mental-health

This Is Forty-Eight… Forty-Nine?

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

Another trip around the sun, another year older, and somehow, it still catches me off guard. Birthdays don’t make me sentimental anymore; they make me aware, of time, of motion, of all the ways I’ve changed and stayed the same. Forty-eight feels too young to feel this wise, too old to feel this curious. But here I am, somewhere in between, still learning what it means to live wide open.

Thank you to everyone who took the time yesterday to wish me a happy birthday.
Hard to believe I’m forty-eight… wait, forty-nine? No, forty-eight. I think. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes I panic when I think about things like, “In 2030, we’ll install new social studies standards.” Not because of the standards, but because of the 2030. I can still remember partying like it was 1999 when it actually was 1999.

I remember being ten, with parents who were forty, and thinking they were ancient. Now, with parents who are seventy-eight and seventy-nine (I’m forty-eight, nailed it; my mum is thirty years older than me), I think about how young they still are and how much time we still have left to travel and explore.

I no longer measure time in minutes and seconds. In frat parties or nightclubs or boys. I think in weeks, months, and years. About retirement plans and portfolios. Menopause and hip replacements. I curse at my phone, send words instead of memes, and laugh because, well, here I am, the person my parents warned me about. The person they swore I’d become.

I went from wild and carefree to achy and crotchety seemingly overnight.
I turn down the music when it’s raining too hard because I can’t see well when it’s too loud. I brace for the “oof” every morning when I crawl out of bed, my knees, hips, and back punishing me for the years I punished them in sports, and in stupid (but also fun) things like Spartan races.
I track BOGO sales at grocery stores and make meal plans instead of eating leftover pizza I found on my dorm room floor or tacos I found under my pillow.
I still love unsensible shoes, but I only wear them when it’s sensible.
I haven’t yet started calling the front desk when the room next door is too loud, but I might have knocked… politely… on the wall once or twice.
And I definitely don’t have TikTok.

Sometimes I stumble across old photos from college, me in my purple plastic skirt, that shiny green jacket (also plastic) I thought made me invincible, and I wish I could tell that girl how beautiful she was before the world convinced her she wasn’t. How thin she was. How unbreakable she’d turn out to be.

I wish I could tell her that strength doesn’t come from holding everything together; it comes from falling apart and finding a way back. That every wound, even the ones that felt fatal, would scab over and diminish in time. That the broken hearts and tear-soaked pillows, the stupid boys and stupid girls and cruel words, would one day shrink down into stories she’d tell with a laugh.

I wish I could tell her the world wasn’t ending every time someone ghosted her, or when she cried herself sick over someone who probably sells insurance in Ohio now and hasn’t explored the Rocky Mountains alone. That those sleepless nights were wasted on people who didn’t deserve to know her favorite songs. That those long nights waiting for the phone to ring were keeping her from hearing herself instead.

And that those wounds, now faint scars, would become the very fabric that built her. How every break had taught her to bend. Sturdy, imperfect, a little frayed in spots, but hers and hers alone. The kind of fabric that softens with time yet still holds up after every wash. The jeans you still wear from high school. The T-shirt that almost smells like him. The thread that runs through every version of herself, binding the girl she was to the woman she became.

If I could, I would pull that thread tight, trace it back to where it started, and I’d find her again, the girl who didn’t yet know what she was made of. I wish I could tell her that one day she’d grow up, be respected, earn a doctorate, and realize the people she once tried so hard to impress no longer even exist in her memory.

I’ve said before that while I have regrets, I don’t live with them, and that still holds true. They’re memories, not weights. Reminders, not anchors.

At forty-eight, I feel lucky to be where I am.

I have a handful of really good friends, the kind who’ve seen me at my worst and still answer the phone at two in the morning if I call in a panic… or a rage… or just because I’m bored. They send me pictures of otters, leave voice memos of themselves singing on my birthday, drop off authentic All Dressed chips on my doorstep, send random memes about leaves and how much the bitches love them, show up at my dissertation defense at eleven o’clock Netherlands time, still cut and style my hair, or jet off for a weekend in Vegas that we still don’t talk about. They visit me in Charlotte when they’re passing through, or maybe just to curl for the weekend, and leave little gifts on my desk because they thought of me and my ridiculous obsession with all things cats.

