My father died around midnight on September 9, 2021, and since that day, the hardest part of mourning his life has been accepting that he didn’t get the death he wanted. 

In June of that year, I received a worrying call from Connie, my father’s wife. She told me that my 91-year-old father had lost his ability to walk and could no longer be cared for at home. By the tone of her voice, I knew at that moment that she wanted to place him in a facility. Likewise, I knew that her intention to do so would cause a rift in our relationship. 

Here was my father, Curtis L. Wrenn, Sr., a Black man born in 1930 to a midwife and a sharecropper. My father spent his life fiercely preserving his autonomy. As a teenager, he was raised in segregated Birmingham, Alabama where his first jobs away from a farm and cotton field were working at a shaved-ice stand and slinging peanuts at baseball games. He was a retired Army veteran who served three combat tours in Vietnam, fathered seven biological children (of which I am the youngest), and married three times. He earned a master’s degree in hospital administration and ran hospitals in Maryland and Minnesota. More than anything, he was a thinker. An armchair philosopher. A preacher. When I was a child, he told me, “Though there are many prophets, there is but one God.” According to my father, every prophet—be it Bahá'u'lláh, Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammad—is sent by God to plant a divine message in an appointed place, people, or period. 

Beyond his self-acquired expertise in the realms of theology and philosophy, or maybe because of it, my father also fought his own legal battles. As a pro se litigant (meaning he represented himself in court), he brought numerous lawsuits in district and federal court for employment discrimination. At least one of his legal filings was heard by the Supreme Court when Justice Thurgood Marshall was on the bench. 

Who would ever think that not leaving this world on his terms could be an option for a man like this?

I knew my father wanted to die at home; hell, we all knew. So, when I got Connie’s call, as far as I was concerned, it was time to deploy and defend. That same night, I put gas in my car and began the seven-hour journey to their home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. While I drove, I felt a pit in my stomach as I prepared to confront the situation. I was praying for strength and asking God for wisdom to appeal to Connie’s sense of fairness, praying for wisdom. I was determined to be a steward of my father’s wishes.

Upon my arrival, I met with my stepmother and brother to discuss next steps. They agreed to my request for a three-day grace period to arrange home care. Nevertheless, within 48 hours, my stepmother scheduled a sales tour at a local assisted living facility, which was noticeably lacking the round-the-clock care Daddy required.

The following week, my father was admitted as a full-time resident, a placement I deemed inappropriate for his needs. I expressed my fear that he might fall without proper care. Sadly, my concerns materialized in July when he suffered a concussion and skull fracture, leading to hospitalization. The ongoing struggle between managing expectations and accepting his new reality weighed heavily on me.

The situation added layers of resentment to an already emotionally charged end-of-life scenario —and a complex stepparent-stepchild relationship.

After a stint in rehab, my father gained strength and mobility. By September, he returned to living with Connie, but he would never again see the inside of the home they shared for more than 20 years. Instead, she moved them both to a continuing care residence in a different state. As his health rapidly declined, the stark contrast between the caregiving ambitions of his wife and me, and the difficult realities of decline, became painfully evident. 

In navigating the intricate eldercare system, Connie and I found ourselves at odds as our dual approaches clashed. While I was determined to uphold his wish to die at home, she sought immediate relief through professional care due to the understandable exasperation and fatigue of being his primary caregiver for decades. After her years of daily sacrifice, my advocacy may have seemed controlling and presumptuous to her.

The situation added layers of resentment to an already emotionally charged end-of-life scenario —and a complex stepparent-stepchild relationship.

Due to Connie’s actions, which included her telling me to leave my father's home and even exhibiting physical aggression the day she raised her hand to slap me, I felt betrayed. It seemed as if the nearly 40 years she'd spent married to my father, bestowing countless gifts for my birthdays and holidays, meant little in those moments. These events have left indelible marks on my memory, influencing the way I perceive our shared history.

About two weeks after entering that new residence, my father passed away, or “transferred” as he would have called it, with Connie lovingly by his side. 

In the aftermath, a profound silence settled between Connie and me. The wounds of that time still persist in the brokenness of our relationship. I haven’t spoken to her since that night, more than two years ago, when she called to tell me that Daddy died. Without her, I miss the companionship of someone who loves him as I do.

Even so, his presence remains everywhere: his writings, his voice on old cassette tapes. When I see his belongings stashed throughout my house, I hear myself yelling, “Hi, Daddy!” in my head (and sometimes aloud). Then, my mind hears his delight, the enthusiasm in his orator’s voice when he would say, “There’s my girl!” or “Go get ‘em, Penny D!” His bear hugs left me breathless. Oh, how I miss his face lighting up when I enter a room!

I cannot change how his final chapter unfolded, but I take comfort in his own words, written years before for one of his graduate studies, and so relevant to this journey: We always live at the time we live and not at some other time. Which is to say, I suppose, all we can do is our best —our right-now, present-self, not-nearly-as-good-as-we-hoped best. 

My father and I had much more to learn from each other, but I know his spirit lives on through me. Continuing to grow in wisdom, leading with empathy, and standing up to injustice, as he advised, I honor his legacy. I have faith that if I keep on keeping on (another one of his mantras), we will meet again in the “eternal reality,” as he called it. We will sit side-by-side, elevating our legs in matching brown leather lay-z-boy chairs and watching old Westerns on a big-screen TV, picking up where we left off in the forever friendship and forever union we started here.

We're honored to have Penny share her incredible story - she was unable to join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, thank you for sharing it with us via YouTube.

ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

It’s nearly midnight on December 7, 1993. I’m lying in bed in my Long Island apartment. I can’t sleep, but at least I’m alive. That’s not the case for the dying who’ve been brought to the hospital just outside my window. 

My bedroom blinds are closed, but the light from the emergency room parking lot across the street is so bright that it paints dozens of thin white lines across the ceiling above me. I can’t stop staring at that light, a physical reminder of just how close the hospital is to our home. 

And yet somehow, tonight it was too far to travel for the man who lies next to me, sleeping soundly. The man who’s been my husband for just three months.  

When I think back now, it seems almost crazy that I was lying still at that moment. My life back then was spent in perpetual motion, especially at night. 

I was an actress with a full-time day job, racing out on my lunch hour for auditions all over New York City. I’d also managed to get hired at a theater on Long Island that was actually paying me to act nearly every night of the week. I spent every Wednesday through Sunday night performing on their stage, and every Monday and Tuesday rehearsing the show that would open next.

It was exhausting, but it worked if I moved fast. I would sprint out of my midtown office at exactly 5 p.m. each night, race through the tourist-filled concourse under Rockefeller Center, jump on the subway, then pop out at 34th Street and run a full block to hurry down the escalator into Penn Station and grab a seat on the 5:33 train. 

But I couldn’t grab just any seat. I had to sit in the train car that would pull up exactly where the stairs led down to the street from the platform at my stop. Because I had just enough time to jump out of the train, hurry down those stairs, run three blocks to my parents’ house, borrow their car and get on the road to the theater. 

If I sat in any other train car, I’d have to weave my way along the platform once we got there, stuck amid tired commuters shuffling along at the end of their day. I’d lose precious minutes. Then, if traffic was bad heading to the theater, I’d barely skid into the dressing room before the house manager came looking for me. 

Some nights I was still zipping my dress as I hurried out on stage. 

But it was worth it. I was chasing my dream. And my system worked, as long as I made the 5:33, sat in the right car, and got up as the train approached my station, so I could bolt out the door as soon as we reached my stop.

It was almost Christmas and I’d been running hard all year. For once, I didn’t want to run. 

Once or twice a year, the theater did a show with no part for me. So I’d be appearing in the current show five nights a week, but I wouldn’t have to trek out to the theater on Mondays and Tuesdays because I wasn’t rehearsing the upcoming show. You’d think I’d be relieved. But honestly I just wanted to be performing, even if it meant keeping up this breakneck schedule. 

I usually took the 5:33 on those rare nights off. Habits die hard. But at least on those nights, I knew the Jenga tower of my professional life wouldn’t collapse if I missed the train.

December 7, 1993, was one of those unexpected Tuesday nights off, and I decided to deviate from my ironclad routine for once. It was almost Christmas and I’d been running hard all year. For once, I didn’t want to run. 

So I didn’t board the 5:33 train out of Penn Station. But a man with a loaded 9-millimeter handgun did. For reasons that were never explained at the circus that was his trial, he walked into the same train car that I always rode in and just as the train was approaching my station he killed six people and wounded many more. People who were standing right where I would have been standing, right where I should have been standing that night. 

I had caught the next train, the 6:06, and when that train got held at Jamaica Station in Queens, I had no idea why. Crowded trains kept arriving from Manhattan, but the whole line had been shut down with no explanation. People were complaining, assuming it was some kind of mechanical problem. A half-hour passed, then an hour. Rumors started flying, but this was long before the age of smartphones. I remember standing on that freezing platform in the December wind in a thin, faux leather jacket, and finally giving up the endless line for the only working pay phone I could find. 

I kept wishing I’d taken my normal train. I’d be home by now. 

And that was the thing: I should have been home by then. 

Hours later, when we were told that trains would finally begin leaving Queens, I managed to squeeze aboard one. A conductor passed through taking tickets; he announced what had happened. People who’d been grumbling and jostling for space moments before fell silent. 

My head was spinning. All I could think was that my husband must be worried sick. I wished I stayed on that pay phone line and called home. He must have been thinking that the only reason he hadn’t heard from me in all these hours was that I’d been on that train, just like I was every other night. 

When I finally got home, he’d been watching the news. Victims had been taken to the hospital right across from our apartment in Mineola. The emergency room parking lot, visible from our living room window, was filled with news trucks and a sea of people milling about.

On the screen there was a phone number for people to call, to find out whether their loved ones were being treated for gunshot wounds at the hospital or were just stuck in the massive train delays that followed. This massacre at rush-hour had shut down a major artery that brings home thousands of people each night. For excruciating hours, people didn’t know whether they’d lost someone they loved dearly.

“Did you call the number,” I asked my husband, “or did you just go across the street and ask if I was there?” 

He stared at me for a moment with a silence that confused me. Then he spoke. 

“Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t deal with the idea that you were dead. So I just stayed here. I figured you’d get here eventually. And you did.” 

He puttered in the kitchen for a moment. Then he changed the channel to see what was on ESPN. 

It’s strange, the things we assume when we marry someone, the conversations we don’t ever think we’d need to have, the confidence we have that we’ll receive all the consideration that we’re so eagerly and instinctively giving. 

It’s easy to believe that your partner is the one person who will have your back no matter what. This is the person who will show up when you need them, even when it's hard. The person who will run at breakneck speed out the door and across an emergency room parking lot to make sure you’re not dying alone of a gunshot wound when all signs point to the likelihood that you are.

But that doesn't always happen. 

It took 14 months to convict the gunman on six counts of murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. It took me five years and a slew of other big and small moments being quietly ignored to realize that I deserved better than a partner who’d stay on the couch on a night like that. 

Thirty years later, I’m still not sure whether my choice to take a different train was divine intervention or simply dumb luck. But I’m grateful that eventually, after more hard lessons than I should have needed, I discovered that being on my own was a whole lot more satisfying than being alone with someone else. And I’m determined to spend however much more time I’m granted in this world encouraging other women to acknowledge their own value and set their own bars just as high as they wish.

One Sunday this past September, I went to the Met to see an exhibition by the painter  Cecily Brown. She’s British, she’s 52, she’s a fellow Gen Xer. She lives in New York City, and for expediency’s sake let’s call her an abstract painter.

In the middle of the exhibition, I noticed that she’d titled a painting BFF, which made me laugh. She was ironizing the concept and sending it up, but it was also a sincere acknowledgment of a guiding principle. According to the card next to it, one of Brown’s mentors told her to make painting her best friend, because, like a best friend, it would always be there for her. In other words: the challenges of working out a vision could provide reliable comfort when all other comforts proved disappointing.

I tend not to have blindingly acute site-specific realizations, but standing in front of that painting I found myself sitting spiritually upright and in possession of possible insight.

I’ve been writing as long as Cecily Brown’s been painting, and while I’ve asked my writing to be many things, I’ve never really asked it to be a friend. Maybe it was, sort of, back in college, when the page was one of my favorite places to be. The papers and poems and stories I wrote for my classes helped me to become a person I really liked: confident, razor-witted, brilliant, charming. Crafting a self on the page transformed me the way spending time in the company of people you really, really love and trust can transform you. 

But I wasn’t truly capable of treating the writing like a friend back then. It wasn’t possible because I’ve never been able to separate the act of writing from my hopes for its acclaim. Even then it was tied too tightly to my ambitions for it. My affection for the writing was far too dependent on the praise it could bring me.

Still, the writing I did in college helped me find my footing in the world. It gave me the confidence needed to try to write for websites and magazines when I moved to New York, and showed me I had the perseverance required to write books. (I’ve published three of them.) Even though I knew this city loved to fry all the big fish leaping here from small ponds into a keening, smoldering crisp, I thought I was too level-headed and pure-hearted to get that scorched. But get scorched I did. Not immediately, or theatrically, but very gradually, and not by the city but by my own insecurity. Some of my goals transpired, but I was never satisfied with what I’d achieved. 

At the peak of this dissatisfaction, which was around five years ago, my ambition started to feel like an enemy.

Ideally, by this point in time, people—you good people!—would have known my name whenever they heard it and would trust it to bring them sharp sight if they saw it on the cover of a book. I wanted this more than I wanted children or perhaps even romantic happiness, and sometimes the pain of not having achieved it has roared so loud within my mind I could not see that the rest of my life was pretty okay if not very good, or hear anyone when they tried to convince me that things were pretty okay if not very good. 

