I’m just gonna jump into it because I drove up to New Jersey about a month ago to visit my bestfriend and it was…amazing. OMG I had so much fun doing absolutely nothing but being with her. I came back to life like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day. Ahh this is terrifying. Why can’t life be like The Vampire Diaries where I can dissociate and turn my emotions off (I mean…it can be, but I don’t want to exist that way.)

Fun aside from that visit actually–she introduced me to some of her friends from the area, which is always amusing because they don’t know about her gymnastics background, and a bunch of the men were doing a dumbbell workout (totally “showing off” in just such an amusing array of attempted masculinity). They showed her what to do and then were SHOCKED when she just broke out the whole workout, hitting every skill, mastering technique, and doing so with the same dumbbells they were using. I was sitting on these bar stools at the time, amused as hell, loving the emasculation. When I first meet people, especially a group I’m being introduced to, I’m usually fairly quiet, I like to observe, people watch, mentally become aware of behaviors and energy and learn about them. The men migrated near me and started playing basketball on a small hoop like the ones men hang up in corporate offices or your high school teachers posted above the garbage cans, at one point.

I can’t recall the exact context, but one of them looked at me sitting and watching them and went “I’m sure the amount of testosterone in the room is intimidating” and I said, very calmly, “I think we have different baselines for what “too much testosterone” is”.

Hahahahaha. I have never seen men take a step back and be so amused, not offended, and concede immediate respect in one moment. 

Back to my lil intro, I just wanna give all of my friends and the people currently in my life a huge shout out lately. Whether it’s my internet pals, like Nikki and Stephen (@wittyidiot), my chosen family, my actual sister, and my incredibly diverse and insanely interesting array of humans I get to call my support network. I’ve felt so much love lately, and I think I was actually able to finally accept love because I learned how to actually see it, because they taught me how to trust it. How to trust myself. And they believed in me. They were and are patient with me. They recognize the way I light up their souls, the room, the planet. 

I wanted to switch into entertainment because I realized the thing I value most about myself–with all of my ridiculous skills, from sewing (which translated great from the seat cushions we learned how to make in Girl Scouts to closing up Mohs surgery scars with the precision of a plastic surgeon), to animals (sometimes it’s easier to learn how to ask for love after you see a dog do it), to disease and health (a holistic, educated approach that takes into account the boundaries of western medicine), to childcare (and YEARS of experience as a babysitter across multiple familial dynamics, continents, and parenting styles)–was that I wanted to be helpful in any situation. I wanted to have the answers–or at least know where to look for them. 

When I consider the idea of “setting up a life for myself”, my answer always comes back to wanting to be the person who could help my friends in any way possible. Apparently this is a testament to being an ~Aquarius~ (to all you nonbelievers). This was my draw to medicine as well–I wanted to be helpful, and it was the most tangible and direct way for me to do so. But how many people can’t ask for help? Like I couldn’t/can’t/still struggle with? How many people can’t afford healthcare? How many people can barely afford life? 

I wanted a way to be there for people that transcends the boundaries of direct communication–because I knew all too well I wouldn’t always physically be available. I knew that sometimes it was easier and necessary to learn the framing you needed impersonally. That topics like the ones I cover are often dark as fuck, and will get that much darker, and not everyone can fathom sitting through and watching me talk about them–but it doesn’t mean they don’t want to listen. As someone who struggles to express emotion publicly, I get it.

There are different types of loneliness, but feeling like there is no mutual understanding for your mind is perhaps the worst of all. 

My friend Amanda, who has recorded a few episodes with me, sent me a highlighted passage from a book that covered the idea that she was scared nobody would ever actually understand her. She said she used to think like that and now she thinks I’m that person for her. I literally burst into happy tears when she sent me that. And what are friends for if not to reassure you that you’re worthy of the love you don’t think you deserve, that you’re scared to want, that you’re terrified to need. 

My friends have shown me so much patience and love over the years, but especially these past few months, that I think it’s important to remind everyone that “control” isn’t “love”. You should have a support network that embraces and loves you and lets you share your version of love with the world. That cultivates and strengthens your version of healthy love–especially for those of us who grew up in abusive households. My friends have always been my escape, my happiness, my understanding. I want to create a life that continues and allows me to be there for them in ways that they know and can understand that I’m here for them to rely on as much or as little as they need. I’ll always be here. 

Writing allows me to do that. It allows me to impact and be there for the people who might not have anybody in their physical life who gets them…yet. It allows me to share my education, which is the PURPOSE of education. Not everyone can or will have access to formal education. Even amongst those who do have access to formal education, some people have to get it through places like Clemson or FSU or even worse…Duke. (LOL…just kidding…kinda.) Not everything needs to be so elitist you have to achieve XYZ goal BEFORE you feel “worth something”. Ya’ll (myself included) suck Nike’s child and prison labor corporate bullshit’s dick, yet won’t “just do it”? 

When I say “entertainment is overvalued” I mean “people shouldn’t be able to make and have millions of dollars for abstract work while communities and vital roles that allow others to do such abstract, creative work are so drastically underpaid”. That’s not the entertainment industry’s fault, though. And I don’t think we should really continue to perpetuate such pathetic excuses for entertainment that someone like Jake and Logan Paul are so monumentally influential for doing absolutely nothing of value. That sporting industries should endorse violence and head trauma and society should embrace and allow such shitty behavior to be so financially profitable. We are positively reinforcing horrific examples for behavioral growth within the USA yet then wonder why people are struggling and why societal values are in such a terrifying dichotomy under a 2 party political system that we pretend can and should be allowed to represent a multicultural nation. All of those decisions ultimately come down to the lack of progressive reform for workers rights, distribution of wealth, restrictions regarding lobbying for multinational corporations, and universal healthcare. Celebrities and wealthy individuals can pay their way out of accountability within the court system, since penalties aren’t based around percentages (and they hire teams of lawyers to avoid everything, including taxes, anyways), and who can blame them because our prison systems are cages, not “reformatory” in any way. I’m very obviously a “public school kid”. 