I have a best friend. The kind who calls when I’m too sad to talk, sits in silence while I cry, and only hangs up once she knows I’m in bed. The kind of friend who travels with me, who knows my darkest secrets, my worst impulses, my deepest fears, and still always shows up. She calls me on my shit but never judges me… at least not too harshly… and she always calls me back.

And I have a partner who celebrates me, ignores my tantrums, and indulges my weird whims. Who takes trips with me on the off chance we might see moosen. Who sometimes makes a steak dinner better than anything Ruth’s Chris or Morton’s is serving up, and who always drives me to the airport when I’m off on another adventure, kisses me goodbye, and reminds me that he loves me.

I’d go to the mattresses for all of them without a second thought, because, frankly, several of them know where the bodies are buried and because without them, I’d be lost.

I have a family that is mostly intact. I’ve felt the loss of matriarchs and patriarchs, of beloved uncles and family friends I once thought of as surrogate parents. Each loss has become a reminder of family itself, of love, of togetherness, of how deeply we belong to one another even as the seats around the table begin to empty.

Despite my general optimism, I’ve started to live more in the now, because I’ve grown acutely aware of borrowed time and the absence of any guaranteed tomorrow. I sometimes wish I’d understood the meaning of family when I was younger, but I’ve come to learn it’s something that has to grow on you over time, like moss… or maybe fungus. You have to grow old to understand what old means. You have to experience loss to comprehend the hollowness it leaves behind. And you cannot fully understand love until you’ve stepped out of the light it once provided. But each loss, in its own way, brings you closer to those who remain in the void and learn to share that space with you.

But through it all, I know I have a place to call home, even if it isn’t brick and mortar or tied to a single point on a map. Sometimes family is forty-seven text notifications bitching about the Penguins’ power play.

Home, like family, isn’t always simple. Love and belonging come with their own messiness, their own friction. Because comfort doesn’t erase complexity. Family, like time, teaches in layers; some soft, some sharp.

I’ve also felt the strain that politics and pride can bring to a family, and I’ve lamented the silliness of those silences. The stubbornness that builds walls where laughter used to live. Yet even those moments have carried lessons. I no longer see myself as a child at the whim of adults trying to mold me, or as an adult bending to other adults who believe they still can. It’s a strange dance. The old and the young, elders and youngers, respect and mutual understanding. Learning to be cautious and kind, yet steadfast, confident, and self-advocating. It has taught me to love without question or condition, and to forgive, but never to cave.

The same lessons have found their way into every other corner of my life, especially my work.

I have a job I enjoy and take pride in, work that still challenges me, that still matters. The kind of work that sometimes keeps me up at night and wears me thin, yet always reminds me I’m part of something bigger than myself, that my days are spent doing something that outlives the hours it takes.

I’ve finished my education as far as degrees go, but the learning hasn’t stopped, it’s just changed shape.
Now it looks like airports and conversations and quiet mornings where the lesson is simply being present.

I travel. I wander. I wonder. I explore.

Not to escape, but to keep learning what it means to be alive in all the small, ordinary ways, because the world keeps getting bigger the older I get, and each place teaches me something new about who I was, who I am, and who I’m still becoming.

Because no matter how far I go, the journey always circles back to me. Every new horizon holding up a mirror, reminding me that growth isn’t just about the miles traveled, but the grace earned along the way.

I still sometimes cry into my pillow, and I know heartache doesn’t fade with age, but I also know it isn’t the end of the world. It just shifts the landscape. And it’s up to me to decide how I want to walk it.

To all the little girls and boys out there, the ones who think thirty or forty is old, just wait. It really does get better with age. You get better with age.

If you have a dream, chase it. If you want to go somewhere, buy the ticket. Money is something you can always make tomorrow, and things just gather dust. Real living happens at the intersection of let’s do it and holy shit, I’m terrified.

