Category: Reflections

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• What was your biggest fear as a child? What is your biggest fear as an adult? Are they connected in any way?

When I was a kid, I was afraid of a lot of things. But, I was afraid of letting people down the most. I didn’t want my parents to not be proud of me. I wanted my teachers to be proud of me. I wanted my friends to know I was loyal to them. I even remember crying when I lost a stuffed raccoon that I used to carry around everywhere, because I felt like I had let him down.

As an adult, those fears carry over. I don’t like the idea of not being there when my friends need me. I try to be the best romantic partner I can be, the best parent I can be, the best business owner I can be, and really try hard to hold myself to a high standard.

This means that sometimes I have trouble letting go and relaxing. It feels like there’s always something I should be improving or getting better.

It also means that whenever someone does compliment me, it melts me into a puddle. My father told me he was proud of me after watching an online art opening that I had this week, and it meant so so much to me. Because I’m so hard on myself, any bit of gentleness from people deeply affects me.

• Is there anything that gives you overwhelming anxiety? How do you control it?

I fear getting ground up in the gigantic machine that is the United States. Failing at my business and getting sucked under with taxes and bills. Being chewed up by an unjust incarceration system or abused by the police. I fear the ever-present violence that surrounds me; it feels both reminiscent of home, but I also know it’s traumatic to constantly be in. I fear raising my kids here, and worry about how it’s affecting them.

This is how I control it. Journaling, being in this class. I control it with therapy. I control it with meditation and going outside into the woods. Sometimes I control it by sleeping more.

• What are some of your goals for the year? What obstacles stand between you and accomplishing them?

I want to get on top of my taxes. I don’t want them hanging over my head anymore. I want to save for travel, so that when things do open up, I can just go. I want to learn how to invest properly. I want to set up proper retirement accounts so that I don’t have to worry about it in the future.

Most of these are finance related. My biggest obstacle before was knowledge and not knowing enough and not being connected enough to the people with the knowledge, but late last year I fired my accountant and hired a new one. I’m working through it with a new amazing accountant, which I’m excited about.

• If you had fewer inhibitions, how would you behave differently? Be specific.

I don’t feel like I have very many inhibitions anymore, and I am very much myself in very raw ways. I think what I’m working on now is twofold: looking at what I can do with the way I am, and learning to the aspects of myself that I want to expand on and grow. I feel like now is the time for nurturing and planting.

• What are some of your most prized personal possessions? Why are they so important to you?

I think probably my photos. Photos of myself when I was a kid, photos as a teenager, photos of my children. They help remind me of where I was, where I am, and where I can go.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• How can you make your daily life feel easier? Think of your daily morning and after work routine as well as your workday.

I’ve actually already been thinking about this a bit this week. I placed my first online order for groceries this week, which arrives tomorrow.

It’s been snowing and icy here, and nearly all of my outside obligations have been cancelled, and they kids are with their mother this week. So, I don’t really have to leave the house.

I’ve been doing this elaborate process every other week for groceries, bundling up, spraying down grocery carts, and avoiding people in the aisles. And it takes up so much time. From driving to the store, parking, gathering everything, driving home, and then storing everything, it sometimes takes up to 3 hours of my day.

If it goes well, I’m going to try doing it more. If I order more than $35 of food, the delivery is free.

• Do you spend more time being busy or being productive? What’s the difference to you? What does your life look like when you’re being productive?

I have found that purposefully choosing time to relax or exercise has been helpful. With my work, the list of things to do is neverending, because even if I finish my client work, there are mountains of personal projects, artwork, and improvements I could always be making.

So, if I say I want to go out for a walk for the sunset, or watch a TV show before bed, or set aside time to read, it provides a bookend to my working time, and forces me to focus on getting things done in that time.

I haven’t done it in a while, but streaming my design work also helped me to be more productive too, because I would have people watching me. It keeps me from goofing off on social media.

• In what ways are you numbing yourself or checking out of life? Drinking, shopping to excess, using food as comfort? Why do you do it? What could you replace it with?

I don’t think I’ve been checking out enough, honestly. I think that this is one of the reasons my anxiety has been so high lately. I don’t have enough ways to unwind.

I’ve been trying to go out for walks and watching Peaky Blinders, but lately the weather has been cold and wet, and Peaky Blinders is not a very relaxing show (even though it is entertaining).

I think I should go out in my Element more often. I’ve got everything I need to just work in remote locations, so it might be good to change the scenery and just be out in a place to sit and draw.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• Do you feel like you know your purpose in life? If so, what is it? If not, is there anything holding you back from discovering your purpose?