I also think it’s amusing when people assume I don’t have friends because I don’t post them on my social media as much as I post my frothingly witty commentary. Maybe that’s on me, and I truly think I go out of my way so they all know what they mean to me…but I still want to make it a point to be better at vocalizing it. I think not sharing that side of me is a way for me to not accidentally overstep other’s boundaries–because I care about my friends and I AM private with intimacy of its various forms. I’m private about love. But is that because I’m scared to share it? To express what it means to me, lest it not be reciprocated or perceived in the way I intend it? 

So a few of these episodes are going to be love ballads, centered around my friendships. 

We ALL have Daddy Issues, this is a Patriarchy (Remember)… (8:10)

Particularly as a woman, my female friendships represent my ability to love. Even when I’m single, and intimately celibate (basically always), I’ve never questioned whether the absence of a partner at my side diminished my worth. And as women, especially as conventionally attractive women (read: white ethnocentric beauty standards), you have people ask why you aren’t dating someone ALL THE TIME. A lot of young women are taught they need to make decisions around the ideal scenario for a future partner, an IMAGINARY FIGURE, with the implied heteronormative context. By all means, if you have a suitable candidate able to express his emotions and be a PARTNER, sign me up. I shall share the enthusiasm of that Grandma from the end of Mulan. Love is a battlefield and I’m obviously geared up for war, all the time.

This past month, I realized I have never once doubted that the “right” person for me was out there because I have such a strong support network of friendships, many of whom live across the entirety of the USA. And I’ve cultivated those relationships through years of living together and apart. I never feel the need to rush through life because I am happy and loved. I’ve never worried about whether or not I would be a good wife, or “partner”, in part because I spent 4 years living with one of my best friends from a tier of female counterparts that are the reason I can love myself so much–because they’ve showed me what deep, meaningful love really is.They’ve ALWAYS been there to show me what love is (my childhood best friend remains and will always be one of the largest support figures in my life and I’ll hopefully get the time in life to cover all of the people I love, in no particular order.)

And I think a lot of men are deterred by the idea of being “friendzoned”, which is just sad to me because you should want the emotional love of friendships, especially those with women. 

Women aren’t more “emotionally manipulative” just because you’re “emotionally incompetent”–we just live in a society where we’ve been expected to put on facades for who we are that “society” deems “acceptable” and are good at playing those roles. We’ve been thrown into costumes since childhood. Make up allows people to craft new identities with their mood. Hell, you can even sign up for significant plastic surgery for making your body more visually appealing for others because the GOP will only regulate it when someone wants to change their body for themselves.

But nobody seems to connect that to the reality that our natural selves are taught to not be the preferred self we put forth into the world.

We are naturally gifted with emotional intelligence, and psychological sciences, as a result. 

One of my favorite people, we’ll call him “Venus” (because I play tennis with him and he likes space) is a surgeon who went to Yale for undergrad. Every time I visit him, he shares his friends with me, who are as equally as wonderful of a collection of humans, and he introduced me to what a silent disco is recently. We’re the same age, and as my friends are a pretty wide range of ages, I get to ask him whether he’s ever pressured to “settle down”. His undergrad bestfriend and he both told me that topic literally never comes up. It never feels rushed. It doesn’t seem like his worth diminishes with age, or even reproductive value. It made me realize that women are taught our whole lives to place the emotions, considerations, and priorities of others before themselves. Men are allowed, from childhood, to largely believe and trust that they can prioritize themselves without fear of that. 

However, in doing so, we cripple men by making them think they have to be the providers, they have to be an “alpha”, they have to know the answers, be silent, strong, and resilient all the time. By always being allowed to prioritize themselves, by their worth not being tied or related to the presence or absence of another, it can sometimes be a struggle to place the emotions, boundaries, and consent of others above yourself. 

This is where the patriarchy fails men. 

We have a modern day society in the USA that essentially only allows them to express emotion through sport, so they CLING to sport, the only place they aren’t shamed for expression of it, and often center their friendships around it–while also playing a game pretending they’re managing all of these famous celebrities who can just like, throw a ball really well. Which is cool and all, but please stop centering your personalities around pretending to be in control of humans via fantasy football because instead of just telling your male friends you love them, you need a thinly veiled excuse of football to have a “reason” to come together and spend time together every week that your potentially stereotypically demanding spouse may deem as “acceptable” because “boys will be boys”. As if you should need a reason to be allowed to have friends?

By the way, if your boyfriend’s favorite player is Tom Brady, he just wants to be allowed to cry in public and love his family and still be respected by the “manliest of men”.

(More of an Eli Manning gal myself, personally. Which I’m now realizing is a testament for Strider not being so gifted with words but very gifted at his craft and familial strength.)