So do it scared. Live life on the precipice between caution and the wind. That’s where the good stories come from anyway.

Because that’s the secret no one tells you about getting older, it’s not about slowing down; it’s about finally knowing when to jump.

From the Box to the Basket

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

Today marks three years since Edgar Allan Poe strutted out of Princeton’s Meow and into our lives, and, let’s be honest, took over the place. Three years of “good, good boy time,” midnight zoomies followed by the 3 a.m. delivery of a wet mouse toy to my chest or head, and a perfectly curated collection of stolen tampons, chapsticks, hair ties, mouse toys, and other bits and bobs he has deemed worthy of play, all artfully scattered around the house and tucked under the couch.

Poe started life as a stray in Laurinburg, NC. A woman took him in and even documented where and when she found him. Unfortunately, like so many in our society, she struggled with mental health challenges, and her desire to help stray animals turned into a devastating hoarding situation.

Three years ago, authorities seized the animals in her home, over 50 cats kept in cages stacked on top of each other. I’m told it was one of the worst situations they had ever seen. Poe spent the first two years of his life like that, caged in a garage, sitting on top of and under other cats.

He never saw the sun. He never ran after fuzzy mice, never had healthcare or regular meals. The only floor he knew was a wire grate. The only bed he knew was that same wire grate. Most of the cats they rescued could not be saved and had to be humanely euthanized. But Poe… Poe endured.

He was sent to Mac Tabby Café in NoDa, where they posted a bio of him on their Facebook page. They called him Nick Barkley. I don’t know why, I imagine it must be hard naming the hundreds of animals that come through their doors. But something in that image, that story, and those yellow eyes hooked me.

At the time, I had two cats at home: Stella Sugaree Garcia Blue and Dan the Adventure Cat Rooney. You might remember them from this story. Still, I had been quietly searching for my next true love, Stu Two if you will, and something in that gaze told me I had found him.

Maybe it was his coloring, all white with a few black spots and a black tail, a Stuesque remix with black where the orange had been. But I think it was more than that. In that photo, I saw a cat, call me crazy if you want, who was a fighter, a survivor. He wasn’t hiding or cowering in some corner. He was bold, upright, ready for the next episode, ready to tackle whatever life threw at him next. And I knew, whatever that was, I wanted to be there for it.

It turns out that, like most things in my life, it came with unexpected injuries. Three days after being removed from a cage and set free in a cat café, Poe (née Nick Barkley) jumped off a table and broke his leg.

They reached out to let me know I couldn’t come see him and that he would be in traction and unavailable for at least two months while he healed. It hurt, but I wasn’t deterred. I kept tabs on him as they moved him to Princeton’s Meow, a wonderful cat rescue in my hometown, while he recovered.

The only downside was that he was now back in a cage with a casted leg. His first taste of freedom had been short-lived. We visited him a few times at Princeton’s and got to love on him while he sat there, little leg in a cast, in a crate. He was so receptive to the attention, purring nonstop and rubbing his head against our hands, always asking for more.

Finally, after almost seven weeks of waiting, I got the email I had been hoping for: Nick was ready to be adopted. The message came on July 31, but we were going out of town that week, so he had to wait until August 8 for us to officially bring him home.

I set up the appointment and planned to pick him up at Princeton’s after my dentist appointment that day. We prepared the bedroom for his arrival, knowing we’d need to keep him quarantined and do a slow introduction to Rooney and Stella. Then we started counting the days.

The day I was bringing him home, I went to work with my cat carrier in the back seat. I had a dentist appointment around four to get a filling replaced, but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting my boy.

I pulled into the lot at Princeton’s and, as I was putting my car in park, a face popped up in the window.

It was Nick Barkley. It was like he had heard my car and somehow knew it was his ride to a new life and freedom. They were busy that evening with intakes and let me sit in the room he was in while they finished their work.

I waited to complete the paperwork and pay the adoption fee to take him home. There were about ten cats in that room. All of them came over, wanting pets and to play. But not Nick. He walked into the cat carrier, despite spending two years in one, and laid down. It was like he knew, this is my mom.