At the peak of this dissatisfaction, which was around five years ago, my ambition started to feel like an enemy. Like something I might need to kill off or betray in order to feel free. I’m not so sure that I won’t need to kill it off at some point in the future and go find some other things to want. Like a dog. Or community involvement. People seem to have good things to say about their dogs and their community involvement. Really what I think I should do is become a lady hermit who resides in the kind of darkness on the edge of town glimpsed by Saint Bruce Springsteen in one of his visions. 

But not just yet, because Brown’s painting has gotten me thinking.

I can see now that I was asking my ambition to be the boyfriend who would save me — by which I mean I was asking it to be the thing that would finally make me believe I was as smart as I suspected and pretty in a way I didn’t think possible. It has taken me a very long time to understand that you should not ask this of any human being — and you should not ask this of your ambition. I see also that I have been desperate, needy, and clingy with my ambition in the way I have absolutely refused to be in relationships with men. Second wave feminism taught me well. (I’m joking. Am I joking?) 

The desperate desires fueling my ambition burnt me out, and thanks to a pandemic, the loss of a parent, and the glacially-paced magic that is the passage of time, the pain I just described has dwindled to a private, ritualized, and amused recitation of Ouch whenever I go into a bookstore, hand over my debit card, and the cashier fails to explode into delighted surprise when they read the name spelled out on the plastic. 

And I am much more able and willing to look at writing differently. Currently I’m curious, just like our therapists encourage us to be, to see what will happen if I experiment with treating it like a friend.

If I saw my writing as a friend, I would of course forgive it for not saving me. You don’t expect friends to save you—you expect them to support you, but without being a crutch or a cross. If I saw my writing as a friend, I’d be grateful, too, that it was still more or less a refuge after all this time, and after all my neglect and betrayal. And I’d be thrilled to know it was still willing to show up and listen to me say what was on my mind. Where we go from here I do not know. I am trying my best not to care.

We're honored to have Carlene join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, where she took the stage to share her incredible story.

ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

The annual Christmas pageant was Holy Ghost Elementary’s crown jewel, but it was not your typical pageant.  A parade of the major players of the Bible, it started with Adam and Eve and ended climatically, and inexplicably, with every character singing “Silent Night” in the manger. Mrs. Pulaski, best described as the type of teacher who did not like children, ruled over it all.

Casting was hierarchical and auditionless. You were appointed, as if your entire existence were the audition. One year, a kid whose mom consistently sent in store-bought brownies for the bake sales instead of homemade, was cast as a rock. A rock!          

Every year, I had humble aspirations for the part I’d receive. I wasn’t a teacher’s pet and if forced to bring something homemade for a fundraiser, my Nigerian mother would sooner have sent me to school with a platter of jollof rice over a sweet treat.

But that year was different. I was in 8th grade and I wanted . . . more. So, against all social order, I set out to attempt a coup: to be cast as the Virgin Mary.    

Now, you should know that Mary was only ever given to the school’s golden girl — figuratively and literally (because nothing says “6 BC Bethlehem” like blonde hair and blue eyes). And I deeply wanted to be golden.

The only Black girl in her sea of white friends, I knew the difference between fitting in and not fitting in was being a quick study, so I learned everything about white girlhood. The way a mother learns to understand her baby's every cry was the way I attuned myself to the joys, needs, and neuroses of my white female peers. 

I’d plant the idea of Black Girl Magic in Mrs. Pulaski’s head by cutting out pictures of Denise Huxtable, Whitley Gilbert, and Lisa Turtle and discreetly placing one on her desk each morning.

In exchange for this hypervigilant self-subjugation, I didn’t want to just be accepted, I wanted to be validated and seen. I wanted Mary.

So, in the week before the parts were announced, I launched a three-stage plan. 

Stage 1: Inception. I’d plant the idea of Black Girl Magic in Mrs. Pulaski’s head by cutting out pictures of Denise Huxtable, Whitley Gilbert, and Lisa Turtle and discreetly placing one on her desk each morning.

By the third day, Mrs. Pulaski made the entire class do 10 extra minutes of math drills as punishment for whomever was messing with her belongings. 

No matter. Enter Stage 2: Dress for The Job You Want. I stole a thin blue shawl from my mother’s closet that just screamed “Mary” and as the class was lining up to go outside for a frigid Chicago recess, instead of donning my winter hat, I dramatically draped the shawl around my head.

Mrs. Pulaski sent me home with a note for my parents admonishing them about my insufficient winter attire.  That was not a good evening.

With time quickly running out and my attempts yielding zero success, I prepared myself for Stage 3.

Ask.  

I would ask to be Mary. 

I would stand in front of this terrifying woman and ask her if she would be willing to see me the way she saw other girls in my class.  

Barely able to make eye contact, I began, “Mrs. Pulaski, I know we don’t get to choose our parts for the Christmas pageant, but I . . . I  . . . I just wanted to let you know that I’d like to play Mary. I think I could do a really good job.”

Mrs. Pulaski peered down at me with a long, cutting look.  “Ebele, I know you’re the one who was leaving those pictures on my desk. Now I know why. Mary didn’t ask to become the mother of God. She was chosen — based on her character. Think about that.” She put on her coat, fished out a pack of Virginia Slims from her bag, and walked out the door. 

The next day, Mrs. Pulaski read the cast assignments aloud during homeroom. “Ebele, you will play the role of . . . “

Please let it be Mary. Please let it be Mary.

“Eve.”

Eve? The name was a scarlet letter, a condemnation. I fought back tears. Mary didn’t ask, Ebele. She was chosen. Girls only ask when they know they aren’t good enough to be selected, when they’re Eve’s — single-handedly responsible for the downfall of mankind. I curled into myself at my desk feeling so stupid for believing that if I just tried hard enough, I could be golden.  

A few weeks later, I took the stage in my leaf-covered t-shirt and nude tights.  My lack of pants (because now we care about historical accuracy) only added insult to injury.  I dutifully recited my lines, and somehow managed to keep my composure as I watched the girl playing Mary hold a Cabbage Patch Jesus as we sang “Silent Night.” 

When Mrs. Pulaski said “Eve,” I should have shouted, “Thank you!” Curious, vivacious, ambitious Eve. Mary was chosen, but Eve chose. She chose the fruit and with it a path that, yes, came with consequences, but that was her own. If she were a man, we’d call this Act I of her hero’s journey. 

The acceptance of my white peers was my Eden, and I spent years contorting myself to stay within its confines, until I was finally ready to receive what Eve already knew – that there is a world beyond the one defined for us.  We just have to be bold enough to choose it, and I have. I’ve crafted a life filled with fellow Eve’s of all colors and creeds and what each of us knows to be true is that women who choose are far more interesting than those who wait to be chosen.  

Thank you, Mrs. Pulaski. If my entire existence is the audition, then I was perfectly cast. 

We're honored to have Ebele join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, where she took the stage to share her incredible story.

ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

Who remembers the Diane Keaton movie, Baby Boom?

It’s 1987. Diane’s character, J.C. Wiatt, is a Big Bad Career Lady in the go-go-go ‘80s. Shoulder-padded blazer, puffy, white sneakers for the commute to work, boardroom pumps, maybe even a string tie (although I’m hoping that’s just a figment of my imagination since no one looks good in those). J.C. finds herself suddenly saddled with a deceased relative’s baby and is instantly teleported to motherhood drudgery, which prompts her to give up her fast-track career (and a very on-trend apartment) for the cozy confines of a Vermont farmhouse. 

Subsequent hijinks ensue. 

I won’t ruin the whole storyline for you if you haven’t seen the flick (but here comes a 36-year spoiler alert) there’s one scene which I’ve ruminated on over the years: J.C. pushing a baby stroller in a sea of Manhattan working stiffs, all of them hurried and pounding the pavement on their way to work. She makes eye contact with a woman who clearly reminds J.C. of her own Boss Lady self, and what does she do? She picks up her pace, bulky stroller be damned, trying her hardest to keep up with this doppelgänger who is no doubt hustling, briefcase a-swingin,’ towards the office or a killer-diller breakfast meeting. The competition is all for naught, as J.C. quickly realizes she’s out of the game. She’s no Mistress of the Universe. She is now, in fact, the opposite of a mover and a shaker, just some woman with a cranky toddler and bag of goldfish crackers. As the scene ends, J.C. stands on the sidewalk, forlorn, watching her former self disappear into the crowd.

What about this scene rings true for me? When I think back to my own days in New York City, and the goals and dreams to which I held fast and tough, I realize that my ambition has left the building. Or rather, my ambition has decamped, not to Vermont but to upstate New York: the Catskills, baby, going on 20 years.

Now, that’s not to say I’ve given up. Hardly. But, my priorities, my standards, have, in a word, downshifted. 

Specifically, I’ve gone soft. 

Lemme tell you a little bit about the person I was. I arrived in NYC after graduating from journalism school and quickly started writing for various magazines. Who remembers magazines?! I worked three jobs in order to afford my $875 rent for a one-bedroom apartment (do we need to observe a moment of silence on this one?) and when I began dating my darling now-ex-husband, we collectively started living large. It was precisely where I had imagined myself to be. The hand-me-down furniture and Canal Street halogen lamps gave way to the spoils of upwardly mobile life. I was able to start indulging in what has been a lifelong passion of mine: interior design and home decor. 

It was no coincidence that the magazines I longed to write for the most were those covering interior design and home fashion. I loved art and gobbled up museum exhibitions; I loved the history of home design trends – not being trendy, YUCK, but from where did these trends emerge? 

I loved order and living graciously and when there HAD to be a pile of mail or a mound of laundry, I loved arranging my home so that these things were in harmony with the other beautiful objects that I collected. I think I drove my ex-husband crazy when I spent months looking at mid-century modern catch-all baskets that we could use in lieu of a toy chest for our young son. A plastic bin was never happening. We moved from a small loft to a larger loft and my decorating and design itch got scratched. Our homes were photographed for some of the same magazines that I admired the most. 

In those years, I was a strict design maven who was on a first-name basis with all the mid-century designers of note. Let’s face it: I was a hard-core design snob, and that was an easy place to be because my mate was one as well. When we acquired our vacation home in Woodstock, NY in the early aughts, we took that urban, “designed distinctly out of reach for many” aesthetic and purchased a very large mid-century modern home, amassing more period-specific treasures. 

Jump ahead a few years down the road. My marriage was over, and it was amicable enough that my ex-husband gave me the all-clear to move to Woodstock full time with our son. We’re ensconced in my beautiful home; my new partner moves in, and life goes on in a reasonably similar fashion, until it doesn’t. Ten years later, my second marriage ended (not so amicably) and a few years following that, now an empty-nester, I decided to downsize and move…to a 1920s Arts & Crafts Cape. 

So long, mid-century modern soaring ceilings, hello nooks and crannies.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  I love it. More than I’ve loved anywhere I’ve lived. It’s Lady Cottage Central Casting Perfection. 

Besides giving up “the big house,” I’ve tossed a few other long-held lofty status symbols (and ideals) out the window, and life in the slow lane has been one deliciously downward spiral after another.

More incredulous than being struck by lightning, my taste has completely morphed, from modern to…mushy. Because I finally had an easy-living epiphany and it’s this: You know what’s comfortable for snuggly Sundays in front of the fireplace? Not tightly-upholstered Florence Knoll sofas. No, when I want to relax, I want to burrow deep down, not in a Bertoia chair but rather in a well-worn leather club chair, a quilt thrown over my knees. My “Little Blue House That Could,” as it’s come to be called, has actual rooms (ROOMS!), with lowish ceilings, decorative trim over the doorways and a peeling-paint front porch, on which I love to luxuriate in my Early American rocking chairs, listening to the crickets, the birds, the silence.

To anyone who crosses my threshold, it is obvious that the woman who owns this place does whatever she damn pleases with regard to the décor, which is happily mismatched maximalism gone wild, piled on textured textiles, and more art than there are walls. My motto: What feels good, by default, looks good. I’ve never been so happy as I am when I’m wandering from room to room, drinking it all in, my little Queendom.

Besides giving up “the big house,” I’ve tossed a few other long-held lofty status symbols (and ideals) out the window, and life in the slow lane has been one deliciously downward spiral after another. For the first few years here in the early aughts, I held fast to closets full of city garb, until I realized that someone else could, and should, wear those leather pants, those 3 ½ inch heels, that cocktail dress dripping in bugle beads. Sure, I’ve kept some of my favorite urban pieces and I still own enough heels and handbags to stock a snooty reboot of Barneys (if that day ever arrives), but nine times out of ten, I’m debuting a new pair of Birkenstocks with very worn-in jeans. If it’s not a black t-shirt, it’s one of my many threadbare Indian kurtas or kaftans from an enormous collection that I started amassing in the ‘90s — you know, before they were chic, when it was all about the distinct comfort of the lack of a waistband.

You know what else screams DEFEAT in the best possible way? 9:30 pm. It’s the new midnight. Most nights of the week, you’ll find me in bed at an alarmingly early hour, with the dog, a few cookbooks or food magazines, a novel or two that I page through for all of 20 minutes before I start dozing off, and maybe a knitting project. Likewise, you know what’s better than a steaming cup of coffee in hand, watching the sunrise over the mountains in silence just after daybreak? Not much. A quiet morning here before the emails start flying is not only my top priority, but my sanity.

I sort of laugh at how today’s Mountain Chic phenomenon shows no sign of stopping. The irony of it all! I live in a place that is considered “red hot” by all reports! When I first moved to the country, friends were slightly concerned about me. This was before all the ironic Wellie boots, Teslas, and oat milk made their upstate debut. Back then, to move upstate meant you were almost “giving up.” Maybe that’s true. I’ve gone to the grocery store in pajamas more times than I can count and the idea of jockeying for a prime-time seat at a hot new restaurant (by setting alarms to remind me to log on to Resy) makes me cringe. Do I think I’m smarter than anyone else? Hardly. Probably just lazier. Totally fine with me. Leave me in the dust. I’ve discovered it’s my Happy Place.  