This is why female friendships are so superior. Male friendships are (typically, not universally) centered around being there for each other in the easy moments. You don’t need the words. It’s grunting and physical expression and being content without explanation–stoicism. Women share EVERYTHING. It’s why they’re allowed to be “gossipy”. It’s why women have served in warfare throughout history in unconventional roles, or been MASSIVE serial killers because it was difficult if not impossible to divorce abusive husbands (and why the USA continues to frame sexwork as illegal, because not doing so would make it that much more difficult to dehumanize other country’s cultures and continue to justify that warfare and violence).

Women ask questions.

They reveal details, even those which are intimate.

They disrupt the status quo of a society centered around men in power. 

The only time you should be worried about the things you share is if you question the character of the person doing the sharing. 

And then I think you have to ask yourself if you’re actually worried because of them, or if because the way you talk about people, the intention behind it, is flawed yourself. If you aren’t phased by accountability, if you don’t understand or like yourself, if you’re terrified of not always having the ability to have control, then I think it’s scary. Because you’re worried about what people will say. 

You should never have to worry about what the people you love have to say about you.

There is NOTHING more strong than a female friendship, because for women, those are often the only, or first, people there who choose to love you and understand the shared struggles of the world you live in. Especially if you weren’t really allowed to be friends with boys, or when jealous girls growing up made a lot of assumptions since you played on the football team (I mean I did send one of them nudes but so what), and did fall ball baseball, so being friends with guys always comes with insistent pestering that there must be some underlying narrative other than maybe men ALSO just needed additional love and support. 

Maybe that human is a cool fucking person regardless of their gender or biological sex and you want them in your life. 

And because female friendships often aren’t burdened by the assumption of reproductive beneficiaries, with family and friends asking whether or not anything has “ever happened”, or what they’re “missing” (which is just a very rude narrative, by the way) we are allowed to love each other freely and openly and not being romantically attracted to someone doesn’t mean they’re “missing” something. To confess our worries and fears and share everything because the presumption of society is so and we’ve been allowed to. We’re even allowed to make out with each other, sexually experiment, and people still don’t label you as “gay” with implied negative connotation. (#HeteroflexibilityShouldBeTheDefault)

The simplicity offered in male friendships is cool, but your emotional connection can’t be dependent on solely your partner. And I think a lot of male-female friendships struggle because men feel ties to the possible physical attraction, combined with that novelty of ease of emotional intimacy and the space to be yourself that female friendships often have to offer, without actually considering whether the pairing would make a good partnership. Whether you want the same things in life. Whether you value happiness, love, and marriage in similar contexts. Whether you approach life in ways that complement each other. 

Never forget to tell the people who mean the world to you how you actually feel.

Never withhold establishing healthy boundaries centered on your own needs, either, because healthy love won’t judge you for it. 

I never really worry about the presence of a partner at my side, even when I’m lonely, because I have some absolutely amazing, phenomenal friendships. I also credit my friendships for forming my unconventional family—my actual support network—which I don’t receive from emotionally unavailable parents. 

My relationship with my sister is also slowly improving, and we talked about how hard it is to recognize that your parents don’t really care enough to worry about you. They divorced and checked out and decided they were done caring about the past, so they never consider the way it still affects you. They can’t… that would retraumatize them. And their own journeys towards self acceptance and happiness are valid. Who am I to tell my mom she isn’t allowed to be happy and make decisions for herself after 24 years married to a narcissist who tells the whole world you cheated, yet I have very few memories of my parents actually together because they didn’t ENJOY being together. Or how my memories of them are plagued with mental visuals of my dad just screaming at all of us, berating us for our emotions, mocking us for crying, ridiculing us for CARING, and my mom got it worst of all. I didn’t ever want to learn to cook because it reminded me that my family’s kitchen wasn’t a happy place to be. The knives remind me of my brother chasing me through the house, kicking down my door, and my mom not believing me because I was being “so dramatic”. The family dinners recalled being interrupted, laughed at, when I tried to tell a story. The kitchen was a physical crescendo for harm. My mom’s dowry of a $250k house on 4 acres of a 75 acre horse farm outside Washington, D.C., with my biological dad’s own aeronautical engineering pursuits within the DoD and her dad being a Colonel working out of the Pentagon made it the perfect “in”. Logically, you should’ve married her. But you didn’t “love” her. You don’t know how to “love”. Nobody blames you. Life was different then. She seemed good enough. The internet wasn’t commonplace. You didn’t know what you needed in reality. Your parents used to force you to eat liver and if you didn’t like it, they beat the shit out of you until you ate.

Some people you just don’t want in your life because you don’t like who they are and don’t like anything they bring to your life.

It sucks when that is someone who is supposedly genetically predisposed to loving you unconditionally who won’t re-learn the ways he chose to survive.

There’s a difference between “surviving” and “thriving”. 

My friends have shown me the love my parents couldn’t give to me. And it makes me really uncomfortable to have acknowledged with my sister that I could have disappeared for weeks on end and been missing or dead on my solo treks in the Appalachian Trail and nobody would’ve looked for me for a while. Maybe that’s why I like true crime so much, because I’m aware of my own close encounters with death, and even if that were to occur, my presence can live on through my words. (For writers, this is even almost a perk/awareness that death often brings larger acknowledgment…This is not an invitation to kill me.)

So I want to write about the greatest loves of my life to date, my friendships. The people who really know me. The ones I know will exist for however many years they walk on this earth with me. The ones I’ve never doubted, who help me learn how to accept love and bring me strength even when I’m seemingly alone. The relationships that matter most.