I feel like I am ultimately here to bring peace. To make spaces for it, to magnify it, to grow it Peace is what I seek, what I thrive in, where I feel most at home.

However, I recognize that peace is not accessible for everyone, and I don’t think that this is right. I believe everyone should have the right to access peace, and that oppression needs to be removed in order for that to happen.

This sometimes means that systems and norms and traditions have to be disrupted and changed and abolished for that to happen.

• Are there areas of your life that you notice you compare yourself to others? Why do you feel you do this if so? How does the comparison make you feel?

I find it very hard to not compare myself to others, constantly, about everything.

Learning “mindfulness”, the art of being in the present moment, has helped, because most of the time I am not around people to compare myself to. But sometimes it still creeps in.

I think I use comparison to try to understand the world and what is happening to me. Sometimes life just doesn’t really make sense, so I try to compare myself to others just to get my bearings. I think this kind of comparison was built into my upbringing too. My parents, my teachers, everyone around me would constantly compare me to other people who were doing things better or worse than I was, and so now it feels habitual.

I don’t like the comparison at all. It makes me feel inadequate a lot of the time, and makes me second guess my actions rather than letting me be sure of myself.

I feel like my default is to be sure of myself, but the comparison gets in the way of that.

• How is your relationship with money? How were you taught about finances and budgeting? What would your life look like if your relationship with money were different?

I actually think my relationship with money is pretty good. I save a lot, and once I have a set of rules to follow about setting aside money for certain things, I do pretty good with.

I think the frustrating thing for me is that I do not always know the wisest decisions to make with money. For example, I was given the advice of buying property right as I got married, so I bought the house I currently live in. That turned out to be just a couple of months before the economic recession, and the house has been underwater ever since.

I have learned recently that it would have been better for me to let go of the house right away, but because I didn’t know that, I held onto it.

A lot of my knowledge of money came from my Mom, who is a shrewd business person. She thrives on finding good yard sale and thrift store deals, and prides herself in making a dollar stretch. We played Monopoly endlessly when I was kid, which taught me a lot about managing money and resources… but also was extremely traumatic to lose over and over.

We were very poor, though I did not know this until I got to high school. That comparison came into play, where I would see other kids wearing Nike and Adidas and FUBU, which made my homemade clothes my mom had stitched together feel insignificant and comical.

My Father’s approach to Monopoly was very different from my Mother’s. He freely gave to all of us on the board. He would give breaks on rent, and was generous with his resources. If someone needed something, he would just give it to them, or trade it for next to nothing. He almost never won because of it, but it showed me that there was another, kinder way to handle money as well. A way that could help everyone.

Though I still struggle with money just because I don’t have very much of it, I still manage what little I have well. The biggest thing I could learn is how to plan things better so that the money I do have will work better for me.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• What are my top 5 strengths? What are my top 5 weaknesses? How do I limit myself?

I’m very good at making new friends. I’m talented at inventing creative solutions. I can make a design client out of anyone. I am compassionate and will think of things on multiple dimensions and how they affect different people. I am very calm and strong in high-stress chaotic situations.

I’m pretty bad at time management. I definitely take on way more than I can handle. I am forever wondering if people actually like me, or if they are just keeping me around the usefulness of my strengths. I tend to get obsessed over small details, falling down rabbit holes of research and studying things, rather than pausing and getting the necessities done. I can become completely involved in my projects and forget to take care of myself.

I tend to limit myself in leadership roles, because I believe there are better-qualified people, and find myself more comfortable working in the background.

• What am I passionate about? Does my current career allow me to feed that passion? How can I incorporate my passion into my daily life?

I’m definitely passionate about drawing and art. While I’m not a place where that can support myself solely through artwork, I run my business so that it is a patron of my artistic endeavors.

A lot of businesses give gigantic corporate sponsorships. M&T Bank Stadium, the Royal Farms Arena, for examples. They use the events that are hosted there as advertising for their business.

I do that on a much smaller scale with my design agency. My business is able to sponsor my artwork along with my Patreon supporters and helps me get the more expensive things that I need to make my art, as well as promote it.

Because I’m investing back into myself, my artwork has slowly become more and more profitable. While that is not the goal of creating art (I would make it whether I made money or not), I find that I am much freer at making art when I have less stress around paying bills.

Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to do it full time.

• Do you ever underestimate yourself? If so, name a time where you underestimated yourself and why you did it? How did the situation turn out?