We're honored to have Abbe join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, where she took the stage to share her incredible story.

ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

At just shy of 21, I moved to New York City with a stack of well-worn books, a need for independence and a fantasy of becoming a writer. It was 1995 and I had dropped out of community college across the river in New Jersey, more interested in going to raves than studying all night. I thought school might not be for me.

But there was one person in my life who never questioned whether I would go to college, she just wanted to know when. 

“Cuando te vas al colegio?” my maternal grandmother, Lala, would ask. “Lala” because I could not yet pronounce Abuela as a toddler. With Lala it was never “will you go to college,” it was always “when will you go to college?”

 “Es sólo cuestión de tiempo.” It’s only a matter of time. Somehow she didn’t care about my previous thwarted attempts. 

Lala taught me Spanish while my younger twin brothers perfected their secret twin gibberish. She taught me how to cook and clean. She taught me how she set her shoulder-length blond hair in rollers each night, how she washed her face with cold cream. She was beauty with a dash of Lucille Ball-type silliness, piercing perfectionism, and the smell of Jean Naté body splash. I was a student of Lala and her ways.

Lala was the one who, with my grandfather, moved 5,534 miles north to New Jersey to live with me and my family, leaving the seaside chocolate store she named after me, Carlita, in Mar de Plata, Argentina, after we emigrated to the United States. She was the one who learned to speak English while wearing a silk neckerchief with her polyester uniform while working at a McDonald’s, a Presbyterian Church and, later, while selling food at a counter at BJ’s Wholesale Club. She was the one who learned how to drive on Route 1, terrified alongside the tractor-trailers, so that she could pick up me and my brothers from school each day. 

Lala was the Latin Martha Stewart. She could make a gourmet meal out of scant ingredients and beautifully decorate the house or clothe us — and all of my Barbies — with just a bit of fabric and her sewing machine. My Halloween costumes, never store-bought, won awards.

In Lala, I saw a drive born of a woman worth far more than the sixth grade level of education she achieved before leaving school to help raise her six siblings. In Lala, I saw a woman who met life as it unfolded in front of her, whether it was what she had planned or not. 

Despite her example, two years after moving to the city I was still spinning out of control, having traded raves for increasingly solitary nights numbing out on cocaine. My life had become very small: waking up thinking about using, manipulating people to use more, feeling remorse and making plans and big promises to stop, only to wake up the next day and repeat the pattern. The drugs quieted the voice in me that said I might be able to be better, be smarter, achieve more in my life. I wanted to hide from the idea that I’d soon have to grow up and become responsible for my own life, not just blame everyone for where it was not going. 

I’d regularly make self improvement lists that started: “#1: Go back to school,” but put off the goal until a friend suggested over drinks (at an East Village bar where she taught me how to do quadratic equations on cocktail napkins) that I should take classes with her at a community college downtown. “You’d kill it,” she said. I quickly dismissed her assessment, but ultimately enrolled.

Her investment in me felt like something I wanted to repay. 

When I told my grandmother, she came to visit. My apartment was as messy as my life when she arrived at my fifth floor walk-up apartment uptown in Yorkville, but she walked with purpose across the grimy kitchen floor and piles of unwashed laundry toward the electric typewriter on my table. 

“Estas estudiando,” she said, her brown eyes smiling with pride. You’re studying. 

When she smiled at me, I felt I could be the person she was able to see. She never questioned my life or drug use, she treated me as if I was living the life I should be. I took her around my neighborhood, proudly showing her Gracie Mansion and the East River. On the steps of the Met, we ate a hot pretzel from a cart. I told her about my classmates and reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

“Education means emancipation,” Douglass wrote, I told her, translating into broken Spanish. “It means light and liberty.”

She nodded yes.

The next morning, when I went to class she got on her hands and knees and washed the floor of my kitchen and organized my apartment. When I came home, my windows were open and a breeze moved air through the rooms. I felt equal parts shame and inspiration. Her investment in me felt like something I wanted to repay. 

It took me months after her visit to stop using drugs, but I ultimately hit a spiritual and emotional bottom that spring, holed up in my apartment after drugging and drinking. I’d spent the night obsessively highlighting passages in a book about addiction called 1-800-COCAINE, seeing myself in all of the pages while staring at my untouched electric typewriter. I’d hung my grandmother’s knitted afghan on my window to keep the sunlight out and neighbors from seeing in, yet pinpoints of light shone through the colorful patchwork of squares. By morning, I started seeing the reality of the damaging life I was living and asked for help. Hours later I was moving home to my mother and grandmother’s basement, the start of an 18-month-era I lovingly call “New Jersey Bootcamp.” In that basement, my grandmother’s apartment when I was a young girl, I began learning how to be an adult. 

When I finally returned to the city, I busily focused on work and 12 Step meetings and a plan to graduate from school by age 30, expecting to apply to only one school where I thought I might actually get accepted. I felt pressure to quickly check the item off my list of things I was late in achieving. 

Fortunately, a friend convinced me to slow down, dream bigger and apply to three schools instead. 

“When you get in, you’ll thank me,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest and scrunching her face when I rolled my eyes. There it was again, “when,” cuando? It felt like a dare.

Fulfilling the order she mandated, I applied to Columbia (never gonna happen); Eugene Lang (pretty please); and Baruch (my “safety school”). 

I got into Columbia. 

I got into Eugene Lang. 

I was waitlisted for Baruch.

When I stood in front of my mailbox, holding my acceptance letter from Columbia, a heat spread from my throat and chest to my thighs. I could feel myself changing. I gave myself permission to be ambitious; it was an alchemical rush. 

From that point on, things took on a certain velocity. I was riding on the power of my grandmother’s dreams and new sense of belief. I believed because she believed. And when I graduated with my first degree, months before my 30th birthday, my grandmother was by my side, beautiful bright skin and a smile that told the world, “por supuesto ella graduo.” Of course she graduated.

Lala has been gone for more than a decade now. I have both achieved more than I ever thought possible and have also lived through new hardships that have threatened to wear away my sense of self and strength. But in the moments when I still find myself grasping for my grandmother’s vision of me I can hear her voice asking “cuando?” and I take a minute to collect myself and respond, Ahora, Lala, ahora. The time is now. 

We're honored to have Carla join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, where she took the stage to share her incredible story.

ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

By Julia Khvasechko

Picture it: A crisp, early November day in 1999. I’m sitting in a wheelchair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a very special place for me, watching a parade of runners go by. It just so happens that I’m perched at mile 16 of the New York City Marathon. I’m mesmerized by the runners; I’m also jealous of their strength, as I am battling a rare type of brain tumor that developed from glial cells called an oligodendroglioma and, at this time, unable to walk unassisted, I am 25 years old.

I notice some runners get extra kudos as they run by. I’m intrigued: Who are these runners? Some are very fit and run effortlessly, while some are really struggling. All shapes and sizes and ages, all walks of life, it is humanity at its best. 

“Are they famous?” I ask someone next to me. They tell me, “No, they are running for Fred’s Team; they are running for us.”  

I get chills up and down my arms. These runners aren’t just running a race, they are raising funds for Sloan Kettering. They’re giving back. And they are inspiring. 

I made a deal with God that day: I asked the universe to regain my ability to use my body again, to regain my strength and in return, I would run for Fred’s Team.  

Once I made that decision, it was no longer about me. 

First, we make our habits, then our habits make us. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and changed my mindset to get to work.

I worked tirelessly for a year to get stronger, doing my physical therapy religiously, instead of complaining about it. I squeezed every drop of knowledge out of those sessions. Learning how to stand on my own post-op was a great challenge since I was so weak. Learning how to walk again was very frustrating because I was 25 and patience was something I still had to learn. But progress, no matter how slow, is still progress.

As I grew stronger, I started walking around the block regularly. Eventually, I walked to and from work. I progressed to three miles a day. I walked to school, I walked to do all my errands, walking became my way of life. First, you’re doing what’s hard; then it becomes a habit.

Now I was ready to start running. My first run lasted all of 30 seconds. I was out of breath and I felt defeated. But I didn’t give up.

I remembered coming here at seven years old from the former Soviet Union, not knowing a word of English. I was so scared to go to public school where I didn’t know anyone or understand anyone. I set an hour a day to go to Central Park and started learning how to run. At first, I could only run for 30 seconds, but I didn’t give up. Then one day, I started incorporating run-walk-run for a minute at a time. Eventually, I was able to run an entire mile without stopping. 

As I continued to get stronger, I kept setting my goals a bit higher, always having that idea of running the marathon in the back of my mind. It’s so important to have goals that are just outside your grasp, so you keep getting stronger, until, one day, you simply become. I was going to run the New York City Marathon someday, but first, I had to run around the park: six miles. I set a goal so big that I couldn’t possibly achieve it, until I grew strong enough and became the person that could.  

I loved how running made me feel: it made me feel strong, capable, free. At work, I became known as ‘runner girl’ and I liked that title a lot more than ‘cancer girl.’

The day I was able to run the entire six-mile loop of Central Park, I knew I was ready. I trained for my first marathon for half a year, dedicating my whole life to it, while raising funds for the hospital that had saved my life. Not just raising funds, actually, but also raising awareness and inspiring others who were still fighting, who were watching. I was keeping my promise to the universe that I made in 1999. I raised over $10,000 and completed the New York City Marathon when I was 32. I have never been prouder of anything in my whole life.

Little by little I was changing everything. I started to eat like I loved myself. I started to sleep like I loved myself. I started to practice self-care like I mattered. The people and things that were not supporting my new lifestyle went to the wayside and all the things that empowered me and my new running lifestyle became the epicenter of my world.

Practicing regular self-care meant weekly massages, eating clean and practicing yoga to keep my muscles loose, limber and ultimately injury-free. Boozy nights out weren’t part of that equation anymore and my friends changed from party friends I’d see in bars and nightclubs to running friends I met in the park in the mornings. 

My focus shifted; once I committed to something, there was no stopping me. 

When you find something you love doing, you want to do it all the time. You don’t quit because it’s hard, you become stronger so the hard becomes easy. You don’t skip your run because it’s raining, you don’t miss your 20 miler because it's 85 degrees. That is the difference between a hobby and a goal: You don’t do what is convenient for you, you do what is necessary to get the job done. Going out and doing the long runs on bad weather days made me more resilient; I acquired more resolve, more grit.

I used my long runs to practice my ‘why’ — to work on who I wanted to be in life, on who I wanted to become. I either meditated or listened to books. When the alarm went off at 5 a.m., I didn’t complain. I knew that running was a gift, and I was lucky enough to ‘get’ to do this. I started to see every set back as an opportunity.

After six years of racing, the marathons became less of a challenge. I wanted to find a way to up the ante so I decided to become a marathon pacer.  Pacers  — or pacesetters — are experienced runners who complete the course at a specific pace and finish within a certain, predesignated time. The goal of the pacer is to help participants around them stay at a consistent speed and – if they can maintain the pace – finish within the same time. I was initially terrified that I wasn’t going to be able to keep the consistent pace in the darker miles as your body starts to shut down, but you have to do things that scare you if you want to grow.  But after I paced my first race, the Las Vegas Marathon in 2011, I was hooked.  I loved seeing runners become their own hero's as they crossed the finish line.  I loved helping runners remember their ‘why’ when it got challenging on the course and help remind them why they started in the first place.

Again, my trajectory changed and now every run I did was focused on a specific time goal, the pace I was going to finish at the next marathon and bringing in the newbies. I was running to help others instead of myself. I was now determined to help others reach their first marathons and time goals as I sacrificed my own time and slowed down to be in the service of others.

During this time, my work was shifting, too. I left my job in finance to study to become a registered yoga teacher and then the universe led me to massage school. Because bodywork was so invaluable to me, I thought it could be valuable to others as well. 

Thirteen years later, I’m a full time yoga teacher, massage therapist, and running coach. I’m doing what I love, following my bliss, following my ikigai (a Japanese word meaning the place where passion, vocation, service, and hobby come together). I’m helping others achieve their goals and dreams, helping people find freedom and joy in movement, and I no longer have a life I need a vacation from. I feel a sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of community. 

Today, as I pace marathons every month and help first-time marathoners reach their finish lines, I know I’m giving back in a meaningful way. I feel like I found my calling; in the service of others, I found myself. Help someone achieve their dream and you will achieve yours. 

A guest post by Julia Khvasechko: Julia is a passionate world traveler, Marathoner, LMT, RYT, and a Running and Health Coach. She loves to inspire others to live their best lives by putting one foot in front of the other and challenging their self-imposed limitations.

We're honored to have Julia join us at TueNight's Birthday Bash, where she took the stage to share her incredible story. ICYMI: Watch TueNight’s Birthday Bash in full, here — we’re also sharing a few of our fave photos taken at our event, here.

So. My kid punched a kid. Let’s just start there.

It happened at preschool, on an unassuming, every-day kind of a day. But at pick-up, the teacher slid next to me on the sectioned colored rug and delicately started in, “…so, your son was a little off today…”

What’s that?

She then unveiled my son’s litany of attacks that day: a shove, a push to the cement and the whopper finale of three sucker punches to the ribs of his classmate.

Oh. Oh, God…

When she asked him why he did it, he stared blankly into space and said, “For no reason”.

Quick backstory on my kid: He’s a hyper dude — but not a violent one. His body goes before his brain, and sometimes it’s a struggle to calm him or focus him or get him to put on his shoes (putonyourshoeswillyoujustputonyourshoesyourshoesrightthere…), but he is usually a keep-his-hands-to-himself kind of a kid.

Until today.

The teacher excused herself to talk to the parents picking up their wounded children. “So, Jasper was pushed…Markus was shoved…Michael was punched today…”

And, just like that, sitting on the green square in room three, I was that mom.

The mom of the Trouble Kid.

I strapped my four-year-old in his car seat, and I shot off questions:

Why did you punch your friend?