All Aboard The Hot Mess Express (20:15)

Carolina is a part of me. We are just intertwined, magically. It’s hard to explain to people, but let’s just say when her fiancé was with us, he knew to get in the backseat and to inform me of how he was keeping “my girl” safe. 

My sister tells me she never doubted she wanted to go to college, because she heard all of my stories about me and Carolina and she just “wanted that!” Which is honestly a sentiment that has brought me so much pride, because Carolina and I blossomed in our independence through education and as Michelle Obama says

 “Education is power.”

I actually forget that Carolina is EXTREMELY shy, because she is a heathenous psychopath who I love with my entire being, and I apologize to all within the Carolina community at UNC Chapel Hill for the events I’m about to share. LOL but especially my “dad”/mentor who was the Vice Chancellor for the duration of my years there.

My friendship with Carolina started at a club gymnastics away meet at Virginia Tech. I hitched a ride, basically for the chance to see my friend John who was in ROTC there, and to party at another college, and in said partying, ended up three way kissing with Carolina and our other friend, Zan. Carolina and I both liked Zan so we had a mini feud off, but also were like “oh what the hell, might as well”.

Turns out, Carolina is a much better kisser than Zan.

Zan just slid his tongue side by side like a snake and Carolina and I went into the bathroom to discuss the tongue thing and nicknamed him the “snake” and when he overheard or picked up on it, we told him it was because he was “so suave and slithery” hahahahahahaha. He totally embraced it and kept referencing it himself and we were just reminded of his tongue darting back and forth. A true foundation for a beautiful friendship to come. 

This was freshman year, when I was so homesick I wasn’t sure if I would end up staying. Carolina is my version of “Stitch”, sent to wreak havoc in the form of love and chaos in my world…although I am arguably a bit weirder, so I think we just switch between the two frequently and fulfill that role for each other. (#BiIRL)

Everyone we met assumed we lived together, because Carolina slept over in my twin dorm bed so often. We’d end up partying most nights of the week and it was most convenient for us to just crash at my home, where the bus dropped us off. My actual roommate really liked the alone time to a degree, and was a night owl, so I don’t think she minded. I also think it was good for her to see such a shit show behind the scenes, too. 

Carolina’s also what started my obsession with “The Vampire Diaries” from the CW. If you enjoy anything similar to Game of Thrones and want another feminist, fantasy lore / period piece (because, flashbacks, duh), go watch it. It’s available on Netflix and covers addiction, racism, difficult familial relationships, dissociation, death in ways that are easier to deal with because it’s framed in reference to mythological creatures.

Carolina was REALLY into vampires and once tried to bite herself to see because, logically, “you don’t know until you try it”.

I mean, she’s not wrong…

Freshman year, we went out probably 5-6 nights a week to different house parties, bars, and fraternities even though I never really talked to anyone other than Carolina, nor did we ever typically have a “plan”. We called ourselves the Hot Mess Express and if you’ve ever partied with gymnasts, it’s wild. Acrobatics were the norm. Thus, when you’re drunk, they’re fun party tricks. And Carolina loved to do her aerials. Since I could shake my ass, we soon had guy friends from these fraternities who would ASK us to come to their parties so the athletes would stay and dance. We had zero interest in hooking up with any of them, and went home with each other at the end of the night, but it was pretty fun. I guess I didn’t realize how notorious we were on campus at the time. 

I pieced it together playing cornhole with Carolina and her fiance when I visited them recently. I never felt any competition towards her, even with Zan, because I knew I would still have her. I don’t really feel competition towards women in general, because I never really had to “compete” against them. I played mostly male dominated sports, baseball and football, my teenage years. I switched to softball just to go to states one year, but none of the women I was close with ever felt like “competition”. I wanted them to win. If not me, then hopefully one of my friends who I knew and felt was actually a good person. 

I was raised to compete with men, not with women. I had “She’s the Man” to set the scene for me. 

When my competitive drive kicks in, it’s not even because I want to see myself win. 

It’s mainly because I want to see men lose. 

And I only do it if they get cocky. I avoid competition when possible, but I won’t shy away from it when it’s presented on a silver platter. And Carolina is one motherfucking hostess. 

We spent entire nights commanding the beer pong tables at fraternities, even betting men who wanted second or third attempts to defeat us into giving us the clothing off of their backs. This isn’t a joke, and it happened more than once. At several different fraternities. 

Carolina could drink her weight in alcohol, any kind, and I was always the more sober one, but damn were we a terrifyingly coordinated train wreck. Dancing was great because it burned off the otherwise “empty” calories, moving your body feels good, and it keeps you more “sober” (distracted). So we danced as we played, no matter who our opponents were, we were having fun because of each other. I have no doubt it was magnetic, alluring. 

Colleges often have rappers come to the fraternities, too. And if you’re pretty, you meet them all. (This isn’t a flex, and they’re easy to fuck so it’s more impressive to not expose yourself to the STD, but it is cool to point out.) We saw Troop 41 and did the John Wall, Afroman smoked weed in the room in front of us (I didn’t smoke yet, so I didn’t want to), only one of the Ying Yang Twins came to little frat court’s party because the other was in jail, my sister’s friend went back to Waka Flocka’s hotel room and claims they “didn’t” hook up to her fraternity boyfriend after her phone “died” and she slept over, this girl from UF used to talk about fucking G-Eazy like his name doesn’t have the word “easy” in it… you name it. 

