, I created worlds in my mind. I had an imagination that ran wild. My third grade teacher Mrs. Knollinger, called me a liar. That is what old school Catholic teachers were told to teach: the law; not the truth. Thankfully my mother […]