I don’t know.

Why didn’t you stop?

I don’t know.

Did you know you hurt him?

Yes.

You hurt him very badly.

He was red. I hurt his bones.

Why would you want to hurt him?!

I don’t know. I just did it.

Great. Great great great great great.

Later, my husband came home and I ordered him to take our son for a walk. I wanted them to talk man-to-man — find out WHY he did these terrible acts. My husband obliged but then returned 20 minutes later with nothing. “What do you want me to do? He’s four. We talked about owls and skateboards.”

Ugh. Men.

At dinner I decided to take a different tactic: talking it out (that’ll work). I went on a wild diatribe of how we have to take care of one another and how we have one life and we better do it right. We don’t hurt people, we have to take care of our family and our neighbors and our community…I mean, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING??!!

I took away super hero books and anything that said “pow.” I took away shows and costumes and mittens that had tiny bumps on them. I wasn’t taking any chances.

My son just looked down at the table. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t elaborate. He just sat there. Unattached and unreachable. Miles away and unrecognizable.

Who was this kid?

Later that night, I was out with girlfriends. I told the story of my boy’s punches and everyone gasped. “What will you do?” they wondered.

I shook my head and popped olives in my mouth.

I don’t know! I can’t deal with it. I can’t deal with anything right now. I mean, what’s it gonna be next, right? Every day I feel like punching someone in the chest…!

And there it was.

It was me. He did it because of me.

I took away super hero books and anything that said “pow.” I took away shows and costumes and mittens that had tiny bumps on them. I wasn’t taking any chances.

In the car home, I reviewed my behavior this month. I’d been so careful about talking in code to my husband about current events. I typed quick venting texts to friends, but I never made calls. I’d steal moments to surf Internet pop-ups while my kid zoned in front of Super Why, but it was all silent and in secret. Or so I’d thought.

What I realized was that my kid doesn’t need to read the headlines cause he is reading the lines on my forehead. He doesn’t need to spell words to decode that what I am saying makes me sad and angry and uptight. And it doesn’t take a sleuth to calculate that “mommy’s little helper” glass of wine gets poured earlier and earlier every night…

Mommy.com is always live, and he is plugged in.

No wonder he hit that kid.

I got home, put on my PJs and stared at the ceiling. It was all my fault. (Again.)

But instead of opening the frequently visited Pandora’s box of mommy shame, I decided to look at it from a different angle: I had been heard. And understood — on an energy level, a gut level, a blood level.

And in that moment, I felt so close to my little boy.

My son, who I had thought was so distant, was inside my bones. He had felt me, and, like a balloon tight with too much air, he let loose.

Like I had wanted to.

So now, we punch couches. And dart pillows across the room. And stomp our feet and growl at the moon. But we do it together. Cause we’re in this together. And we are forever deeply, deeply connected.

This story was originally published April 4, 2017

Matthew Perry, dead at 54. Nothing about it feels natural, celebrities aging yet still “one of our own.” Chandler Bing, joke clincher, scripted yet uncannily real. The “Friend” we related to the most.

After Friends ended, whispers of Perry's personal struggles surfaced, battles intimated but never clear. He tried to bare it all in a memoir last year, a pre-death legacy project, inspiration mixed with pleas for help. Like others before him, their last works raise uneasy questions about frailty, about time running out.

Latchkey kid, child of divorce, walking a tightrope between a broken home and a Hollywood dream. Beyond the Friends fame, what was Matthew Perry’s life? Ups and downs, genius tainted by addiction and anguish. Stories like Girl Interrupted once cautionary, now haunted harbingers. His death spotlights our generation’s complex relationship with mortality.

But Perry’s contributions endure. The Friends cast negotiating as one, modeling pay equity early on. Despite trials thereafter, his talent animated the show’s lasting power. Millions still find joy in Chandler’s biting wit, interwoven with humanity.

Matthew Perry wrote his memoir in the midst of middle age, a time when mortality becomes more palpable. Approaching the latter half of life prompts deep reflection on legacy and purpose. His candid memoir seemed driven by a desire to reclaim his narrative, refusing to let past struggles wholly define him.

Yet the project also radiated self-awareness of time passing, the window narrowing to share lessons learned, make amends, and inspire others. This urgency, the push to crystallize a legacy amid life’s uncertainty, is familiar to many of us in middle age. Through exposing his pains and triumphs, Perry sought connection and meaning.

In middle age, distracted by the halftime report's tally of life's victories, losses, and near-wins, we sense completion nearing. Like Matthew Perry, we seek meaning in the glimmering light of legacy visible on the horizon, even as shadows grow long. His memoir shines as a beacon, guiding us to channel regrets and revelations into a purposeful legacy before the clock runs out.

I imagine a receiving line in heaven, saints and angels patiently waiting to shake Matthew Perry’s hand. Thanking him for the laughter, the companionship, the small but meaningful light he brought into lives. I’ll eagerly join the line when my time comes, ready to express gratitude for how he touched my life, made me feel less alone. His gifts enduring, allowing personal connections to continue even beyond death. For now, I’ll honor his memory by appreciating moments of levity with friends, remembering the humanity in all of us.

He joins other celebrities who left too soon, varied causes but always incomprehensible. For Gen X, accustomed to loss, there’s one small comfort − knowing Perry’s brilliance brought levity amid pain, his work forever embedding itself in the culture we shared.

Matthew Perry’s life embodied the Gen-X journey — aspirations and demons walking hand in hand. But his humor left its mark, giving voice to the absurdity and angst we know so well. Now gone yet still present through the laughter he evoked. The winding path reflected in a crooked, wistful smile.

Oh, 1996: The time in which my eighth year of life on this Earth came to an end and my ninth began. I had begun to take school seriously (#honorrollgoals), spent most of my time in dance class, and didn’t care about too much more than my Coke bottle glasses and whatever new sneakers were coming out for the week that I could sport on casual Fridays (the perks of being a private school girl.)

The year was also a pretty fantastic time for television. I still frequently hear that television kills brain cells and that it’s an idiot box, but I have always begged to differ. Like any kind of media you consume, it can be either imbecilic or informative and, though a balance is best, there’s absolutely no reason why you cannot take any major keys from the telly. I’m still gleaning some epic lessons from television and fondly remember the messages I received from the good old year of 1996. Here are a few from some of the legendary (well, in my mind at least) series that debuted that year:

Lesson #1: Feelings are strange, but they’re some of the best parts of being a human.

How many shows have there been about aliens? I don’t have enough digits to count them all. Humans have been fascinated with extraterrestrials since we figured out that we were just one of many planets in the universe. We very clearly have no idea what these space-residing beings think of us, where they currently live, nor their ways of life, but 3^rd Rock From the Sun attempted to showcase the humor of just how preposterous humankind looks from their perspective. There is undoubtedly nothing as strange and (at times) confusing as feelings: the kind that starts coursing through every fiber of your being at nine years old and only continues to escalate for the next decade and beyond. The series taught me that emotion is peculiar and often doesn’t make a bit of sense (3^rd Rock’s pentad struggle with the overwhelming onslaught of emotion they experience on Earth compared with their stoic existence on their own planet), but it’s one of the best parts of humankind. Though bad sensations can seem to suffocate you in their grasp — like the nasty divorce my parents had gone through not long before — emotions like excitement, enjoyment, and affection have the power to imbue a kind of happiness into your life that erases all of that, even just temporarily.

Lesson #2: Superpowers seem really cool, but there aren’t really any shortcuts to making good things happen for you in your life.

I mean, how many girls are you going to find who are smart, spunky, good at sports, have great hair, an amazing wardrobe and leave boys quivering in their wake?

Confession: I’m still very obsessed with witches. There’s just something about the connection to nature, sisterhood, and that everlasting struggle between good and evil that moves me. Though I had seen countless films about the conjurers, Sabrina the Teenage Witch made it all very real and mundane for me — she was just a girl trying to get through high school, shake off the haters, like a cute boy (and have him like her back) and navigate her wacky but loving family. Sounds very much like my life then…and now. Sabrina got in the habit of trying to right her wrongs and speed up the living process by using magic, but with almost every spell she found that there are disastrous results when you try to shortcut your way through existence — sometimes immediately and sometimes when it came back to bite her months later. Though getting to the good stuff is a long journey and dwelling on your mistakes seems to last a lifetime, there are no bypasses or timesavers when it comes to what’s meant for you. You just have to keep your head down and do the work.

Lesson #3: Having siblings doesn’t make you a better or more considerate person.

I went through bouts of wanting a younger sister or brother throughout my childhood mostly because people touted it as this amazing opportunity to always have someone to play with. I was at the age where the pressure to conform is pulsing through your brain constantly, so I was feeling a serious case of FOMO about not having a sibling around. Well, that was until I saw 7^th Heaven. For one, that house was busy as hell! It did seem fun to always have something going on and someone on whom you could cast the blame, but you also had no semblance of privacy, an added layer of complication and opinion, and someone always in your business. Being met with the “only child” trope whenever I discussed my family gave me a bit of a complex, but it didn’t take me long to realize that that syndrome was only a cop-out for those who would grow up to be selfish and inconsiderate, no matter how many siblings they had or didn’t have. All of your interpersonal relationships shape who you are, related or not.

Lesson #4: Family will drive you nuts, but they do indeed have your back through the world’s incessant crap.

I’ll never grow tired of shows that showcase life at its realest points, from those who work in service positions to series that simply depict the inner workings of families. No, the picture isn’t always pretty, but there’s always something to take away from it all because, let’s be honest, anything comprised of people will always change and remain somewhat elusive. I’ll also never be exhausted by black families onscreen, especially those that most closely resemble my upbringing and can help me unpack what that meant then and continues to mean now. The Jamie Foxx Show injected humor into the everyday. Jamie was insufferable and sometimes delusional in his pursuits, but his aunt and uncle were always there for him and he was just as supportive in return. There’s more comfort in that than any other feeling.

Lesson #5: Cherish your BFFs with all you have, but do try to prevent them from doing stupid sh*t.

I’ve gone through a few best friends in my life — I think everyone has right? It’s not something I pride myself on or that I wish to do anymore, but people change and your relationships do as well. Almost all the shows on Nickelodeon centered on friendship, which was pretty pivotal for a girl who valued her close companions as much as I did. Few were closer than Kenan & Kel, to the point that you could hardly say one’s name without immediately uttering the other’s. They got themselves into some pretty zany situations, as you do when you’re living on burgers and orange soda. Some were simply hilarious and others gave me pause and made me wonder why Kenan (the markedly more reasonable one) would let Kel do such wild and crazy things. We cannot control our friends — they’re people who need to live and learn as we do — but we can do our duty and warn them about harm. (Though I limit my warnings to two.) It’s something I still do today in my personal life, and hopefully my favorite girls and guys love me for it.

Lesson #6: Move far enough away from your parents that you can dictate how often you see them.

I’m not sure what the average age most people move out on their own is, but I moved out when I was 25. When I was a kid, I thought I’d be married by 23…so clearly reality didn’t live up to my initial expectations. Even from a young age, I knew there was something special about striking out on your own. I figured I’d stay in NYC (it’s truly one of the best, and I’ve been everywhere), but wasn’t certain I’d move into the actual city — the boroughs still hold my heart. I am blessed to not have an overbearing parent who breathes down my neck at every turn or is unsupportive or cynical in the face of my ambitions like Raymond Barone. I thank every single God and the entirety of the universe for that daily. Nevertheless, Everybody Loves Raymond taught me that distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder, so I learned to put a sizable amount of space between my mother and I despite all her goodness. Now, I’m just a 40-minute Lyft ride away.

Lesson #7: No matter what, always be a Patty Mayonnaise.

As a journalist, the number of fictive heroines I’ve drawn inspiration from in my life is vast and constantly growing. One who I always come back around to is that of the inimitable Patty Mayonaise from Doug. I mean, how many girls are you going to find who are smart, spunky, good at sports, have great hair, an amazing wardrobe, and leave boys quivering in their wake? I still resolve to channel my inner Patty and keep her outward-facing as much as I can. I’m also still in search of a Doug Funnie, but that’s another discussion for another day.

Lesson #8: It’s ok to be superficial…for, like, 30 minutes a day.

Clueless is iconic. I watched the film as often as I could and thanked both the sartorial and television gods when it was turned into a show. It was an escape from reality for me: Homework was clearly not a focus, nor were sports, dancing or extracurriculars. Well, unless you count shopping and rolling with the homies as real activities. I became quite focused on my path in school early on, thus Cher and Dionne’s quests let me detach and just have fun for a second. Yes, books are fun, but clothes and boys are equally as enjoyable. It’s okay to indulge and keep things on the surface just a little bit each day. Pretty things make me smile and, though they’re not the only things in the world, they’re definitely worth noticing.

Lesson #9: Women have the best senses of humor.

I’m still quite in awe of Tracey Ullman. She’s a sketch comedian, super cool, has aged in a way that’s unfair, has impossibly great skin and hair (you’re seeing a pattern here), is super smart, and can literally make you fall out of your seat with laughter. We won’t even get into her music career, her co-writing of a knitting book, her being the second richest British actress or her other myriad accomplishments. And though my HBO watching was limited as a child — it got kind of crazy depending on the time of night — my mom did let me watch Tracey Takes On. And, naturally, I sat enraptured on a weekly basis. “You run like a girl” and “girls aren’t funny” are things we begin hearing as soon as we hit the playground. I still see that crap spewed now. But Tracey showed that we’re actually funny as hell. We’re dynamic, witty, absurd, entertaining, and anything else we simply wished to be.

“Have you scheduled your colonoscopy yet?” I-Hsing texted me.

No, I thought. I don’t want to. Leave me alone.

“Not yet,” I wrote. “I will. I promise.”