Carolina and I did all this and experienced college together, having each other’s backs. I’ve never particularly cared what people I didn’t respect thought of me, and I think that was good for Carolina, who had somewhat tried to assimilate. She’s the Aubrey Plaza of my life, and I love her for it. I think, as similar to a “cat” as I may be (when you first meet me at least…she’s a cat person, so naturally she loved me) that I’m actually a golden retriever in our friendship (and her fiance is the golden retriever of her soon-to-be marriage). We both love her so much we just like spending time together.  

We created a “Battleshots” game and can no longer fathom the smell of Raspberry burnette’s because the handle we got made me completely hate vodka for a while there. (I’d bet every single group of college girls has one particular burnette’s flavor that they HATE.)

We spent weeks going through a kleptomaniac phase. Many girls go through this. It’s the inherent desire around being able to talk your way out of something. We never did it to anyone other than men, and to be fair it started because someone took Carolina’s jacket out of a fraternity and as the last girls there, we ended up going home with a much nicer black jacket by “God’s fate”. So when I got my new and properly functioning TI-84 for physics out of the Chi Psi library while Carolina did an aerial into a bookcase (distraction) and bruised her hip, we just took it as a sign from fate that we went a step too far and calmed the antics.

The boys on our (my) dorm’s floor actually made it a game to see if we could steal their shit. GREAT for us, by the way. Also easy pickings. We waited until they were asleep, knowing they never locked their doors, and took all their shit while they were laying there alone. They dared us to, they couldn’t complain. 

Don’t engage in competitions you aren’t willing to lose next time. 

We also once spent an entire night going around and telling people it was her 20th birthday and we needed 20 articles of clothing. We made out for some of the items, but men taking off their boxers and handing them to us was just a power trip all around. The ease of it.

We walked home with arms loaded.

On the topic of Chi Psi—that poor fraternity. One time we showed up (it wasn’t a costume party but we were coming from one elsewhere) in feathered bras with whipped cream canisters, went to their dance floor, just gave people random shots of whipped cream and left when they were empty. 

We had entire RANDOM fraternity composites in our dorm room over two miles away because we’d walk home. We’d just walk into random houses we didn’t even like drinking or partying at (usually because of the general awareness and forewarnings from women that you’d get QB sneaked) and take them.

We ended up giving them back and making sure they were safe, it was just fun for us to make the men feel somewhat uncomfortable and to eventually find out it wasn’t rivalry between the adjacent house, it was two unaffiliated mayhem wreckers. 

Chaos is a ladder and we were monkeys in a barrel forming our own.

My sister once visited UNC her senior year of high school when I was trying to make running happen (I didn’t go out because of a meet and wanting to not drink most of that year), and I woke up to her and Carolina snickering to themselves, bringing home handfuls of items and 3 fraternity composites which are ~4’ long frames. It was hilarious (at the time). 

The fraternity I was later sweetheart of had a guy who had hooked up with my sister that same weekend & waited for YEARS of friendship to tell me. Honestly, I was just glad that guy hadn’t thought it was me because my sister and I look like identical twins. I also pieced together that “little Asian Alvin’s” shoes (the way his brothers referenced him), which Carolina had borrowed to walk home in, was the Alvin I re-met years later in pharmacy school. 

One time Carolina and I walked into a fraternity’s cocktail party and the president, who was apparently sober, ended up offering to drive us home so he knew we’d get back safely. (AKA so he knew we wouldn’t return later that night.) I sent his fraternity a thank you card and they read it at chapter. Sorry to my friend Joe who the brothers found out lived on my floor.

It’s a tough world out here for us women, sober guys who take you home and don’t try to get anything from you while you’re blacked out are a rarity these days, and I wanted him to know I appreciated it.

Don’t tell me those attempts to get me into etiquette classes didn’t come in handy.

The first cocktail we went to, I found out I was invited on because the guy “thought I was innocent” (huge turn off, I obviously left with Carolina and don’t know why this guy thought that because I had TEETH MARKS on my neck from wrestling guy who I had met literally the night before and he asked what it was). Whilst crossing the street, leaving the party and making a dramatic, impromptu departure, Carolina stumbled, fell, and gave herself a black eye. It was nothing, though, we’ve both had much worse from gymnastics. On the P2P on the way home, she had her eyes covered and hair over her face like the girl from The Grudge she likes so much, and people kept asking if she was about to puke and I was so disinterested I’d tell them to mind their damn business and she was fine. I was loyally protecting her and preventing her from having to explain herself.

We’d go out, and she’d get drunk, but this girl was DEDICATED to her education. I got a facebook message one morning to bring her shoes to campus, because she walked from the house she slept over (again, virgin until now fiance, hadn’t really even touched a penis, just liked to make out a lot) and went to her 8 am class in the dress she wore out BAREFOOT because she couldn’t find her shoes. But fuck missing a class. (She had a 4.0 and is insanely smart.)

We’ve had other gal pals through the years but few who were equally loyal or didn’t feel insecure over our own bond that they really stuck around. (We’ve kept friends separately, but one or both of us have typically had “fallings out” (or just grew distant) with most of our other friends from this period who were the same age at least.) And I loved Carolina so much I didn’t even care about taking the “fall” for her, ever. No way would I ever sell her out.

I’m a real ride or die bitch, I just have anxiety so I might ask some questions about where we’re riding to.

I have no doubt it was a hard dynamic to feel confident in, but that’s not on us. We go out of our way to include, it’s just hard to keep up, and not everyone needs to be on the exact same tornado path of cyclonic havoc. 