He came to us a little unsure, a little aloof, like he wasn’t quite convinced we were worthy of his time. We kept him in the master bedroom behind a closed door so we could ease all three cats into the transition slowly.

After about a day, he was no longer thrilled with his confinement. That night, when I used my leg to block him from escaping as I shut the door, he jumped up and nipped me on the wrist. I was startled. I remember gasping and feeling the hot sting of tears in my eyes. I’d never been bitten by a cat that wasn’t playing.

Ten minutes later, I tripped over him getting into bed and he jumped up and bit my leg. That really sent me spiraling. I was upset and unsure. I knew I hadn’t made a mistake, but I was afraid I had adopted a cat that wouldn’t be able to be socialized.

I reached out to Princeton’s, curious about his background and whether they had ever had issues with him. I assured them I wasn’t returning him, that we would stick it out, but I needed advice. They told me he had never displayed any aggression and that they were as surprised as I was.

In the end, I decided it wasn’t aggression. He was advocating for himself in the way he knew how. He wasn’t being mean, he didn’t break the skin, it didn’t even hurt, well, just my pride. It was his way of letting me know, “I’m here, I’m unhappy, and yes, a bit scared.” It was the first and last time it ever happened.

Naming him proved to be about as difficult as it was to name Rooney. I knew we didn’t want to call him Nick. My cousin is Nick, and I didn’t want a cat sharing the name of my favorite male cousin.

He was almost all white, so we called him Spooky for a bit, mostly because T found his bright yellow eyes a little off-putting. We called him Possum because my sister thought he looked like one, and to be fair, he kind of does. We called him Monkey because he reminded my BFF Morgan of Marcel from Friends, and again, he kind of does.

But none of those felt right. About two weeks into our life together, I was curating an ELA lesson on poetry and prose and I came across a picture of Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe you don’t see it, but we did. He has that same stare. That same “my mom cuts my hair” look. The expression, the eyes, even that slightly serious “I’ve seen things” energy.

And it was settled. Nick Barkley became Edgar Allan Poe. Poe, PoePoe, Poebert, for short.

I wish I could say that introducing him to the girls was smooth sailing, but it wasn’t. Even now, I’m pretty sure Rooney still hates him, and maybe us just a little, for bringing him into what had been a pretty normal and peaceful existence.

He and Stella get along well enough; they’ll play together, but she’s his age and can keep up with him. Rooney, on the other hand, has taken a different approach. They’ve settled into a relationship built mostly on mutual avoidance, with the occasional moment when he decides to stalk her and she promptly kicks his ass. Honestly, I think he’s more afraid of her than she is of him. He knows she isn’t to be trifled with.

Then there was the litter situation. We had a carefully curated system that worked beautifully with pellets in every box, no smell, easy cleanup. Poe refused to use them. His protest forced us to switch one box back to clay litter, which we all hate.

To make matters worse, he developed an irrational fear of the Litter-Robot. That led to accidents in the house and a lot of cursing over a $500 litter box rendered useless by one insolent child.

Even after three years, he’s still weird, still a bit standoffish. He doesn’t let me hold him like Stu did. He doesn’t cuddle. He isn’t a lap cat. I’ve had conversations with him about it.

Sometimes, by accident, we call him Stu. It’s a slip of the tongue, a memory, and a pain that time hasn’t completely erased. So he knows that, through no fault of his own, he is a replacement cat. In some strange way, he is Stu Two. But he’s fine with that, because he also knows I love him for him. He knows I know he isn’t Stu. Still, there are moments when the guilt creeps in.

And now? He supervises everything I do, from laundry folding to dinner prep, positioning himself just far enough away to watch with judgment but close enough to insert himself if he feels like it. His daily naps sprawl across the house like feline performance art, deep and unguarded.

He has a basket on the coffee table where he can nap or watch TV (and yes, he really does watch TV) and be close to us, but not on us. It respects his personal space, something he values greatly, and he will remind me of that, gently, when I press my face into his.