I used to underestimate myself a lot. I did not have confidence in my abilities or myself, to the point where I felt like it became a core part of who I was. My whole elementary and high school experience felt like a continuous set of missed opportunities and shyness.

When I went to college, I realized I could reinvent myself, because nobody knew who I was. So I did. I focused on not letting things bother me, and letting stress and troubles roll off my back. And it worked. I was happier, freer. I developed an aloofness that gave me peace, allowed me to make friends easily, and helped me to let go of the baggage that I held on to from my youth.

However, though I was more relaxed, I still didn’t value myself highly. I attributed my new friendships and connections to that relaxed happiness and to my loyalty to people. The people I was around followed a flavour of religion that emphasized an extreme version of humility that essentially made you avoid any and all compliments or praise, and I subscribed to that.

It wasn’t until I began therapy that I even realized I had a chronic habit of underestimating my value all the time. Slowly working through that and realizing my own self-worth has led me to value myself much more.

• Is there anything in your life that you are ashamed of? What steps can you take to put that shame behind you?

Over apologizing is the main way that my shame manifested, and at some point, someone pointed out to me that over apologizing for things was the way mistreatment and abuse showed symptoms. There isn’t much I’m ashamed of anymore. I don’t find shame to be useful anymore. So every time I catch myself apologizing for things that aren’t my fault, or that I have no control over, or for things that have nothing to do with me, I recognize that as shame, and let it go.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• What is the one thing that people always misunderstand about you. What is reality?

I really find that depending on where people come into contact with me, they’ll misunderstand different things about me.

If they know me from Twitter, they’ll know me as this militant white guy who cares about dismantling white power structures, Black and Brown movements, criticizing capitalism, fighting homophobia and transphobia, feminism, and resisting fascism.

If they know me from Instagram, they’ll know me as a rather quiet artist and photographer who stands back, observes, and creates.

If they know me from protesting, I find that they don’t see as a creative or a romantic or a sexual person.

If they know me from designing with Zerflin, they don’t see my artwork.

But I find that with the Stronger Than My Struggles group, things are a lot more balanced. I find that my very closest friends are the ones who take the time to learn the different things about me and appreciate and put them all together.

I think that all this stemmed from when I was just on Facebook and Twitter. My Facebook was full of my family, the people from my community, and my former church. My politics had definitely shifted while I was in college, my faith grew deeper when I joined my new church, and my outlook on relationships and love expanded during and after my divorce. Twitter felt like more of a blank slate where I could be the person I was becoming.

My platform grew unexpectedly as I got more involved in the #FreddieGray and #BlackLivesMatter protests, and I felt this obligation to use the space to uplift other people and the people around me who didn’t get as much attention, but also to talk in a certain way. To perpetually be “on” about all these major protest issues. These protest issues and things we must fight against ARE important, but I’m also a whole person. I purposefully also make sure that I’m talking about other things that matter to me, from art, to writing, to design, to relationships, to religion.

The other part of it is that in previous relationships and friendships, I have been told that I was “too much”. And so I would diminish certain parts of myself just to be palatable. I’ve made significant gains on that, and it’s still a process.

I am working on being all of me, everywhere.

• Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of before the new year? What can you do to help yourself let go?

I’m not letting go of anything! I really feel like 2020 took so much from me, that I had to create and imagine things for myself to replace what was taken.

For example, 2020 was supposed to be the year that I began exploring the Caribbean. But the pandemic had other ideas.

At first I was really depressed about not being able to do all the things I planned, but then I shifted. I made it my mission to explore as many beaches in Maryland as I could, and built in meditation and workout routines that worked for me.

I’m not letting go of those things, they were really good for me.

• What’s the most important thing you have to get done or focus on in January?

Peace.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop (@STMSBmore), held online.

• Has your character and humanity been forged more by pleasure and success, or by pain and disappointment?

I really do believe that who I am and my base character was forged from the loving environment my parents afforded me. It gave me the space to daydream, to be tender, to be open about some things, and to grow and learn in things I was interested in.

However, I think my humanity was forged from the pain I experienced, the bullying, the tragedies of losing classmates and loved ones around me, of watching things I cared about being destroyed, and from being lonely.

The contrast between those two things helped me understand that the world did not have to be a place of tragedy and that people could do something about it and have influence over it. And it informs much of the way I operate in the world today.

• In my relationships, am I always digging deeper or am I always settling for mediocrity. Give yourself examples of how you do either.

I think I am constantly digging deeper into people I’m interested in, and sometimes I feel like that’s a barrier to dating casually.