One girl, who I knew from track, but who our swim team friends, track, club gym, and cheerleading teammates knew as “the girl who lied to so many of their teammates and slept with SO many people that she didn’t know what “loyalty” or “healthy” behavior was” and who, even with the slut shaming culture, there is no excusing how this girl would befriend all the women and then SEEK OUT to fuck their boyfriends or purposefully set sights in the males they were interested in and somehow thought we still owed her any kindness…? No. I mean I guess thank you for showing everyone that “not all men…but a lot of men” are shitty and didn’t deserve them? She had a threesome with two of my friends who are married now and tried to commit suicide and blamed it on my friend and her boyfriend. I know NOW that it’s mental health issues, but I watched two friends who were happy together, who are now married and have a wonderful life together, get blamed very publicly for someone else’s own insecurities–and the attempt to make other people feel bad about stuff they have no need to, their own happiness, is NOT the way to go about it. 

Carolina actually helped me realize that you could be an alcoholic and never be aggressive towards others. As drunk as she got, she never verbally or physically attacked me like my siblings had. We were idiots, but she loved me and I spoke her language (even at her drunkest–you know how moms can understand their toddler babbles?) and we always had each other’s backs.

So when this same aforementioned girl heard a rumor that I said she had chlamydia (it was Carolina, really, and Carolina didn’t SAY she had chlamydia, she remarked on how many of our mutual friends realized she lied to them prior to fucking them and was a pathological nymphomaniac who to this day does the same thing and has been engaged several times, and how lucky they were they hadn’t gotten chlamydia since they weren’t CAREFUL OR PRACTICING SAFE SEX), did I care to correct her? Absolutely not. I did not give a fuck if she thought I said it, and if it kept her from directing her anger to Carolina who am I to correct her? She got kicked off of every team because of “the drama” she caused with her teammates (which is pretty shitty for her because her coaches saw sexual promiscuity and removed her access to a regular sporting outlet and ability to “perform”). Sports Psychology really needs to step up its game and NCAA athletes, especially those who leave toxic home environments for perhaps the FIRST TIME, need access to resources and coaching staff who are aware of the reasons for behavior. And we shouldn’t punish people for it by further removing healthy forms of support. At the same time, there’s only so much empathy I can have when she befriended us then did the exact same thing to us (with Zan, actually). I know we have “savage” culture and whatnot, but our other friends from these teams KNEW that we saw her at practice and would ask us about the details she’d tell them and the spider web of made up stories was just phenomenal, truly. 

Don’t expect people who owe you no loyalty to lie for you. 

Don’t expect to lie and for it to not catch up to you, either.

This is why I don’t shy away from the dark. People are not “universally good”. Any suggestion otherwise is frankly, idiotic. Unrealistic. Unreasonable. I’m sure I will be answering for things I do the rest of my life. Women in power have to step down for revenge porn leaks of their nudes, yet senators and house reps can support and encourage an insurrection and remain instilled. I’d like to change that narrative. I refuse to be afraid of the story that created me. I can only go in with the best intentions and work on learning to frame my communication in a way that is ultimately beneficial and constructive to learning for the rest of my life. Sometimes that means overlooking the short term satisfaction, or “likeability”, and prioritizing long term reward. Sometimes that means reminding yourself that, as viewers, listeners, and onlookers, you don’t and may not be privy to the entire story. You don’t and can’t possibly understand all of the interwoven details. Maybe you impulsively jump the gun, project, get triggered over things you would’ve done differently without reminding yourself that you are different.

This realization was actually a tough reality for me recently, related to Strider, because something finally “clicked” and I realized I was expecting him to communicate in the way that I communicate instead of listening and perceiving what he was saying, knowing who he is, and communicating and learning together. 

It’s hard to figure out how to frame some of my life because of the difficulties in establishing a pseudonym, obscuring details that really prevent anyone outside of save maybe a handful of people who ACTUALLY know the private details (already) from being able to identify. I think this is when it’s important to step into nature and remind yourselves of how small humanity is in the grand scheme of “the Earth”. We are but a blip on the timeline. Pretending otherwise is egocentric. Why are we not using the little time we do have to positively influence the world–which you can’t do by pretending only the positives exist. That’s not what beneficial change is.

And how can you work towards change by denying the existence of the reality you want to change?

If the end goal and a pillar of education is to use the anecdotal narratives to highlight the cultural framework of these stories, how can I possibly avoid the topics that mean the most to me. I won’t slip rose colored glasses or a filter onto the realities of life. Rafiki damn told us “the past can hurt, but you can either learn from it or run from it” and most of society is so afraid of accountability that they won’t have these discussions, they’re avoiding them and just want to “move on”, or they associate negative repercussions with learning (because Albert Einstein was the one who said “it is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education” and the people who need access to the education the most are likely those who associate formal education with “failure” of variety, or “struggle”.) And people undeniably care a lot less without tailoring it for their entertainment value. I don’t really think we have the time or I have the energy to sugar coat who I am or what has shaped me, and I naturally speak just like I write. Satirical cynicism is second nature, by now.

I don’t want to be afraid of that. 

I don’t want to have to hide it. To be scared of its perception. 