Time heals all wounds, even the ones a cat carries after two years in a cage. Sometimes, when he’s in his basket and I call him, he’ll come and sit on my chest on the couch. He doesn’t stay long and he won’t let me pull him into an embrace, but we are slowly making adjustments and moving in that direction.

He sleeps near the door on the couch and greets me when I get home. He will roll over and show me his belly, though touching it can still be a gamble. He chirps when I open a can of food and knows exactly when it’s dinner time. He comes running every morning for his “coffee treats” and perks up at the sound of a Churu being opened in the evening.

The best thing about Poe is our nightly routine. I call it “good, good boy time,” and it’s become a running joke at the office because I’ve talked about it so much.

Every night, and I mean every night, when it starts to get close to my bedtime, usually around nine, Poe begins to get antsy in his coffee table basket. Every time I walk down the hallway he sits up and waits for me to call him.

When I am finally ready for bed I say, “Ok, Poe, it’s good, good boy time,” and he jumps up, follows me down the hallway, and hops onto the bed. We spend about ten minutes playing and getting pets, and then I lay down on my back and he crawls onto my chest to lie down.

He only stays for ten or fifteen minutes, but it’s enough. I’m a side-sleeper, so if he stayed longer I’d never get any rest. Sometimes he moves to the edge of the bed and sleeps there. Most nights, he sleeps with T and Stella, which annoys me, but what can you do?

Every morning, before my alarm goes off, no matter what time it’s set for, he comes back about ten minutes before it’s due to ring, crawls onto me, and settles in. I think it’s his way of asking me to stay just a little longer.

I know I’m just setting myself up for heartache in the end. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want another Stu. But I’m human, and these sorts of attachments and this sort of love are what make us unapologetically real and raw. I don’t regret it, even if I sometimes fret about it.

And Poe, that little cat in a box, stole my heart all over again, for all the same reasons, and for all the different ones that Stu did.

No matter what, he is Poe: independent, particular, a little mysterious. But in the three years since he came home, the edges have softened. He trusts me now, in his way. And sometimes, when he sits in his basket and blinks slowly at me, I think maybe he’s saying, “You did okay, Mom.”

Adopting Poe was one of those decisions that made the whole world feel a little softer. He’s proof that rescue cats rescue us right back. Here’s to many more years of purrs, headbutts, and unapologetic bed-hogging.

Happy Gotcha Day, Poe, three years as a free-range kitten, and you’ve perfected the art.

The Bridge Between Them and Tomorrow

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ 1 Comment

My parents are my unsung heroes.
They are 77 and 78 years old, and today they laced up their sneakers, grabbed their signs, and marched for justice and freedom—not for themselves, but for the future.

They spent their Saturday standing in the sun—
my dad holding a sign that said Hands off my grandkids’ future,
my mum in a t-shirt about how practical jokes become elected officials.

They marched for freedom.
For justice.
For a tomorrow they might not live to see, but refuse to give up on.

I don’t have children of my own.
I have a niece, a nephew, and a chorus of cousin-kids who orbit close enough to feel like gravity.
They weren’t born to me, but they belong with me.
I’ve cheered them on, watched them grow, held their tiny hands and big feelings.

And I have the thousand students who’ve passed through my classroom and heart across 24 years of teaching.

Family isn’t always about lineage.
Sometimes, it’s about proximity and heart.

These ARE my kids.

And my parents marched for them.

I am who I am because of who my parents were to me when I was growing up.
They weren’t perfect.
They weren’t my best friends.
They usually said no.
They were something more.

They gave me a framework for courage.
They taught me to pay attention—to ask questions, challenge injustice, and stand my ground even when my knees trembled.
They showed me that kindness isn’t weakness—it’s a decision you make over and over again.
That your voice matters, even when it shakes.

Even when it’s silenced.

That ordinary people can do extraordinary things—quietly, consistently, and with stubborn hope.

And I have tried to build something from it.
Something others can walk across.

And today—decades later—they’re still out there showing up.
For my kids.
For your kids.
For our world—the one they still believe in, still carry hope for.

That’s legacy.
That’s love in motion.
That’s the kind of inheritance that matters most.