I’ll be sitting with someone, getting to know them, and my mind will be racing trying to figure out what this person will be like 10-15 years in the future. I try to figure out how they are with kids, how sensitive they are, what they think about feminism, where they fall politically, how they talk to the waiter who’s coming up to us, how they are with money, how the deal with conflict…

And because of the trauma that I’ve been through, I inevitably start to worry about how things would go if our relationship begins to deteriorate. I worry about how we’ll fight. How she’ll try to hurt me if she’s angry. How it will hurt when we’re not talking anymore.

All of these things come crashing into my mind instead of taking things as they are, instead of relaxing and being in the moment, instead of just being.

It’s very hard. But I’m working on it.

• How do I respond to situations that force me to step out of my comfort zone? When was the last time I had to? How did I handle it?

This is interesting, because most of the time I force myself out of my own comfort zone. I enjoy doing that, and pushing myself so that I grow in ways I know I need to work on.

However. When I get pushed out by some other force, I don’t always deal with it well. At my base, I’m stubborn. And because I am already pushing myself, something or someone else pushing me sometimes feels like stretching me beyond my breaking point.

• What is the lie you tell yourself most often? What is reality? Why do you tell yourself this lie?

The lie that I tell myself most often is that things are not as bad as they are.

I choose this lie on purpose.

The reality that things are terrible and that life is hard and that everything is stacked against me succeeding would devastate me. Things ARE terrible. Life IS hard. A lot IS stacked against my success.

But, there are other things in life. There are little things that are beautiful, there is joy, there is love, there are friendships, there is passion. And those things make going through the terrible hard things worthwhile.

There is science that shows that hopeful people actually succeed more. There is something about hope that is infectious, not just for those around you, but for yourself too. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Making room for hope allows you to experience it.

Telling myself the lie that these beautiful things exist even when I don’t see them at the moment allows me to be open to them. So that when they do show up, I can still recognize them, and not still be stumbling around in the dark.

• What activities cause you to feel like you are living life to the fullest? How often do you do them?

I try to exaggerate and magnify all the things about any situation just to help me enjoy wherever I am. Right now, I cannot do my most favourite things. Travelling, being around people, hugs… But I can’t. So I have to make small things bigger.

Right now; it’s the golden hour. A brief 40 minutes where the sun sets and casts everything in gold. It feels wonderful. I’m drinking this amazing draft latte that found that tastes great, and is keeping me awake. I love both Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, and they played back to back. I’m typing on a brand new keyboard that I bought for myself. I have a small heater next to me, and it’s keeping me toasty and warm. God is everywhere, and in all these things.

By noticing all the little things around me that make me happy, it helps me to live every moment with as few complaints and regrets as I can.

Even in annoying situations, like waiting for my number to be called at the DMV, I’ll try to find something to appreciate about it. When I’m standing in line and waiting for my ticket, I’ll notice with every step forward, my situation is just a little bit better. When I finally have my numbered ticket and I’m waiting on those plastic chairs to be called up, I’ll be thankful that I’m sitting and can rest my feet.

I try to be grateful as much as I can.

• What stands between you and complete happiness? What can you do to close the gap?

I think I’m actually pretty happy. There are some circumstantial things that would likely make things better and make me happier, but for now I’m taking pretty good care of myself and my happiness.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop, held online.

• Write a list of 10 things that you want to remember during difficult times.

1. You are loved.
2. Breathe.
3. Explore, then cuddle afterwards.
4. Keep making lists of the things you’re grateful for.
5. Give yourself a break.
6. Be patient, it will come.
7. Keep your head up.
8. You aren’t alone.
9. You got this.
10. It will be ok.

• What items do you find comforting? Why do you think that is? What places do you find comforting?

My bed is comforting. I have outfitted it with sheets and blankets I love, far more pillows than I need, and a mattress so big that it fits me.

My meditation space is comforting. It has books that fill me, incense and candles that smell nice, things to keep my hands busy so I can let go, and pillows to let me rest.

Ferry Bar Park is comforting. I go out there, tilt the chair back in my Element, roll down the windows, and just let the wind and the waves carry me away.

• What secrets are you keeping? Are these secrets affecting your mental health? Why or why?

I hold on to things. Things people say in passing, things people say to me directly, things I hear said about me… I hold on to them forever. And I’ll bring them out and squeeze them as hard as I can, until they dig into me and hurt me again.

I’m getting a lot better at letting it go and not harping on these things, but they hurt. I have a general aura of aloofness and of being happy-go-lucky, but I remember these things and I have a hard time letting them go.