HUMANITY IS A ZOO (39:19)

I view humanity in the way I view the Earth. (This perception has insurmountably helped my social anxiety reintegrating now that I’m fully vaccinated.) I attribute humanity to a simultaneous parallel to the entity of the biodiversity kingdom. So many species, changes, and markings. Are they venomous or poisonous? Is their natural predisposition aggression or are they gentle? Maybe some species are invasive and just not meant to intermingle. “Christianity” is arguably an invasive species in the USA, along with the entity of indigenous cultures globally because of its ties to colonialist expansion, so maybe viewing certain individuals and theories, not racial groups, in similar lighting is important for framing mentality. Humans can migrate–why else do we have travel developed in the way that we do. We need to accept and prepare and enable that safely, without condemning the so called “invasive” species that might’ve been dropped off by a jackass who thought a cute baby tiger would be a pet like the stuffed animals he was bought as a child, property to own, versus treating it like the whole ass spiritual entity that animals, mammals, and humans, are?

Humanity is weird, and this viewpoint may be weird (and historically has been used to justify racism), but evolutionary anthropology, much like the biological science work of Jane Goodall, studies animals to learn more about humans. It studies the historical context and development of the species. Approaches it with openness. 

Everything we “know” about humanity is ultimately just things we’ve collectively agreed “make sense”. Our language–just made up sounds that we share a mutual understanding around. The way we view the world is a long collection of knowledge regarding people, places, times, and interactions with the natural environment.

We study animals, plants, bacteria to learn ways to make sense of the world around us and ultimately explain humanity in relation to the rest of the world. We use echolocation and sonar based technologies in part because we observe and see how other species communicate. And that’s the reason our military intellect is so prestigious. It’s based on communication. So why have we overinflated the most competitive, alpha predator mentalities over embracing collaboration and love. Don’t make me start talking about bonobos and chimpanzees again, I hate thinking of anyone from Duke outside of a healthcare context.

I know ya’ll are like “this motha fucker is such a typical Aquarius” and maybe my connection to nature is just so strong that I’ve grown up loving and appreciating the various species, climates, terrain, and am just happy to learn what they have to teach me. I told someone I was spending my days soaking up the sun like the cold blooded reptile I am (or Sheryl Crow) and they were like “you’re so hard on yourself”–which is ONLY the case if you associate reptiles and being cold blooded with negativity? (There’s a place and environment for those, too, by the way. They’re quite useful and helpful.) It’s a fucking joke. I WAS happily and contently just tanning without thinking twice or viewing myself or mentality negatively. So annoying. 

Back to Carolina. (42:28)

Carolina might’ve been a shit show, but DAMN that girl was a champ.

She was a virgin until her current fiancé. I actually threw her a party when she had sex, complete with a card from Harris Teeter with a gold fist bump that said “pow” on it. Her fiancé told me he felt so proud of it and I said, “why… it had NO relation to you. It had EVERYTHING to do with her. It literally could have been anyone and I would’ve gotten her that regardless, because for HER, it was big.” She was arguably terrified of penii prior to him, and we even questioned whether she had repressed childhood memories (or if it was just good ole catholic guilt)— something I think a lot of women, especially, worry about.

And Carolina didn’t fuck with consent. That woman would march out of bars at the end of the night, unwilling to go home “empty handed”, choose a guy she thought was attractive, even if he was outside near the bus stop, go home, make out, turn on The Grudge (to “ruin the mood”), and just snuggle. She never wanted to fuck them, she wanted the company.

She’d always be there to remind me to “keep homeboy purely slampiece”

(I would never listen, unfortunately. Which is why I now literally don’t hook up or cross physical boundaries with anybody unless I’m interested in the idea of dating. Just not something I can do personally.)

I actually felt bad when I finally agreed to try smoking weed junior year, because Carolina had tried to get me to do it for EVER. Instead, I let my junior year boyfriend teach me in front of the fraternity I would later be sweetheart of, via a 2 foot bong. I’d done edibles in her presence, at least.

I’ve gone to every single familial event—her sister’s wedding, her mom’s second wedding, beach house extended family vacations. My mom got remarried privately, at the courthouse, and texted my siblings and I a group chat to inform us, so it was nice to have the opportunity to experience my “other mom” actually having a wedding. Her fiancé recognized how integrated I was into her family when I knew almost every person at her mom’s second wedding, and not many had met him (they actually asked if he was my fiancé). I can never thank her enough for being the family and love that I always needed. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without her.

And there was a time period when things weren’t really “good”, you know. But that’s what love is. You are entitled to a support system, and it doesn’t make you a burden to need certain things from your loved ones. Carolina and I just so happened to need each other perfectly, reciprocally, and were lucky enough to find each other.

Carolina was and is my version of what love is.

And I know her fiance is right for her because he loves her just as much as I do, in his own, albeit similar, way. (He is the “Andy” To Carolina’s “April” if this was Parks and Rec.) When she was depressed, I provided the love that I hope she clung to, or was always aware of, in some of those moments.

When she couldn’t see her own light, she was still undeniably mine.

She made my life better just by existing. 

We talked recently about lack of representation in pop culture which never made her unique Spanish beauty feel appreciated and her morbidly dark, insanely smart brain being intimidating. Coupled with shyness, it was unapproachable in a lot of ways. (My own mom actually tries to say she wasn’t “cute” back in the 80’s and my mom was hot as fuck, I’m sure she was just too naive to pick up on the interest.) I created a space and partnership for Carolina to learn how to love herself, and I created an environment where my life would have been undeniably worse without her in it. Carolina set a precedent for the love I expected for true partnership in life, and I don’t mind waiting for the right balance because I know it exists, because of her. 