Not all inheritance comes through a will.
Some of it marches beside you,
sunscreen on, homemade signs in hand,
calling out, “Hands off their future.”

That’s what I got from them.
Not money.
Not land.
But courage.
Conviction.
Movement.

And the kind of love that doesn’t sit still when the world needs it.

That’s the legacy—and the inheritance—I carry forward.
And I take every step with purpose—
to honor them,
as a promise to carry the weight when they are no longer able.

And it’s the one I hope I’m passing on, too.

We are the bridge between them and tomorrow.

A Feral Kind of Grace

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

A Feral Kind of Grace
 An Introduction

I was a barefoot child with skinned knees and a bike. A dreamer. I spent my days wandering wooded backyards and whispering creeks, convinced the trees could talk if I just listened hard enough. I grew up in a house where silence was both sacred and suspicious, where love was present but not always soft. I learned early how to be useful. How to read a room. How to disappear—and still be watching. I longed to ride horses on the sand and hear the stories the stars were waiting to tell.
I learned to look.
I learned to listen.
I learned to fight.

In my teens, I wanted to be everything at once—pretty, smart, daring, good.
I failed at most of it. Spectacularly and often.
I fell in love too fast, burned too hot, gave too much, and had my heart broken twice into so many pieces I never thought I’d be whole again.

I wrote poems in the margins of my math homework and still day dreamed about horses and far away places. A testament to my math ability now. I carried secrets in my soul that I would whisper to the stars at night as an offering. I wore armor made of sarcasm and kindness, hoping no one would see how much I wanted to be seen and accepted.
I played sports, earned mostly As, and frustrated my teachers with my questions and inability to sit still. I stopped listening. I stopped looking. But I didn’t stop fighting.

I went to college at 17—young, free, and determined to be someone else. I rewrote my name and my story numerous times in the span of 5 years. Each fractured being still clinging somewhere inside me today. I had moments of great success… and moments we still don’t talk about when the family gets together. I don’t live with my regrets, but I have them. I came out mostly unscathed and mostly whole, and wholly scared of life in the real world.

Early adulthood didn’t make anything clearer or easier—it just raised the stakes.
I was more momentum than foresight. I got engaged, broke that off. I married too soon and I stayed too long. I made lifelong friends, and lost touch with the brokenness inside me. I gathered names and scars and learned how to leave.
I learned I was strong enough to be alone.
I went back to school, accumulated degrees and the debt that came with them.
But I also learned how to stay.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I found my person.
Not the one I expected—but the one who made space for every version of me I’d been carrying.
The one who didn’t flinch when I unfolded. He wasn’t the person I wrote, he was the person I re-read. And I started listening again. I started seeing instead of just looking. I didn’t stop fighting.
But I did learn to let go.
I’ve learned to apologize. To move forward.
To move on.

And now?
At 47, I’ve made my home somewhere between squirrel whisperer, crazy cat lady, reluctant domestic goddess, and freelance adventurer.
I try to be a good neighbor—I’ll bring in your mail, water your plants, or loan you a cup of sugar.
But I also leave snacks out for the raccoons and possums. T calls it “yard garbage”. I refuse to rake leaves—for the bees, sure. But also because raking feels like erasing. And my weekends are not meant for labor. I have a menagerie in my yard and my own squirrel army. They have names. They know me, and I know them. One year, I had to apologize for the corn that started growing in random places around the neighborhood. I’ve since switched to peanuts.
They haven’t sprouted—but not for lack of enthusiastic burial.

I like things a little wild.
I thrive in the casual chaos I’ve perfected.
My garden is unkempt and honest but always full of mint.
My house is full of books, mismatched mugs, lonely socks, and stories I haven’t told yet.
I pick up a rock from every place I visit—and I can name them all if you ask.
I’m stitched together with equal parts wit, mayhem, grief, and grace.
I’ve softened with time.
But I still bite when cornered.

I write because I have to. There’s something ancient and restless in me that insists on being translated and heard.
I edit because I want to. Because I believe words can be shaped like prayers or knives—depending on what’s needed.
I never believe the work is done.