A few weeks earlier I’d admitted to I-Hsing that I had not yet had a colonoscopy. At 51. A year and a half behind the recommended timeline. Actually, scratch that. Nearly seven years behind, because the goalpost had moved to 45 right before I turned 50. I-Hsing decided then and there it was her mission to get me to schedule the exam. That might be true friendship, but friendship can be annoying when you’re in deep avoidance mode.

In my defense I had been in and out of doctors a lot in the past three years. I’d been freezing half-naked on multiple exam tables, navigating through a misdiagnosis and back pain and inflammation post hernia surgery, and I didn’t want to step back into the grind of appointments, or face how vast and empty the space felt around me as I went through it all solo.  

Still, a few weeks after my confession, with I-Hsing’s voice loud in my head, I asked my doctor for a referral. 

“There isn’t a closer option than Mount Sinai?” I asked as my doctor filed the script.

“They’re who we’re connected with,” she said. “If you have a gastroenterologist who can refer you elsewhere, I’m happy to give you what you need for that.”

I shook my head no. It would be another year before I got the exam if multiple steps were involved. “Mount Sinai is fine,” I said.

Although it wasn’t. I live in the depths of South Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai is way uptown. A good hour by subway. All while my bowels would be trying to violently clear themselves. I didn’t want to be the person who shat their pants on the subway. Or anywhere, really.

But I called and set my appointment for September, three months away.

“You’ll be happy to hear I did it,” I texted I-Hsing.

“Yay!” She replied with a gif of men in hazmat suits diligently cleaning the inside of a bright pink colon with brooms.

I proceeded to immediately block the appointment from my mind. So much so that I didn’t even open the instructions from the doctor to check what I’d need to do. Which is not like me at all. I’m a prepper. I learn everything I can in advance. But the only way this was going to happen was if I pretended it wasn’t happening at all.

And that’s exactly what I did until a week before my procedure, when I had no choice but to finally read the instructions. All seven pages of them. When I got to the part about pouring an 8.3 ounce bottle of Miralax into 64 ounces of Gatorade and drinking it in two doses, I said, out loud, to absolutely no one, “Are you fucking kidding me?” My cat got ¼ tsp of Miralax a day to stay regular. Even weighing nearly 14 times what he did, that was more than six months of cat doses. In 12 hours. This was going to get crazy.

The day before my procedure, when it came time to start the 24-hour, clear-liquid prep diet in earnest, I poured heated chicken bone broth into a mug, took a sip and nearly spat it out everywhere. It was like drinking dirt off a tire shop floor. The only way Gwyneth Paltrow was promoting this was if aliens had taken over her body. (Have aliens taken over her body??)

Plus, there was the caffeine situation. If I am anything, it is a matcha latte addict. But matcha sans latte is akin to drinking the tears of the heartbroken. The only small bit of light breaking through the irrational clouds of food anger that hung over me was the lime jello, the true star of the liquid prep diet, bringing back memories of the jello shots of my 20s.

And it wasn’t like the liquid situation got better. Come 6 p.m. I was mixing that sadistic workout punch of Miralax and Gatorade into a pitcher. Here we go, I thought, and drank it down in 3.5 glasses, timed ten minutes apart, as instructed.

The mixture was supposed to kick in within 30 to 60 minutes, setting off 5 to 10 “bowel movements” for the evening. I sat on my couch to watch Love is Blind 4: After the Altar which, if you haven’t watched it yet, don’t. I eyed the clock. My bowels were getting twisted up, but the episode ended and…nothing. I started another show, finished the episode and…still nothing. The clock was ticking away. Two hours had passed. Where was the poop I’d been promised?

I started Googling: How long should the prep liquid take to kick in? For some people it could take up to three hours, even four, Dr. Google replied. So I was okay. No need to worry. Although by four hours, it was recommended to call your doctor. It was already 8 p.m. There was no doctor available to call. The clock kept ticking, my gut kept roiling and…still nothing.

By 10 p.m. I was panicking. What if I hadn’t prepped right? What if I should have been on a low-fiber diet for days, which I was discovering some doctors recommended? What if I should have taken the prescription prep medicine instead? 

And now I had a new fear: Even if I did start pooping, at this point my colon might not clear in time. I could be among the nearly 30% of people who have inadequate prep, and have to reschedule or do it all again. The doctor’s instructions recommended purchasing a saline enema from my local pharmacy if this happened, but Dr. Google said to send someone to get it because I could have sudden, explosive diarrhea. I was not waking up a neighbor to ask for this. And anyway, the store was closed. I cupped my face in my hands. Maybe if I’d done my homework I wouldn’t be sitting here, a knot forming heavy in my chest, that empty space opening up around me again, reminding me I was all alone. 

By midnight, when there was nothing left to Google, and nothing more to do till morning, and not one more poop emoji I could bear to send the friends checking in and trying to calm me down, I went to bed, waking at 2 a.m. (still nothing!) and again at 4 a.m. This time things felt…different. I went to the bathroom and, wait, was that…YES!!! I did a small arm dance like a two-year-old succeeding with potty training. I gave myself a slew of imaginary gold stars.

“SUCCESS!!” I texted my friend Amy.

There was no sleep after that, although action was slow until I mixed the second dose at 6 a.m. Then the show began for real. No time delay. At one point, while prepping my bag for the hospital, I had to drop everything and book it down the hall to the bathroom, making it just in time. I was relieved everything was coming out, but now I was thinking about the subway ride.

“You should be done in time,” Amy texted.

“I don’t know. Nothing has gone on schedule yet,” I replied.

I started researching places where I could make pit stops en route, mentally mapping them. There was a Starbucks where I’d need to transfer trains at 14^th street. Another one at Jay Street. Amy owned an eyeglass store on Smith Street in Cobble Hill.

“If I needed to use your bathroom, would that be okay?” I texted her.

“OMG. Yes,” she replied.

Finally, things began to slow down. There were 10 minutes between movements — I had started thinking of them as parts of a bowel symphony — and then 15 minutes, and 20. If the place were closer, I would have felt confident. But an hour? It would be touch and go. Especially since, just as I was about to head out the door, I had to book it back to the bathroom.

I wore black. All black. Easy to pull down joggers. A simple T-shirt. Slip on sneakers. If shit happened, I did not want there to be visual proof. I got on the subway, sat like any other underdressed commuter, and read my book. At the stop for Amy’s store, I did an internal check in. All good. At the next stop…still fine. I thought things might end up okay until the train neared Jay Street and I felt my colon convulse. I was through the doors the second the train hit the station and booked it to Starbucks.

But, damnit, they didn’t have a bathroom. I spotted an Au Bon Pain sign across the courtyard and walk-ran there only to find it was an empty storefront. I turned left and saw…Chipotle.

If there was any place that had witnessed people unexpectedly clearing their colons, it was Chipotle. I got in just in time for the final exodus.

Even with that, I was only five minutes late to my appointment and was greeted by a nurse ready to bring me in. There was a huge absorbent pad on the stretcher where I was meant to lie for the procedure.

“That’s not an encouraging sign,” I said, making him laugh.

My anesthesiologist came to speak with me, and my gastroenterologist. Both were calm, comforting and confidence-inducing. I would be in good hands.

“I’m looking for the 10-year clearance,” I told the doctor, which was the best result one could hope for, being so healthy you didn’t need to do this again for a decade.

“We’ll see what we can do,” he replied.

I was hooked up to an IV, wheeled into the procedure room, and put under in what felt like minutes. I came to less than an hour later, groggy yet strangely rested. The best nap of your life, several friends commented later, and it was true. Despite the lack of sleep the night before, I felt good. Beside me on a small rolling table were juice and peanut butter crackers. My first solid food in 29 hours. They tasted sweet, of relief and pending freedom, as if a snack before the end of the school day. 

The report from my procedure was also on the table. I flipped through it to find pictures of various parts of my colon, all looking as pink and healthy as the one in the gif I-Hsing had sent me. They’d even rated my prep: 9/9. I’d passed with shining colors.

I got dressed and moved to a bank of chairs, the doctor coming over to sit next to me. He was relaxed, his work over, my procedure a breeze for him. Both of us leaned back casually as if sipping cocktails while overlooking an ocean rather than staring at various women on stretchers waking up from anesthesia.

“Looks like it all went well,” I said.

“Yeah, it went great. No issues. You’re in good shape.”

“And I got the 10-year reprieve.”

“You did,” he said smiling, and then asked what I did for a living.

I felt a small frisson. Not of attraction per se, though he was a good-looking man (if a good looking married man who struck me as being loyal), but of that easy camaraderie and relaxed humor I often felt with a man I’d been intimate with. And we had been, in a way. I had been naked, after all, and I wasn’t self conscious about it like I would have been in my 20s or 30s. It was simply refreshing to feel this kinship. To be out the other side and declared healthy. To be done with what I had dreaded and put off for so long. And, in the end, once everything got moving, it hadn’t been that bad — 8/10 I’d recommend and do it again. Minus the bone broth.

“Well,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and standing up. “All best.”

“Same to you.”

I went to the waiting room to find my brother, who’d come to escort me home, and we wandered out into the lingering summer heat. I steered us toward Starbucks and ordered a matcha latte, savoring it slowly on the train home, not feeling like I had to go to the bathroom even once.  

Days after graduating from college, I moved from my suburban New Jersey hometown to a cramped walk-up in Manhattan’s East Village, where I shared a bathroom with three roommates. I traded preppy blonde highlights for a black pixie cut, swapped J. Crew for American Apparel (it was the 2000s, mind you), and spent my Saturday nights at Lit Lounge or Angels & Kings. I told myself that this was me and I’d never live outside a city again.  

Now, on the cusp of 40, I’m not just living in the suburbs, I’m living in the same town I ran away from so eagerly two decades ago. And there’s one thing above all that’s helped me make peace with it: Home Depot’s 12-foot-tall skeleton lawn ornament.

For those who may be unfamiliar with “Skelly,” Home Depot began selling it in the fall of 2020, with COVID still rampant and vaccines distant on the horizon. Per an oral history in VICE, Skelly had been in the works since 2019, but the fact that it debuted amid peak pandemic upheaval made this stand-out piece of Halloween decor seem more significant. According to The Washington Post that year, “Skelly” became no less than “an Internet meme, a status marker, a coping mechanism, a memento mori. A reminder that whimsical indulgences are still permitted, and still funny, no matter how morbid American life has become.” 

(It was also an actual sales success, not just a meme. Home Depot had its “most successful Halloween event” in the company’s history.)

To quote a few tweets:

• “The 12-foot Home Depot skeleton is the only thing that could make me wish I had a lawn.”

• “My favorite thing about women is the mutual understanding we all have about the 12 ft skeleton from Home Depot being hot.”

• “This skeleton is the only thing that has cured my depression.”

I’d like to talk about how this skeleton changed my outlook on life.

In the fall of 2021, I moved back to my hometown in New Jersey. I’d spent 15 years living primarily in New York City, with shorter stints in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and nearly a year as a COVID-era “digital nomad.” I was planning to be there for just a few months before moving to the West Coast for good. And it would definitely not be more than a few months; I was just going to spend some time with my family and get my stuff out of storage. Unfortunately, I was so bored after moving back home that I did a terrible thing: I downloaded Hinge. Within a few months I was in a committed relationship with a man who had a house, a well-manicured lawn, and a dog named Becky. I must have really liked him, because our relationship got me to stay even though I very much did not want to live in a place like that. 

You see, like most avowed city dwellers who actively disdain the idea of houses with lawns, I proudly hated the suburbs because I’d lived in them. And I’d been miserable. To me, the suburbs were all the status anxiety of New York with none of the sophistication or diversity, or weirdness. I had grown up listening to ‘90s pop-punk bands that railed against cookie-cutter conformity and obsessive lawncare. As an adult, I imagined that the girls who’d tormented me in high school and then stuck around in the suburbs had grown up into Christian Girl Autumn twentysomethings and then wine-mom PTA blondes who reveled in your shortcomings — which, of course, they knew, thanks to neighborhood gossip.

You see, “Skelly” isn’t just a novelty, it’s a subversive culture-jamming phenomenon.

I needed something to make me feel like I could still be weird in the suburbs. And that’s when I decided that I absolutely needed a 12-foot-tall skeleton. 

You see, “Skelly” isn’t just a novelty, it’s a subversive culture-jamming phenomenon. You can really only grasp this if you join the ostensibly private Facebook group called “12 Ft Skeleton Halloween Club,” which is now up to over 57,000 members, many of whom leave their big skeletons up year-round. And this is not out of laziness. It’s because they’re intentionally trying to fuck with suburbia. 

The Facebook group is chock full of photos of angry letters from neighbors who claim the skeletons are “satanic,” takedown notices from homeowners’ associations, and creative attempts to comply with local regulations that any lawn decorations be “seasonal.” The 12-foot-tall skeleton turns into a Santa Claus skeleton for Christmas and a Cupid skeleton for Valentine’s Day. It wears a football jersey for the Super Bowl and a cap and gown around graduation time. Some costumes are truly unique — the best one I’d ever seen posted in the Facebook group was a skeleton in a toga holding an enormous knife, for the Ides of March. These are people fighting the good fight, in my opinion.

We ordered “The Big Leboneski” at 6 a.m. on July 31st, the timing of a “code orange:” In Halloween decor enthusiast circles, that’s the term for when the notoriously scarce giant skeletons go on sale on Home Depot’s website. By late September, he was up on the front lawn. Within days, if we were sitting out on the front porch, instead of silently walking by, the neighbors would stop and remark — rather positively! — on the skeleton. On Halloween, being “that house” brought us more trick-or-treaters. A year later, when the end of September rolled around, we had text messages asking why The Big Leboneski wasn’t back up yet. (He unfortunately got some broken bones in a storm a few weeks after Halloween and needs repairs.)