Carolina let me love her unconditionally, like a golden retriever for her own life. I didn’t mind being the more “sober” friend (I didn’t like drinking much anyways because of the alcoholism in my family), so she got to be the conductor of the hot mess express. (With this ass…I was clearly the caboose.) Of the few times I did black/brown out, which was infrequent, even for the amount we’d go out, she was always ready to care for me. We once took the private P2P rides home (a little bus that picks up college students like uber, but for free and through verified state employees) and she literally reached out and had me throw up into her HANDS, instead of onto the floor of the van, just so we wouldn’t be an inconvenience to anyone else but each other. (Tequila Tuesdays at the Library are not my friend and if your favorite alcohol is tequila you are DEFINITELY insane…in a good way. I can’t and never could stomach a single shot.) 

One time (which is not a good look on me), we were at her dad’s lake house and playing pool as a drinking game with 100 proof Captain Morgan. Every ball that was left on the table at the end of the game was a shot (or half a shot, or a sip, as games went on). Guess who, 1 game in, switched out her chaser with rum only for her to literally not notice. My bad on that. Her dad had a discussion about “drinking” the next day, because we’d gone upstairs and walked through the maze of taxidermied animals (he has an entire safari, he’s one of those big game hunter type of men and writes alien cyberfiction in his spare time… truly a curious dude and I’m not gonna penalize him for the society he grew up in because he IS dedicated to learning, but we have to make it easy to learn) and had a late night drunken convo with her stepsister. The next morning she also gave herself a fat lip and jumped into the lake off the dock to distract from the mess (prior to the talk).

She is a fucking tough ass chick, too. That “performing for love” piece I just released? She also did gymnastics–way better and way longer than I did. If it wasn’t your ankle or your back, you weren’t allowed to complain. Injuries didn’t exist. Gymnastics teaches you how to eat shit in ways that won’t hurt you.

At my dorm freshman year, I once watched her sprint, chasing a guy from my floor along the hallway across the opening where the basketball court was. (Picture a giant “X” shaped building whose corridors with 4 rooms/1 bathroom each have doors that face outwards and hallways open to the air except for a sturdily high, thick railing.) As fast as she was, I, in complete terror, unable to do anything, watched her body tilt forward, falling towards the ground, only for her to seamlessly transition into a forward roll and continue chasing him like nothing had happened. 

One time, to her dismay (and my unmatched enjoyment) I hacked the facebooks of her and her best friend from highschool, a man, and set them to be “in a relationship”. She got over 500 likes from everyone in Charlotte who knew them and ALL of the comments were like “we knew it!” “congrats!” hahahahahahahahahahaha. It was her most “liked” facebook post ever.

She would stay over at the wrestling guy’s house just so I could hang out with him, and meet his friends, with company. I literally woke up to texts one day of her telling me his best friend, who she slept downstairs in the living room on the couches with, was just farting in his sleep the whole night. We wouldn’t even ask these guys for a ride back, the 2 mile walk up a HUGE HILL the next day, because

we would just walk with each other and were determined to be codependent independent women.

We treated each other like we were in a relationship, because, in a way, we were.

Friendships ARE relationships

and Carolina and I both value loyalty above all. We are weird as hell (a sentiment, which, the biggest difference between myself and that dear sweet fiancé of hers is that he thinks it is an insult when I reference myself as being “weird”, because he tries to “apologize” and say “no you’re not” when I claim I’m weird and I have to remind him that being weird or unique or strange isn’t a negative…sweet, sweet man.) and I think Carolina and I provided each other the knowledge and stability that someone was capable of loving you for who you honestly were.

I told my internet pal Nikki I am the “hospice of life”, which I attribute to my time working in end-of-life care for terminal head & neck and thoracic cancer at MD Anderson a few years ago (or my several near death experiences and my childhood functioning to watch and be the home health aides for my grandparents). I want to make every day my best day possible, whatever that means, for however long I have left. Because it might not be my decision when or how it ends, but it is my decision to make every moment until then work for me.

And Carolina shows me the same type of love. Perhaps most of all, she shows me the type of love that I need. The freedom to bloom, to grow, to be free. Embracing who somebody is without wanting or needing them to change, and just loving them in whatever form they show up in that day. A common sentiment that overlaps with yoga in a lot of ways, now that I think about it.  I recognized I needed to look for love and partnership in ways that overlap with the way my friendships work. And I realized the handful of men that I’ve spiritually connected with, who I can imagine enjoying a life with, remind me of her, much like her fiance reminds her of me in a few ways. 

I won’t “settle” for love until it can mirror the love for another’s soul in the way that my friendships offer me the opportunity to love and grow. I’ve never thought twice about whether or not I was capable of it. I’m a phenomenal nanny, the best dog mom, and just overall super loving beneath the scathing commentary and to those who know me privately. And knowing “my people” are out there on this floating space rock with me is pretty miraculous. It’s okay if you’re not born into love, or if you need a different type of love than your biological family can provide. You’ll find those people. Maybe it’ll be through the internet and sounds absurd because you’ve never met each other and the other person could be a 300 pound dude named Chuck who lives in his mom’s basement like this is Ready Player One, or maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll meet your people right away. Either way, you must never give up hope. Look at me, getting all Star Wars on you. 

Alright that’s enough love and emotion for the day. Have a wonderful week.

Hope you think of me if you pray in church towards a half naked man draped across an altar and it fucks you up. I’ll be getting down to Lil Nas X’s music video in the meantime.

Not the second cumming of Christ you wanted,
but the second cumming of Christ you got.

Love is real. Toodles.