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Signs of despair
There’s this peculiar habit of mine — part curiosity, part unsolicited empathy — that keeps slipping me into strangers’ shoes without so much as a permission slip. It comes unannounced, carrying questions it has no way of answering. A small, ridiculous trigger, really. Random enough that I should ignore it. But I never do. Because everywhere they are: mini bottles of liquor, scattered across parks and sidewalks like breadcrumbs for morally ambiguous fairy tales. Vodka. Tequila. Whiskey; the holy trinity of just one more won’t hurt. Now, let me be clear. I don’t appreciate nor am I in awe of the trash itself. I’m not out here romanticizing litter like…
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Red flags we call fine
I wanted to write a reminder of reasons I walked away from you, to put shape to the silence that my actions always spoke through. Sometimes when it’s time to explain the why, I never quite play the part, my words fall short of the feeling so I let quiet rest in my heart. And that silence? It echoes louder than anything I could say or do, a punishment in stillness more honest than disagreeing with you. We were never meant to happen, that should’ve been my first sign; a red flag I held like a secret, saw it waving, then called it fine. I ignored it without reason, a…
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Everyone wants to be right
“What an odd thing to post.” “Can you try not being stupid?” “I hope you lose your job.” “It doesn’t matter, I am right.” This is only a fraction of the comments that randoms of the internet have left me over the years — over disagreement. Strange, how quickly a sentence becomes a weapon when certainty sharpens its edge. I’m not fazed anymore. On and offline, you’ll often meet these kinds of people. They can be your own “friends” or people you will meet one day who are willing to defy the very concept of what an opinion is; dressing it up as truth, parading it as fact, daring…
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When society judges your every move
I grew up under the care of a mother who measured every breath against the weight of the world. Not her world but the world. The same one made of watching eyes and whispering mouths. She passed it down to me and my siblings like an heirloom. Be careful. Be proper. Be aware of who’s looking. Because someone was always looking, according to her. As a young woman, I couldn’t run; I had to walk. Not too fast, not too free. I couldn’t leave the house without a chaperone — usually one of my brothers. A quiet reminder that my independence needed supervision. Time wasn’t mine either. Midnight was more…
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The punches you can hardly catch
Her hunched back and distant gaze are a heartbreaking sight. Not the mom I grew up watching; the fast-paced, sharp, almost intimidating force of energy who could walk into a room and either fix your life or tell you exactly why it was falling apart. Or usually both, honestly. If you had told me in ’99 that by ’25 my mom would be a dependent version of herself, I would’ve laughed in your face. Loudly. Probably insulted you, too. Called you crazy…or maybe worse. She was the brain of the family. Honestly, I’d go as far as saying she was the brain of her entire friend group — everyone’s unofficial…
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Empaths in a burning era
One day, the country slipped into the wrong hands and the rest is…making history. Not the kind you frame. Not the kind you teach with pride. The kind you read about later and whisper, we should’ve known. My generation has never felt anything like this. Not even after September 11. And that’s saying something because that day felt like the sky itself had been ripped open. Literal doom broadcast live. But here’s the part that unsettles me most: back then, I felt everything. Now, I often feel numb, as if my system forces itself to restart. That frightens me. I’m one of the most outspoken people among my peers, and…
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What bores me, you ask?
I saw a writing prompt on this blogging platform earlier today. The question was simple: What bores you? For me, that’s an easy one. My answer has never wavered: routine. Nothing — and I do mean nothing — drains the color out of life faster than having identical days stacked neatly on top of each other like those sad beige file folders. And the ironic part? I am, in fact, living a near-perfect replica of the same day, five times a week. Same schedule, same obligations, same annoying alarm clock every morning. There was a time when I was an expert at escaping monotony. I could afford to be spontaneous.…
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Breathing is labor: one of those days
One of those days when the song on the radio brings back time and it stays and every shed tear, every far-off laughter returns like a ghost from a former chapter. One of those days when my mother’s voice in my memory sways; all her quiet wars, her calloused grace, still a warrior, her love I held dear yet too often misplaced. One of those days when no word you offer can alter my haze as I name myself a failure, a field gone dry, where seeds of dreams fell but forgot how to rise. One of those days when I’d welcome the arms that once dealt me pain for…
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I won’t call it love if it isn’t
So it’s Valentine’s Day — a day I’ve grown estranged from, as if it belonged to a language I once spoke fluently and have since forgotten. I scroll past the declarations, the curated tenderness, the proof-of-love posts by couples, and feel an involuntary irony rise in me. Just wait until the blindfold comes off, I think. Not cruelly but with the weary realization of someone who has mistaken dim light for dawn before. It isn’t that I don’t believe in love. It’s that the loves I’ve lived inside have always come up short — reaching toward me, but never quite arriving. I wasn’t always like this. There was a time…
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Blind love, loud excuses: a teacher’s perspective
As a child-less teacher, I’ve had a front-row seat to the many ways parenting shows up in children’s behavior. Behaviors teachers see that parents often don’t. In my nearly 16 years working in education, I’ve seen it all — the gentle, the challenging, and everything in between. Everyone loves and admires a well-behaved child. It’s instinctive. And whenever I encounter one, my first silent nod of appreciation goes to the parents because good discipline, respect, and empathy start at home. What I want to talk about, though, is not good behavior but the opposite: deeply disrespectful children, and the adults who defend them at all costs. It isn’t true that…