Some things were said to me by family, some were said to me by people I was in relationship with. Some of the things have absolutely zero basis in fact at all, and were said just in an argument or just as a way to hurt me. But I’ll still wonder “what if…”

It is devastating for my mental health. Because it because really difficult to move on and grow. But I’m making progress on it, bit by bit.

• What has surprised you most about 2020? What can you learn from it? What have you learned from it?

I think I was surprised most by how much people were still there to support and be there for me, despite the pandemic, despite how down and out I was for the previous two years. The pandemic didn’t stop people from loving me, and it has encouraged me to keep going.

• What has anxiety taught you about yourself?

Anxiety is not something I felt I had a lot of experience with. I knew people who had anxiety, who were scared of trying new things, who were scare of their shadows, who were just generally scared of life. But I didn’t feel that way, so I figured I didn’t have anxiety. I was fearless, nothing frightened me. I would dive directly into things that I was afraid of.

But when I had kids, I felt such a weight of responsibility constantly that I felt like it would crush me. I had to make enough money to buy enough food. To pay the mortgage. To pay the utility bills. All during a recession.

I felt trapped, and as my marriage failed over and over again, anxiety crept in. It manifested itself not as fear and apprehensiveness, but as anger and rage. My health took a nosedive. I considered dark thoughts that normally I wouldn’t even approach. I had panic attacks, I went to the ER for bizarre things that would happen to my body.

Anxiety taught me that ignoring problems wasn’t any type of solution, and that my mental health was the first thing I needed to take care of, not the last.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop, held online. Photo of Nya, me, and Arion by Joe Cardamone.

• In your biography, which chapters would you ask your parents to skip and why?

I would not ask them to skip anything, because I don’t have anything to hide about my parents. But I would provide warnings about sections about my sexual awakening.

I don’t think that most parents really are interested in hearing about their children’s sexuality, despite the fact that most of us end up being sexual people.

One of my favourite books in the Bible from when I was very young was The Song Of Solomon, but its openness and celebration of sensuality always seemed to contradict the cold closed-off attitude I got from the church.

I am a whole person, and won’t hide.

• Imagine we all had to start over on Mars and you were responsible for choosing who gets to be apart of humanity 2.0. How would you decide who gets to go to our new planet?

This is something I would take very seriously. I think it’s extremely important to have a wide variety of diversity to go. Not only genetically (though that is important), but a variety of people from various backgrounds and upbringings. If anything should happen where they would not be able to get home, or if we suddenly became incapable of sending more people, I’d want this group to be the very best humanity has to offer.

That being said, I’d also put some qualifications on entry. Money and wealth would not be an obstacle. Case-in-point, wealth is what currently serves as a bridge to getting to Mars, whether it’s directly by being able to afford to research and build rockets or to be able to afford the education it takes to be an astronaut.

What would be obstacles is things like the intolerance of others. Fascist tendencies. Authoritarian bents. These things have hurt humanity in so many ways, and I would not want them in our new colony.

Historians, educacators, writers, poets, artists, and musicians would be essential to creating a whole society.

I would also offer special access to groups and peoples who have typically been held back from society’s march forward. Non-white people, disabled people, women, youth, and other marginalized people would get special priority.

• If every human came with a warning label, what would yours say? What label would you avoid?

WARNING: Recalcitrant. Tends to not follow authority. Aggressive cuddler. Sensitive and tends to get attached easily. Perpetually optimistic. Has some traumas: they’re not your responsibility, but know they’re being worked on. Occasionally clumsy. Devilishly handsome. Handle with care.

I’d avoid people who label themselves as selfish, dishonest, emotionally unavailable, judgemental, abusive, anti-feminist, racist, controlling, irritable, narcissistic, or people who don’t enjoy being touched.

• What are 3 things your exes probably miss about you?

I know these because some of my exes have told me outright:

1. My combination of sensitivity and strength gets missed. I’m able to both be strong during chaotic or challenging situations, but I won’t be cut off or cold or distant is something I’m valued for.
2. I’m very generous with what I have. I’m loyal, and I will make sure you know you are appreciated.
3. I am a very attentive lover, in all ways. I listen, pay attention, and study the people I love. I keep elaborate notes about what you like and don’t like, down to little things that you might have only mentioned in passing, and remember the ways in which you like to be touched.

I also know that I’ve never not been missed.

• How have your friendships changed since last year?

My friendships have really grown in depth since last year. There have been a lot of people who have really stepped up and really made it known that they wanted to be my friend.

