Week 1 On the Weight Loss Wagon

The thing with unlearning a toxic body image mentality is that it's really, really flipping hard. Boyfriend and I did our first workout on Friday. Boyfriend appears significantly fitter than me; he's leaner looking and weighs significantly less. Even still, when we worked out, he threw up. He finished the workout after, which I'm so …

Missing Someone Else’s Life

Something I had to adjust to when I came to college was the fact that everything would be different when I went home. In this case, I didn't just mean my family dynamic; I mean that everything changed. My parents moved, my sister had a baby, and home began to feel less and less like …

Race, Identity, and Community (Oh my!)

Being a mixed-race person in America imposes a very specific, weird, inexplicable sort of experience. Or, at least, I thought it did. My boyfriend is half-Guatemalan. I am half-Mexican. Today we sat around a Fall Fest, and the topic of my almost-rushing the only historically PoC sorority on campus came up. Why didn't you rush? He asked. The …

Hard, Difficult, Complex Grief

October 1st is my dead dad's birthday, and I measure my worth in productivity. Let me explain how those things are related: Today I needed a break. September 24th is the day he died, October 1st is his birthday. I try to forget it or remember it extra hard--having a dead parent with whom you …

Uppity

My stepdad comes from a small town. Admittedly, I don't come from an enormous city--but I grew up in a sort of Little Big City Urban Sprawl Situation. It's easier to say that I'm from New Orleans before I say I'm from anywhere else. It's been a privilege in a lot of ways. I grew …

Thank Your Father

I had to get off Instagram because of the pictures. People posting pictures of their Dads, throwbacks and recents, long posts and inside jokes and anything else you can imagine. A Good Friend texted me: "happy Father's Day" and for a second I assumed she'd sent it to the wrong number. I am definitely not …