My writing lives at the intersection of memory and invention.
It is rooted in truth—even when the story is fiction.
Especially then.

I have an alter ego named Echo.
She reminds me to write when I forget.
She holds up a mirror when I’m trying to disappear.
Most days, she just reminds me to feed the squirrels.

This is where the stories begin.

What I’ve Learned About Hurt, Healing, and Becoming an Ally

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

This weekend, I curled in the 2nd annual Queen City Color Games at the Charlotte Curling Club—our Pride Bonspiel. Teams came from all over—California, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia, Nebraska, South Dakota, and, of course, North Carolina. It’s a joyful, love-filled celebration of LGBTQIA+ curlers and allies. And while it’s a “funspiel,” the kind with funky rules and wild costumes, it’s also something much deeper: it’s a space where being fully yourself isn’t just tolerated—it’s expected. It’s embraced. When it ended, I didn’t just feel grateful. I felt a quiet ache—because I realized how rare and sacred that kind of space is. A space where no one has to shrink. Where no one has to explain who they are. Where belonging isn’t earned—it’s assumed and it is respected.

And that got me thinking…

So here’s my story. Bear with me. I ramble. I meander. I wander about before I get to the point, and I talk too much—but I promise I’ll get there.

When I was a kid, I was an athlete. I started swimming competitively when I was four, and by ten, I was practicing twice a day and lifting weights. I was good—probably better than good. I had Quad-A times in backstroke and breaststroke before I hit double digits. I still might hold a record at my old summer pool in backstroke. In college, I realized my 15-16 breaststroke time beat the record on the wall at Clarion’s pool, whatever, I guess maybe I should have been a swimmer. But that’s not the point.

I picked up softball around ten, then volleyball. Again—good. Competitive. Driven. If you know me, you know: I like to win. I worked hard, I played harder, and I loved every second of it. I was strong. Fast. Lean. The kind of kid who could throw a football better than most of the boys and outrun just about anyone in gym class.

And that’s when things started to shift.

Junior high hit—and suddenly, being athletic wasn’t cool anymore. Not for girls. Not in the early ’90s. Today we’re starting to celebrate female athletes, but trust me—we didn’t back then.

My nickname became “Leaman”—a jab at my strength and build. My short haircut didn’t help. Curling my bangs and teasing them out over a bowl cut couldn’t mask it. But I tried. I invested in that purple hairspray with the kangaroo on the can, and I looked mostly ridiculous for most of junior high and high school.

But dammit, I wanted to fit in.

I can still smell that horrid grapeness when I think about seventh grade.
And it didn’t help—not really. No amount of hairspray or makeup could cover who I was.

I was called a boy. A lesbian. A dike.
I didn’t even fully understand those words at the time—but I knew they were meant to cut.
To other me.

So I guess I did what a lot of kids do—I tried to shrink myself. I tried to fade into the background and be less… me and more… them.

I stopped working so hard. Hell, I even got kicked off my swim team for something stupid—a cute boy I had a crush on told me to drop a weight down the stairs, and I did. I’ll never forget my coach’s last words: “You wanted to quit, Leanne. So just quit.” I remember walking out to my mum’s car after practice, knowing it was over. Knowing they had already paid through the month—and that would be an issue. But I didn’t care. I was over it.

I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to blend in, not stand out. And somewhere along the way, I started to resent the very thing I used to love most about myself.

That’s not a pity story. I’m not sharing it for sympathy. I’m sharing it because—while that nickname stung, while that teasing changed some things for me—I could walk away from it. I could brush off the labels because they weren’t true for me. I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t different, not in the way they meant. The insults were misfires. And eventually, I grew out of them.

But here’s the thing.

What if I wasn’t straight?

What if I was that kid—that teammate, that friend—who those labels stuck to because they weren’t insults… they were my identity? An identity I had to hide.  An identity I couldn’t laugh off or join the teasing from the sidelines. An identity that made me feel othered in spaces that were supposed to be safe.

What if I couldn’t brush it off?

What if, at 13 or 14, those words didn’t just sting—they burrowed in and told me I didn’t belong?