As it turns out, the neighbors hadn’t been the judgmental ones — I was. I put up the skeleton as a middle finger to suburbia, but it ultimately helped me realize I wasn’t living in a boring place, full of boring people. As we grow older, we (mostly) drop the need to signal “I’m different” with purple hair dye or edgy fashion, but that doesn’t mean we’ve gotten completely dull — and putting up strange Halloween decorations in the lawn is a great way to spark conversation. It turns out that a lot of suburbanites are pretty weird, and they’re happy to show off those lovable quirks when they’re talking to the person who has a 12-foot-tall skeleton in her front yard. Some of my neighbors were even fellow ex-New Yorkers who admitted the period of adjustment to a small, quiet town felt like a years-long grief process. I watched them breathe sighs of relief when they admitted how much they still missed the city. Clearly, it wasn’t something they talked about often.

I wonder how many of them had thought they were the odd ones out.

Lately, I’ve grown increasingly pissy about this aging thing. Frankly, I can’t find much to like about getting older. My back aches, my hips are tight, I sleep too little and eat too much. My skin is dry, my hair is gray and I can’t see a thing without a pair of reading glasses, which I can never find.

But there’s one aspect of aging that I’ve happily embraced: Almost nothing embarrasses me anymore.

For most of my life, I’ve been hyper-conscious of drawing unwanted attention to myself by performing poorly. I cringed over every perceived shortcoming, constantly comparing myself to others. Somebody was always better at something. Well, that will always be true, but the difference now is I care a lot less. At this point, my heroes aren’t necessarily the best or brightest. My role model is Popeye who proudly proclaimed, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam.”

This doesn’t mean I no longer give a hoot about trying to be a better me; I’ve simply become more accepting of myself and my foibles. With that said, here’s a look at some of my blush-able traits that no longer make me blush.

I don’t care if I’m a bad cook.

My ineptitude in the kitchen is no secret. I’ve brought roasted-yet-somehow-rock-hard potatoes to Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve harvested apples from our tree only to cook up a batch of (unintentionally) smoked applesauce. I typically undercook pasta and overcook rice. I brew bad coffee.

Being culinarily challenged used to bother me a lot, especially since my mother was a fantastic cook, my brother is a natural and my husband is a master at the stove. Even my sons would best me on Chopped. But the truth is I hate to cook. I find it neither creatively stimulating nor relaxing. I’d rather do just about anything than pluck tiny thyme leaves off a stem.

Now that I’m in my fifties, I no longer berate myself because I stink at sautéing. I contribute to the many dinner parties we throw in other ways: I’m the shopper, flower arranger, table setter, dish washer and pot scrubber. When a hostess asks me to contribute, I show up with a box of Jacques Torres chocolates or a great bottle of wine. I may be a terrible cook, but I’m an excellent guest.

So what if I’m uncoordinated.

In junior high school, I watched with awe and envy as a clique of chipper cheerleaders hurled themselves across the gym with a move called the round-off back handspring. God knows I tried to emulate those pixies, but I faced three major stumbling blocks. First, I was as flexible as a fork, so bending my back into a U-shape was not going to happen. Second, I couldn’t finesse the timing required to achieve lift-off, or maybe my brain couldn’t convince my body to lift all four extremities at once. Lastly, I was terrified.

At hip-hop dance class, I’m completely awful but when the teacher yells, “You are Beyoncé!” I flip my hair like a diva.

Over the years, I’ve tried softball (I throw like a little girl and field like an old blind man) as well as squash, racquetball and tennis, all non-starters due to a distinct disconnect between my eyes and my hands. I can’t dive, swim with my eyes open or paddle a kayak in a straight line.

But at this point, who cares? These days, I just say no to sports I don’t enjoy, like downhill skiing. I’m happy to head to Park City with the gang, but while they navigate lift lines and moguls, I fill my days with yoga, hiking, massages and sushi lunches.

I’ve learned to embrace physical activities I do enjoy, even if I’m not great at doing them. I’ll never be a graceful yogini, but that doesn’t stop me from down-dogging. At my weekly hip-hop dance class, I’m completely awful but when the teacher yells, “You are Beyoncé!” I flip my hair like a diva.

Yes, these are my tiny boobs.

As a preteen, I stuffed tissues in my bra, waiting in vain to sprout. In high school, I felt freakish, as though my small breasts were as glaringly weird as an arm growing out of my forehead. I seriously considered implants, consulting one surgeon in my twenties and another in my thirties.

But a funny thing happened a few years ago: I stopped being embarrassed about my breasts and my body in general. Despite a rounder belly and softer butt, in the locker room I undress without a hint of self-consciousness. I don’t care whether my doctors or massage therapists are young or old, male or female. Whoever wants to help keep this body going is welcome to see me naked, tiny boobs and all.

I’m a ‘fraidy cat.

Growing up, I was afraid of the dark and the boogey man. I refused to venture into our basement without an escort. As a teen, my single attempt at babysitting collapsed when I heard a noise and called my dad to come rescue me (from nothing). I’ve never lived alone and hate sleeping alone. I’m afraid of what lurks beneath the surfaces of oceans and lakes and won’t swim in either. I hate horror movies and driving fast and roller coasters. Splash Mountain traumatized me for months.

I used to assume a stance of nonchalant bravery to avoid being labeled a fearful person. I remember one particular outing to the Delaware Water Gap for a day of rafting. As we slipped on wet suits, the outfitter showed a video. The footage featured massive rapids on a rain-swollen Colorado River and a raft tossed like a bathtub toy. Despite the fact that all we would face that day were a few gentle white caps, the damage was done. As I zipped my suit, silent tears of terror rolled down my cheeks. To his credit and my eternal gratitude, my husband took one look at me and said, “You don’t have to do this.”

We had driven 90 miles and our friends were waiting, paddles in hand.

“I don’t?”

“Nope,” he said. ”Who cares? Let’s go home.”

I felt ashamed of my paralyzing fear, but the embarrassment over my irrational anxiety dissipated in the face of my husband’s acceptance that my fears are part of who I am. He still teases me about my cooking and my (lack of) hand-eye coordination but only in fun, just as I tease him about his dyslexia-induced spelling mistakes and confusion between left and right (a dyslexic bonus). We’re not trying to hurt or embarrass one another – we’re expressing that we love the whole imperfect person we married.

P.S. For the record, these days I do go down to the basement by myself…but never at night.

The text made my heart race. It hit at 5:03pm on Day 2. Earlier than I had expected, if I’m being honest.

“You available to call?”

I had been staring at the phone, double checking that I had the ringer on and that there was nothing to stop a text or call from coming through. I had even learned how to designate him as VIP so any communication would break through do not disturb mode.

Less than a second after his text, I hit that green button on my iPhone and he answered.

“Hey, Mom.”

It was my 16-year old son, who had just started his second year at boarding school. I loved the way his voice still cracked. I thought I would be used to his absence by now, however as many empty nesters have experienced, the void goes up and down in its intensity but is always lurking.

I hung on to his every word. That was in part because there were so few. I asked how school was. He informed me that it was still orientation. I asked him how orientation was and he seemed to get a little annoyed as he told me that it was the same as last year — and not that interesting. I asked a series of further questions and received short, factual answers. Then, as is the case with teenagers, the purpose of his call was revealed. He needed a fan. It was still hot out.

“You’re the best, Mom. Also, can you put more money on my school card?”

“Sure.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too.”

Click.

This was not the plan.

Back in the pre-pandemic “before times” I was bracing myself for a big milestone in independence: letting my then 12-year old walk the 10 blocks to and from school by himself. It felt like such a big step. He was more than ready.

Me? Not so much.

But it was going okay. He made me walk a block behind him and got annoyed if he thought the other kids could see me lurking, making sure he made it to the door of his school safely. He was supposed to text me when he arrived at school and whenever he left the building. It was inconsistent but it was improving.

I went on a business trip to Florida and while I was there, Covid started becoming a thing. He was sent home from school for 15 days to “stop the spread.”

Fast forward to 8th grade. He was attending school in person off and on. With new strains emerging, and worries of another year spent sitting on Zoom, my husband and I decided it would be better to send him to school on a campus that could be its own community. Translation: boarding school. After spending middle school online, my son was beyond ready to go to school IRL.

We found a wonderful school only a two-hour drive away; before we knew it my husband and I looked around and it was just us. Never did I think my NYC apartment would feel so big.

I’ll never forget what my brother-law, who had attended boarding school himself, said when our son first went away. “You know, he’s never really coming back. He is going to change.”

At first having him away at school felt a little like a vacation from parenthood. As anyone with a teenager knows, these years are not for the faint of heart. It is not easy waking them up and getting them out the door in the morning. With my son away, I loved the freedom of not always having to figure out what was for dinner. Homework? There was only so much I could do from afar. He had to show up for study hall and his teachers were around if he needed extra help. Our dog, Waffles, became the baby of the family. When we visited our son, it was so exciting to watch him thrive in the new environment.

But then it started to sink in. He wasn’t coming home for months. My husband and I were alone in our early emptynester-ness. Yes, our friends have kids that have gone off to college. They think it is the same, but it is not. They were following the schedule. We were way ahead of it.

Meanwhile, my friends with kids in high school locally were still in the thick of things. They saw their kids every day. They had to get home to make dinner and supervise homework. They were busy watching their kids’ sports and other activities. They were hitting totally different milestones.

After feeling the void for a year, we are finally settling into new ways to fill the white space in our lives. We are making new friends who are also empty nesters. Their kids are often in college, but the adjustments are actually not as different as I had believed them to be. They have time and the invitations are becoming more frequent as the friendships grow.

I’ll never forget what my brother-law, who had attended boarding school himself, said when our son first went away. “You know, he’s never really coming back. He is going to change.”

It was a gut punch. I didn’t want to believe it, but I know now in my heart there was truth in what he said. He is growing up and we are no longer witness to the daily changes. It still feels new and it will never be the same. But that is true of so much of our lives. Change is hard.

My friends who send their kids off to seven weeks of camp in the summers marvel at how much their kids change in the time they are away. They feel like they missed a chapter of their children’s lives. We have that fast-forwarded and on steroids. It hurts to think about.

But I also hear from parent friends about kids spending all their time in their room with the door closed, pushing their parents away to assert their independence. They get one-word answers and grunts when they try to hang on to the same relationship they had when the kids were younger. They don’t have it easy either.

Our son misses us and texts or calls us just about everyday. He tells us he appreciates the opportunities we have given to him. In many ways I feel closer to him than ever, even if sometimes those texts are simply requests to send more ramen noodles.

We have a visiting day with parent-teacher conferences a couple of months away. My husband and I have made our hotel reservations and are thinking about our next moves.

And of course, waiting by the phone.

One of my early mentors at Random House told me that writers write for four different reasons: They have something they need to say; they have something they need to shed light on; they have something to teach or a way to help others; they want to have something to talk about at dinner parties. Over the years, I’ve also learned that writing to be published requires a certain reckless internal impulse to share your work in the world, despite the perils. It’s not always logical or sane and it’s rarely easy. It’s like the Kurt Vonnegut quote: “We have to be continually jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

Knowing all of this, when the time came earlier this summer to publish my first book, Narrative Healing, I approached the release date with the confidence of a fool. It turned out everything I thought I knew had not prepared me for what I didn’t know: namely, that knowing how things work does not release you from the big feelings that come with sharing vulnerable work into the world.

Writing a book has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl, and yet instead of feeling elation when the book came out, I felt pure dread and acute anxiety. I developed a rash and had a constant stomach ache. The tape running through my head was I’m not doing enough and time is running out. The worst part was my expectation that I was supposed to be having the time of my life, like all the touring authors I saw on Instagram, grinning next to piles of books and adoring fans.

Why is the experience of publishing work so upsetting? There’s quite a bit of anecdotal evidence and scientific data proving that there is something harmful with how we share work in the world. One career publicist I spoke to said, “What I tell every author is that publishing is an extremely underwhelming experience.” A literary agent I spoke to went even further and described the publishing experience as “truly traumatic.” I asked my mother, who has published dozens of books, if this ever gets easier and she answered without dropping a beat, “No. It’s like undressing in public every day.”

Part of what makes publishing so traumatizing is that most of the time authors are alone.

The Bookseller ran a survey earlier this summer exploring the negative consequences of publishing their work for authors. The survey concludes that more than 54% of authors face severe mental health struggles after publishing their first books. They cite exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and lowered self-esteem, to name a few symptoms. I felt so seen.

Part of what makes publishing so traumatizing is that most of the time authors are alone. There are many writing communities out there that provide different kinds of support for the creative process, but once work moves towards publication, it’s mostly just strategic advice, expensive digital marketing and publicity services, and to-do lists. (The vulnerable heart doesn’t respond too well to to-do lists.) Most writers have no authentic creative community, instead they are surrounded by followers, likes, tags, reviews, and clicks. On the level of your nervous system, this means that while you are caught up in a stress response, you are alone and isolated. This is very challenging for us humans. We are social creatures, and our nature is to seek safety, comfort, and ease by being in groups with others who can protect us.

To make matters worse, our publishing system systematically isolates authors when they are at their most vulnerable. Even in the best-case scenario (and I had a wonderful publishing team), as an author you are passed from person to person, from agent, to editor, to publicist, to marketing team. One way of understanding why this is so harmful is to look at the psychological theory of attachment developed by John Bowlby in the 1960s. He breaks down the types of relationships people need to thrive and posits that babies need to form a secure attachment to their primary caregiver in order to grow up with confidence and ease. Secure is described as safe, consistent, loving, and available. Birthing a book is commonly compared to birthing a baby and authors need this kind of relationship to thrive, too.

What happens in the absence of a consistent, reliable source of care? We try to avoid and escape, build up walls and defenses, and make decisions based on fear. This is often the point when authors fall mercilessly into a spiral of comparison and despair. What’s worse is that in this state we are unable to take healthy risks, which is required for a thriving marketing and publicity campaign.

Resmaa Menakem, a trauma expert and New York Times-bestselling author, believes most of his clients come to see him to benefit from being around his regulated body, not to hear his expert opinion. So, in order to relax, we need to experience the energy of a grounded person who understands us when we are in a heightened state of alert.

Likewise, I find the solution to publishing anxiety is to find somebody who makes you feel safe and then keep them close. While it is helpful if they are in front of you — a live, breathing, three-dimensional body — they don’t have to be in the same room to be effective. Your person can be on the phone, or text, or zoom. (My publishing experience changed for me with a single text from a sweet friend I trust.) They can even be a powerful memory.

This experience of connection can also occur through a mindfulness practice. Dr. Herbert Benson, pioneer of mind-body medicine, coined the term Remembered Wellness, which essentially means once you experience a feeling of being fully secure, safe and happy in your body, you will be able to return. There are many ways to return to this feeling; one tried and true method is meditation.

As authors, we can get so hasty about who we let close to us during this vulnerable moment.

I was recently reading Grief Is Love by Marisa Renee Lee and in it she describes that you need a grieving buddy. She suggests finding someone of your choosing to mirror love back at you, remind you that you’re not alone, give you nudges to slow down and take care of yourself. It got me thinking that the same is true for publishing. As authors, we can get so hasty about who we let close to us during this vulnerable moment. We quickly outsource it to people we may not even know that well — publicists, colleagues, marketing consultants, social media — in a way we would never do during other vulnerable moments of our life or during the creative process. What is critical here is that the person needs to be someone you really trust and feel seen by.

So, as I’ve moved through this summer, I’ve slowly gone through a process of reparenting myself as a writer. I have lovingly child-proofed my desk with gentle reminders to ask for help from people I trust and value and to simply not do this on my own or solely seek out professional guidance. My workspace is covered in photos of people who make me feel loved and objects of meaning and beauty.

According to Bowlby’s attachment theory, once you establish that safe, secure connection with one person, the child (the author) can roam out in the world and take risks, experience joy, growth, and even twirl. Joy is a practice, and it requires safety and strength from within. A few months ago, I signed up for beginner ballet classes. It was something I always wanted to do. I was drawn to taking classes because it was unrelated to work, required a little bit of bravery and was born from a desire to practice delight and joy.

The highlight of publishing my book so far was not the day I received a starred review or secured a New York Times-bestselling blurb. The moment I really felt acknowledged was the day in class when my ballet teacher gave me a tiara, just for fun. It sits on my writing desk next to my to-do list reminding me I can choose where I look for validation and where I experience joy.

At the end of the day, publishing is a bit of a rollercoaster and what constitutes success can come and go, but if you set your gaze on people, places and things that mirror back love and security, then you’ll be much more able to show up for the big opportunities as they appear. You will be primed to take that risk, joyfully.

I know I’m talking a lot about publishing work here, but the point is whether you are publishing a book or not, you’re always sharing stories. You do so by the way you are breathing, or moving, typing, or tapping, and how you feel when you share your story and how you are received matters. It will determine your success and sense of wellness. The point is we’re not designed to do this alone, and we don’t have to. Find a practice or experience that reliably brings you joy and do that action more often. Find a person that makes you feel heard and seen and connect with them more often. Build a soft layer between you and your audience, your reader, the world. We may all have different intentions for why we are sharing our stories, but at the end of the day we all share our stories for one reason: we have to. Sharing our stories is how we make sense of the world, seek safety and connection, it’s how we express ourselves, and give and receive love. It’s often challenging to share our truth, and our raw personal experiences in the world in any format — whether it’s a book, or a post, an article or a conversation on the phone — but we all have the same opportunity to coat the experience with the support we can rely on, so we can thrive, help and inspire one another.

A few weeks ago, I found myself rewatching The Originals, the CW Network show about the first vampire siblings, which found them vowing to stay by each other “always and forever.” I started pondering why so many shows with cult followings focus on the evolving relationships between siblings or long-time friends. Despite our general cultural obsession with romantic relationships, Supernatural, Buffy, Boy Meets World, How I Met Your Mother, and other shows all held family — those that are chosen and those given from birth — at their core. While of course these programs had elements of romance intertwined in their plots, they centered on the changing dynamics between family members (except Cory and Topanga, who ruined it for all of us). 

It made me think about what these shows are mirroring in offscreen relationships. For many people, our longest relationships are with our siblings or friends. So, why is it that we are taught 101 ways that romantic relationships may change, but no one ever taught us how to manage the evolution of other relationships? Truth be told, we weren’t even taught to anticipate that these relationships would change, let alone how they change and how to adapt when they do.  Even in The Originals, “always and forever” was a promise hard to keep when the siblings tried to hold on to each other too tight, not allowing each other the space to grow.

Almost a decade ago, my sister took a job that led her to live abroad for long periods of time. Every time we would talk on the phone or she’d visit home, I’d feel a pang of sadness because I began to feel like I didn’t know this version of my sister. I knew how to be around the younger version of her, and I found myself searching for the right way to interact with her in this new person she was becoming. I heard similar stories from close friends: how they felt like they were losing their connection with their siblings, the people they had known their entire lives, because they had become different people. 

I made a conscious decision to start to get to know my sister for who she is now rather than who I had always known her to be.

With the independence of adulthood and without the benefit of proximity, my sister and I were being asked to choose each other rather than be obligated to each other. It was a brand new dynamic in a sibling relationship — and one that I had no idea how to handle. 

Fast forward to last year, when my sister ended up staying in the United States for a longer stretch than usual. So much had changed in a decade: She’s a mom now, and an aunt too. And somewhere along the way, I made a conscious decision to start to get to know my sister for who she is now rather than who I had always known her to be. To be absolutely fair, she also gave me the same opportunity: to see me for what I’ve grown into rather than who I was. It made us more open and gave us the chance to build new memories. It helped that I am completely, utterly in love with her children. While we didn’t have a guidebook on how to navigate these changing dynamics, we both chose to learn through trial and error because the relationship mattered. 

When Shawn Hunter left New York after Riley was born, Cory and Topanga let him go so he could grow into the person he needed to be. (You didn’t think I’d let the pop culture references go that easily did you?) Relationships are successful if people create space for each other to change and make an effort to get to know the newer versions of those they love. Without that space, it’s nearly impossible. That’s what I was seeing in these TV shows: Everyone chose to be part of each other’s lives, to be there for each other, no matter how the other evolved, or how painful the evolution was. They learned more about each other through how they changed.

That choosing is the part I wish we were taught. That when you love someone, you choose to love them every day — and not just in romantic relationships. You choose to love them as they grow, leave, and do things that you never thought they would do; you learn to let them become their own people. Instead of letting them go, you allow them to grow. 

My best friend from childhood got married, moved to the West Coast, and we only talked once a year after she had kids because her priorities had changed. I learned quickly that it wasn’t that I wasn’t a priority, it was that she had new little lives that relied on her in a way that none of us had yet experienced. I chose to prioritize seeing her with her family anytime I visited the West Coast, and in turn, she prioritized seeing me. When my brother and sister-in-law became parents, I had to learn how to respect that all their decisions now were that of parents, and their relationship to the rest of us had shifted as they became new versions of themselves as a mother and a father. Instead, I focused on loving their kids and the joy that brought into my life. When a close friend became an executive and found himself without any time or headspace to manage previously close relationships, many of us found ways to pull him into our lives in a way that gave him comfort not guilt. As I worked through a divorce, I could see my closest friends adjust to me as I managed my trauma. Marriage, pregnancy, birth, job loss, moving, death: they all shake the foundation of even the healthiest relationships, even with the ones who are always supposed to be there “always and forever” — unless we center ourselves on how to support each other through them.  

For now, I’ve learned that letting each other grow is the key to choosing each other as we get older. That we have to be more open about how relationships evolve, how they are supposed to evolve, and how we can still find each other through that evolution. Maybe I’ll learn more about this in my 40s and 50s. Until then, I’m sitting here, emotional that my three-year-old niece no longer wants me to rock her to sleep during nap time and realizing, once again, that everything changes. And reminding myself that I get to watch her grow — and who wouldn’t choose that above all?

I love fall. It’s my favorite season. And I know what I’m talking about: I grew up in New England and live in Upstate New York, which makes me a bona fide autumnal expert. It is the most glorious time of the year around these parts. It’s also, unfortunately, the most intensely scented.

I’m not talking about the natural scents of sweet ripe apples waiting to be picked or smoky leaves crunching underfoot. I’m talking about the olfactory assault of artificial fragrance that fills pretty much every public space from September through November.

Normally I avoid stores that specialize in home fragrance or perfumed lotions, but this time of year, the scents spill over their normal boundaries and I have to steer clear of entire wings of the mall. Craft stores display fragranced candles and incense at the front end; bookstores sell autumn potpourri on racks near the checkout. Even my local grocery store has a display of seasonally scented wreaths by the entrance. And the most pervasive seasonal scent of all is Pumpkin Spice.

Pumpkin Spice scent — there’s no escaping it, no box I can click to opt out. The scent is so powerful that it will not be contained within a bath and beauty store, much less the candle aisle in Target. It wafts and curls outward, seeping through cracks, contaminating sidewalks and the aisles of the mall. Such is the insidious power of Pumpkin Spice.

I know, I know: I’m being such a buzz-kill. Who am I to disparage this benign seasonal pleasure? The thing is, it’s not benign — not to folks like me who are sensitive to strong smells. Air fresheners, perfume and cologne make me wheeze; I can’t even use dryer sheets without breaking out in hives. Strong smells — particularly artificial fragrances — can trigger an asthma attack. Pumpkin puree? Not a problem. That Pumpkin Spice candle? Excuse me while I reach for my inhaler.

Pumpkin puree? Not a problem. That Pumpkin Spice candle? Excuse me while I reach for my inhaler.

Look, if you want to ingest nothing but pumpkin-flavored snacks and wash them down with pumpkin lattes and cocktails, that’s your business. If you offer me a taste of your special seasonal pumpkin cereal, I can politely decline. But when I walk through the mall (and I have to, sometimes; a girl can’t buy everything online) and I pass stores that sell candles and bath products, I cannot choose not to breathe. And when I breathe, ALL I BREATHE IS PUMPKIN SPICE.

Sometimes Pumpkin Spice mingles with other seasonal (yet similarly improbable) scents, such as Apple Spice or its siblings, Caramel Apple and Mulled Cider — none of which smell anything like actual apples, just like Pumpkin Spice smells nothing like a real, freshly carved pumpkin.

And this is only the beginning. The Smelly Season, as I call it, lasts for months. No sooner has Pumpkin Spice disappeared from stores than it is replaced by the equally offensive scents of Cranberry Bog, Spiced Gingerbread, Sugar Plum and Balsam Fir. I can’t truly let my guard down until after Valentine’s Day, when the last of the Cinnamon Heart products are cleared off the shelves.

I realize I’m in the minority, but I’m certainly not alone. And besides, artificial scents aren’t just offensive, they’re unnecessary.

Lest you think that I’m advocating living in a scentless vacuum, let me assure you that there are ways to enjoy the smells of fall without resorting to the autumnal equivalent of Axe body spray. Try baking a pumpkin or apple pie, for example. Or pour some cider in a saucepan or crockpot, add a few cinnamon sticks (and some star anise, if you’re fancy) and create your own, natural air freshener. Vanilla extract makes the house smell lovely when warmed gently over low heat.

Or, best of all, go to a farmer’s market or take a walk in the woods and enjoy the all-natural sensory joys of the season. Think about it: Trees that explode in a riot of color before dropping their leaves onto the damp earth. Juicy grapes and crisp apples waiting to be eaten, not to mention the kale and brussels sprouts that are actually made sweeter by the first frost.

And as for Pumpkin Spice? A gorgeous, sunset-hued pumpkin is perfect all by itself; it becomes sublime with baked with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and cloves.

There’s just no need for the fake stuff.

My 8-year-old daughter asks me if kids teased me at school when I was younger. When I ask her if she is being teased at school, all she will tell me is “sometimes.” Then I wonder: are her classmates teasing her because of her imagination?

My daughter has a beautiful and vivid fantasy life. The other day, she was waiting for her mermaid tail to grow because she followed all of the rituals she found in a video to turn herself into a mermaid. When the day her mermaid tail was due came and went, she was unfazed.

“We live in a dry climate here in Arizona and that makes it harder to grow a mermaid’s tail,” she explained. “If we lived in San Diego, I’d have one by now.”

I agree to buy her a mermaid tail online if her real one didn’t come in soon.

“Were you teased when you were in school, Mommy?”

“Sometimes I was,” I tell her. “Like people would call me Aliza Pizza.”

I don’t tell her about the times I was teased because of my own imagination.

Here’s what I want for my daughter: I want her to trust herself, believe in herself, to not be ashamed of being different than other kids.

In grade school, I wanted to be a witch. I read the book Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, by E.L. Konigsburg and followed the rituals spelled out in its pages to become one. I began to practice spells, most of them around making friends, but I discovered one that was a little more ominous — to hurt someone who hurt you.

For some reason, I mentioned this spell to someone else in my third grade class. That’s when the trouble began. The other girls in my class taunted me and chased me around in the schoolyard, threatening to burn me at the stake. The teasing continued until the school principal got involved, but even as it abated, I never felt like I belonged. I always believed I was the weird girl.

In middle school, I played a game with my best friend Patty. We were two girls from outer space trapped in a forest on Earth with nothing but our wits and a stick called Nimrod to guide us. We ran through the woods, evading imaginary enemies, totally immersed in our characters. We weren’t pretending. We were two girls from another planet on a mission.

Patty made me swear that I wouldn’t tell a soul about our game. I agreed, but couldn’t understand why other kids wouldn’t think our game was cool. Patty eventually began hanging out with other girls in our class, girls who didn’t want me as part of their clique. They stood behind her, smirking and suppressing giggles, as she explained in front of everyone that she no longer wanted to be my friend. I was the weird girl again.