What if they made me question my own worth?

As an adult, I’ve been lucky. I’ve built a life I’m proud of—a career I love, a partner who grounds me, and a sense of self that took decades to grow into. But maybe more than anything, I’ve built friendships that last. The kind that don’t flinch when life gets hard. The ones you carry with you to the grave and beyond.

Y’all, I have friends I’d take a bullet for. Friends who’d help me bury a body (kidding… mostly).

They’re the people who make my world beautiful.

Who give my life meaning.

They’re the people who see all of me—and choose me anyway. 

They remind me, every single day, that there is still light and love in this world.

And they are worth fighting for.

And if you find yourself judging—whether it’s this post, this event, or the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole—I’d invite you to pause.

Ask yourself what that judgment is rooted in.

Because if it comes from fear, or tradition, or something you were taught long ago—I get it. That’s real. We’re all raised to believe in something. Our lives are built on the foundations laid by our parents, our churches, and the geopolitical landscape we grew up in. And that’s hard to shake.

But so was my fear of spiders.
And the deep end of the pool after I saw Jaws.

Sometimes our fears aren’t real.
Sometimes they’re invitations—to question the world around us, to expand our beliefs, to build systems that are more compassionate and more robust.
Sometimes fear is just a construct—rooted in old stories and ancient hurts we were never meant to carry forever.

Any good therapist will tell you: fear binds you. It holds you back.
But with enough practice, it can be overcome.

And fear—real or imagined—is not a reason to deny someone else dignity, safety, or love.

You don’t have to understand someone’s identity to honor their humanity.

So here’s what I want to say and am finally getting around to…

Some of my friends are straight. Some are gay. Some are trans. Some are nonbinary. Some are Black, Brown, White, Neurodiverse, or Disabled. And here’s the truth: I love my people fiercely. I love them not in spite of who they are, but because of it. And I hope—deep in my bones—that I’ve been the kind of friend they can count on. The kind that shows up, not just in comfort, but in courage.

And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to be an ally. Not just a safe person. Not just someone who “accepts” others. But someone who actively refuses to let hate or exclusion go unchecked.

Because when I think about that 13-year-old version of me—hurt by a nickname but able to walk away from it—I realize what a privilege that was. I wasn’t targeted for who I was. I was targeted for what people assumed.

And yes, that hurt. But it wasn’t soul-deep. It didn’t threaten my safety, my future, or my place in the world. It may have changed me—but honestly, I can’t even say for sure.

What I can say is that it stayed with me. It still does.

It shows up in the quiet calculations. The moments where I weigh what I can say and what I can’t. Where I toe the line to stay safe. Where I hold back because of fear, because of image, because of self-preservation.

And I get it. I get why people stay quiet. I’ve done it too.

But I also know this:
I can’t be an ally.
I can’t be a friend.
I can’t stand up and fight if I’m still hiding behind that fear.

So here it is. So here’s what I want to say.

For so many kids, that fear, that “otherness”, that lack of belonging – it exists and persists and resonates. Every day. All the time. In every moment.

And that’s why spaces like our Pride Bonspiel matter. That’s why allyship matters. Not just in June. Not just at one event. But in the way we live, love, parent, teach, coach, vote, speak, and show up.

If you’ve never had to question whether you belonged in a locker room, on a team, at a family dinner, or in your own church—you’re already playing with privilege. That doesn’t make you a bad person. But it does mean you have a responsibility.

Because allyship isn’t passive. It’s not a rainbow sticker or a hashtag or a one-time event. It’s action. It’s speaking up when it would be easier to stay quiet. It’s making space when you’ve always had it. It’s listening—really listening—when someone tells you what it’s like to be “othered.”

It’s about creating more spaces like this bonspiel. Spaces where love shows up in funky costumes and everyone belongs just as they are.

I’m still learning. Still listening. Still trying to do better.
But I know this much:

You are safe here.
You are loved here.
You belong here.

And if I’ve missed the mark—if I’ve made this more about me than I meant to—please tell me. I want to do better. I want to be better. That’s what allyship means to me.

Selah.