“Were you teased when you were in school, Mommy?”

I didn’t go into details about how in high school I felt like an outcast. I was in Drama Club so I was immediately a weirdo in the eyes of most of the other kids. But I didn’t even fit in with the Drama crowd. I went through my entire high school years feeling awkward and lonely.

Here’s what I want for my daughter:

I want her to feel safe in the world.

I want her to revel in a rich imaginary world and vow to show her every day how to channel it into creativity.

I want her to trust herself, believe in herself, to not be ashamed of being different than other kids.

I want her to fully embrace her imagination, her intelligence, her spirit.

Children move constantly between imagination and weird, and the tipping point where teasing becomes cruelty can be a moving target. I’m torn between protecting my daughter from the societal pitfalls of an active imagination and encouraging her to embrace her imaginary friends, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and her mermaid aspirations with no fear.

“Do you think we were alive before this life, Mommy?”

“What do you mean?

“I think I lived before I was born to you and Daddy. But I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember my life before?”

“I don’t know, honey. That’s a good question.”

I watch my daughter walk to the schoolyard gate. I see her imaginary friends walking in a row behind her. They all turn to me, and wave.

TueNight is kicking off a series of personal essays throughout the year in honor of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary.

By Toya R. Smith

My last year in college, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was everywhere. All we listened to, all we sang. The strains of it wafted on the wind across campus. As a Black girl from the hoods of Baltimore, I played Miseducation as much as anyone else. So much, that now, more than 20 years later, I can still sing/rap every note, every word.

Lauryn’s epic 1998 LP was groundbreaking, but the woman herself wasn’t new to me. I’d watched her on As the World Turns and in Sister Act II. I’d head-nodded along with her flow when she was a member of the Fugees. But there was something about Lauryn singing and being on her own that spoke to my young heart. Slender, dark, loc’d, full-lipped, rocking her Northern accent and what felt to me like matching aggression. Something about her beautiful Blackness that looked nothing like mine. 

College is the time when kids go away just Black and come home BLACK. Before college, my concept of Blackness was home. West Baltimore. Relaxed hair teased into up-dos tall enough to look Jesus in the eye. Gold teeth. Neon colors. Club music and church choir. I didn’t have to think about Blackness. Black is all I’d ever known. It came in a package I understood. The steady rock and rhythm of my years.  Emphasis on the “American” in African American. Yes, I knew that there were Black people elsewhere, but wasn’t their Black just like mine?

The first people I met on campus weren’t my kinda Black folks. I didn’t come from money; they did. I had a single mother who sometimes worked three jobs. We thrived because of the support and energy of our extended family. All of my friends at home were like me — not fortunate in the finances department. I went to college on scholarship and prayer. That first weekend introduced me to Prince George’s County, honey. To the Silver Spoon Blacks. I approached them with sunny hellos, and they paid me dust.

These PG County women, my then-classmates, wouldn’t admit to it now because the years have dulled the sharpness of the shade, and adulthood has made us friendly, but they judged me. Or, at least, I felt they did. I saw their noses turn up, as if I reeked of the hood. Apparently, the purples, oranges, reds, greens, fuchsias, and fluorescents popular with my crew back home were faux pas to folks who hailed from towns less than an hour away from mine. 

How did my city mouse ass become the country mouse?

In the midst of this rejection, I found solace in Lauryn Hill. Lauryn was different from me and also everything I was. Black. Young. Full of love scorned and unfulfilled. Angry. Soft. Defiant, but longing. Her music pulled from our collective Black Americanness but was full of the rhythms of the Caribbean. I’d never thought of us that way before. 

I mean, it’s not like I’d never heard of Bob Marley or reggae, but the idea that Black folks lived all over and were Black all over was just an amorphous idea in the back of my head. In my mind, we all went from the shores of Africa right to the shores of the American South, and that’s where we stopped. Yeah, the Great Migration, but again, vague. My people had only traveled a few states up the East Coast and never even made it past the Mason-Dixon Line. We couldn’t be anywhere that wasn’t South. 

As a born and bred Baltimorean, I still consider myself a Southern woman. I was raised in the bosom of a South Carolina household. My grandparents – who are yet living at 100 and 96, bless them — never left the Carolinas behind, and my little life marinated in the crab, tomato, and rice-filled stew they made of a family. Even my accent isn’t quite the same as others from Baltimore. The lilt of Bishopville sneaks through the twang of Southwest Baltimore.

While I did make women friends in college — one of whom is still among my best friends to this day, I felt alone on campus. Somehow, my big hair + big mouth + big color = whore and boyfriend stealer to the Black girl majority. They called me what I came to know as the ultimate insult: a “bamma.” Countrified. In turn, I called them the “Gray Ladies” because, for some reason, gray sweatpants and matching New Balance sneakers seemed to be all the rage among them. 

Somehow, in my Baltimore, I had become the outsider. But defiance has always been my lot and my strength. So I held my shellacked hair high, rolled back my purple-clad shoulders, and acted like I didn’t feel like the poor relation, the country cousin to the folks from the affluent suburbs. How did my city mouse ass become the country mouse?

There is no one way to be Black. And when Lauryn doo-wopped and hip-hopped her way into my consciousness, she reinforced the lesson

The closest friend I made across the Silver Spoon line was a dude (we’ll call him Marcus) — and that sure didn’t help my cause with the girls who claimed I dressed up only to entice away the guys, who by rights belonged to them. In hindsight, I have to admit, I get it. There was the time Marcus streaked down the hallway outside my dorm room at 3 AM, stark naked and screaming his head off. But there was no sex involved! We’d been playing Strip Blackjack, and he’d lost a million times. Okay, I don’t think Strip Blackjack is a thing, and it still isn’t great for a taken dude to be naked in front of a girl who isn’t his girlfriend under any circumstances, but still. No sex!

After a while, my burgeoning friendship with Marcus — filled with sexual tension on his side, mind you — couldn’t stand any longer, and the Gray Ladies had to deal with me. 

I remember being cornered in the dormitory lobby, where we all gathered to watch TV, have Spades tournaments, and shoot the shit. A group of the PG girls — they were too bourgie to be called a gang — surrounded me, accusing me of sleeping with Marcus. His girlfriend stood front and center, trembling with rage and humiliation, flanked by her entourage, all wearing gray sweats and unkempt hair, snarling at the Baltimorean with the shiny French roll. Saying, “Your man wouldn’t be looking my way if you combed your damn hair and put some lipstick on” probably wasn’t the best response. But it made them back off, and I lived to snark another day.

I didn’t know it then, but the Gray Ladies and the rest of the bougie folks taught me an important lesson. There is no one way to be Black. And when Lauryn doo-wopped and hip-hopped her way into my consciousness, she reinforced the lesson. 

Since college, I’ve met more people. I’ve traveled. I’ve seen the rainbow of Black with my own eyes, danced it with my own hips, and heard the music of it with my own ears. I am river baptized into a faith tradition that made the ghoulish trip of the Middle Passage and survived the Maafa with my ancestors. Twenty-plus years later, my Black doesn’t look like it did in 1998. My hood honey aesthetic has been mixed with the neo-soul hotep hippiness I discovered in college. Dashikis and stretch jeans. Wild afro and fake lashes. Incense and rhinestoned nails. Twerking and altars. Church choir replaced by Orisha oriki. Erykah Badu and Club music. My Black is evolution, and like Lauryn sang, everything is everything.

Remember when we were growing up, how all the guys used to rag on Eric Clapton for writing a love song about George Harrison’s wife? Ugh. Tough to enjoy those guitar licks in “Layla” when it was about Clapton’s dopey, messy love life. And yikes, Bob Dylan, write about Joan Baez much? Or Suze Rotolo much? Or Edie Sedgwick much? Or Sara Lownds much?

Oh, and who can forget how Bruce Springsteen was shunned for “Tunnel of Love” (divorce is so awk) and how Chris de Burgh’s “Lady In Red” tanked because no one cared about his wife’s dumb dress (cringe). “When Doves Cry” written about something other than doves? Unacceptable! 

Okay, of course none of that ever happened. (Also, Prince wrote “If I Was Your Girlfriend” to an actual girlfriend). So why has Taylor Swift, the biggest act of our adult lives — possibly our entire lives — been devalued, dismissed and negged because she… dates? 

That’s just the tip of the double-standard that has been applied to Swift throughout her career and more glaringly so as she has ascended. So much so that when she wondered about it in song, everybody knew why. 

There’s something about this summer. We all knew the Eras tour was happening — fans basically broke Ticketmaster trying to score tickets — and we all knew it was gonna be big. But even though stadiums were sold out and celebs were going nuts and attendance records were being smashed and NFL players were legit kvelling, it feels like only now, as the U.S. leg of the Eras tour was playing its final shows in Los Angeles this week, that Taylor Swift’s status as not just a mega-star and not just a mega-economic force but as a mega-artist is finally being widely appreciated and acknowledged. 

The art and the talent is undeniable, yet I feel that Hillary-Clinton-esque-disclaimer urge to prove it. (You know that urge, a relic of 2016, when we pre-parried all blows against Hillary with stats and links and "to-be-sures" acknowledging her deficiencies.) So prove it I shall: There’s the self-accompaniment on both guitar and piano; the marathon 3.5 hour set of 44 songs with not a clunker in the bunch; the fact that thousands of people at each show sing all the words to every song in unison; the fact that she single-handedly brought “tea time” and “best believe” back into the cultural lexicon, and introduced the musicality of “like, ever”; and just, my God, back to back folklore (“august!” “betty!” swearing!) and evermore (“champagne problems!” “willow!” good Lord, “no body, no crime!”) — who does that?; and wait I know there's more but hold on, I just have to scream-sing I’m drunk in the back of the car! and I’m crying like a baby coming home from the bar! which by the way, I now scream-sing with my kid. She’s 8. I’m sorry, I can’t help myself. What was that about a disclaimer?

I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan since 2009, when she hosted SNL as both the musical guest and host, fitting into the ensemble like a utility player and absolutely owning her “Monologue Song” (and living the dream with this moment, before echoing it with a commanding 10-minute “All Too Well” 11 years later). As a lyricist myself, I used to write and perform comedic lyrics to existing songs, and I frequently gravitated to Taylor for her storytelling arcs and generous syllable count. But I disclaimed in a way I never would have for a Springsteen song, scoffing at “the princessy hype” like I hadn’t watched the “You Belong To Me” video on repeat (or displayed my own questionable romantic judgment). And even though I clearly remember sitting on my bedroom floor postpartum, pumping while “Blank Space” gave me life (er, I’m a single mom, is now a good time to mention?), by the time Reputation dropped I was attuned enough to the vibe to give it a pass, to my own detriment and a “Don't Blame Me”-less life until, I am abashed to admit, this very tour. 

Look: I loudly proclaim my Springsteen bona fides. Hell yeah, I went on record with my decades of expertise singing “Thunder Road,” memorized from album liner notes in my basement, to come down on the side of “waves” (for shame, Remnick). But I don’t ever remember feeling weird saying I loved Bruce. 

It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. Because it still feels vindicating to see Channing Tatum with the sparkly Lover eye-heart and aaaaaall those above-linked NFL players confirming their appreciation. Because even though we all know Taylor Swift writes her own songs, I have actually in the Year of Our Lord 2023 parried claims that she doesn’t (a stubborn conspiracy on sub-Reddits, and the quiet part said out loud by that guy from Blur). Meanwhile Bob Dylan’s out there winning the actual Nobel Prize. Which, yay Bob! I personally do not care that you wrote about Joan, Suze, Edie and Sara (although if I may, you were kind of a jerk on that last one). So, too, should the amorphous bros not care about who Taylor writes about — so, you know, can we just not? 

It’s not lost on me that the success of the Barbie movie ($1 billion!) felt like a prerequisite for  knocking out the naysayers. I love each and every article about what a powerhouse women are this summer — Barbie, Taylor Swift, and of course, Beyoncé — but it still grates that the equation defaults to the sum of all parts, rather than giving Tay or Bey solo credit on par with, say, Christopher Nolan. (I won’t be finding any more links on all this. You know it. I know it.) What was that quote? “Is this how men have always felt?” — what’s that like? —  and still, minus that vestigial remembrance of that asterisk, that disclaimer. 

I’m so sick of that disclaimer. I reject that disclaimer. If we take nothing else from this massive summer for women, for girls, for joy, for community, and for smiting the motherf*ing patriarchy (and boy, does it ever f*ck moms, but I digress) then let’s take this: We don’t have to put an asterisk on what we do, what we love, and what we achieve. 

I turned 50 six months ago and even as a staunch and ardent feminist, it always sucks to realize how much of the patriarchy I have absorbed over my life. But wow, do I feel lucky to be my age and be connecting so deeply with the joy of this moment: the joy of singing in unison, the joy of dressing up, the joy of being bejeweled, the joy of warning someone that they’d best believe it. I feel so grateful to be able to enjoy this so fully— and hell yeah to being 50 and looking cute at a Taylor Swift show! I can still make the whole place shimmer.

Thankfully, this is how the younger generation of Taylor Swift fans already feels, sans disclaimer. My friend, and Taylor superfan, Adriana Fazio wrote about being a Swiftie since she was a kid, about all the times in her life that Taylor’s music has been there for her, saying, “Taylor has provided the soundtrack to my life.” I feel this, too, when I listen to her lyrics, because I have lived variations of those experiences. But now, when I listen to Taylor, I also think of my daughter, the aforementioned 8-year old. Singing along in the MetLife stands, just one cute middle-aged woman of many, by the way, I actually teared up realizing all the heartbreak that waits for her — if she’s lucky, I guess. Right now, her favorite song is “Look What You Made Me Do” (again, stellar parenting over here) but wow am I relieved that she will have all these songs waiting for her to keep her company when she needs them. 

I’m glad I have them, too.