2019 was a very lonely year of rebuilding myself, but especially right after my motorcycle accident, I wasn’t able to be there for my friends like I normally was, and instead they had to be there for me.

This showed me there were people who were only there because of what I gave to them. This also showed me there were people who really valued me for who I was, even if I was drugged up, in pain, and lying flat on my back.

The latter group invested in me and made sure I felt loved, and throughout this year, those relationships have only grown stronger.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop, held online.

What behaviours do use to keep others from getting too close to you? Explain their effectiveness in keeping others away
.

I avoid compliments and being taken care of like the plague. I know it comes from my upbringing somehow, but I’m not entirely sure where. Perhaps with the focus on humility in traditional Christianity. But I have a really hard time when people lay things on thick, or when they tell me to just relax and take care of something entirely for me.

I’m very self-reliant and tend to be really good and figuring things out on my own and then doing them, mostly because I have had to for a good portion of my life.

But I actually love compliments. They make me melt. I love when someone takes something over for me and caters to me completely. It feels amazing.

I keep people away because I have been so deeply hurt by the people closest to me, and these behaviours are effective at keeping people away, but it’s not good for me.

Think about a passion, topic or item that you feel passionately about. Where did that passion originate?


I’m very active around social justice, and this has a couple sources. When I was younger, I was bullied a lot in school. When I entered highschool, I allied with some other kids who were typically outcast from the main group. We would practice different self-defense techniques in the hallway at lunch break. I also learned some of the history of the First Nations tribe I grew up with and the different ways in which white Europeans had exploited them. When I was in college, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, while I was getting involved in a lot of anti-racist groups on campus.

This, combined with my faith’s teachings on caring for “the least of these” and the defense of the oppressed, provide the foundations for the kinds of things I fight for today.

What two regrets do you have when looking back over your life? Do these regrets prevent you from living life in the present? Please explain
.

I find it hard to really dive into regrets too much, because I know the difficult things I went through really shaped who I am.

But I’ll never advocate for hardship as a way to grow character. I’ve been through truly horrible things and been treated very badly, but I don’t think those things NEEDED to happen to me.

I regret that I had those things happen to me. I imagine what I could be if I did not have to deal with that trauma.

It reminded me of a poem I wrote back in 2017 called Consider Jazz.

If you could design a room just for yourself, describe in detail how you would decorate it?


I would knock out the closet in my master bedroom, and build a stairway that would lead to the 3rd floor onto the top of my house. The entire floor would be open, with vaulted ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows on the southwestern side. The windows would be able to be automatically open and close depending on my preferences or the temperature throughout the day. The blinds on the windows would also be automatic, and white, so that they could be used as a projector screen at night. The northeastern wall would be covered in books and art. Towards the front of the house would be where my bed would be, with a meditation space, giant pillows and bean bag chairs everywhere, and hanging plants with automatic watering systems.

Toward the back would be the master bath, which would be glassed in with a central drain in the middle of the floor instead of a shower section. The entire bathroom would be the shower, where you could just walk around in it as if it were a warm summer rain. I would have a jacuzzi in one corner, which would be half in the bathroom, and half out, so you could be in the tub and hold conversations with anyone in the main room.

I’d have a gas fireplace (because nobody wants to haul firewood up 3 flights of stairs). I would have several overlapping oriental rugs on the floor, and under that, hardwood floors.

Out the back would be wide balcony through full french doors, and that would look out over the backyard, with a trellis covered in grapevines, and a hammock. Torches would be on every post for lighting, and big comfortable outdoor couches.

Think of a healthy fun activity that you’ve always wanted to do but have never done. What has stopped you from participating in this activity?

I want to go tubing in a river! I just need to buy some tubes and go! I’m going to go next summer.

Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop, held online.

How have I become me? What am I like?

There are some fundamental things about myself that I have always believed as far back as I can remember. I have believed that kindness is important, that God was there, that gentleness is meaningful, that happiness is subjective and changeable (meaning that you can change your happiness by changing that is around you).

There were times in my childhood that were challenging and painful, but these beliefs kept me upright, and prevented me from capsizing.

I think these beliefs largely came from my parents, but were also reinforced by the elders around me, and from nature as I lived in it.

The pain and abuse I experienced then taught me to fight for those who didn’t have people fighting for them, because I didn’t always have someone fighting for me.

When was the last time you cried tears of joy? What made you cry?

I typically don’t cry during happy things, but I will if there’s something wonderful that happens after something tragic, or if someone says something about me that makes me melt.

I cried tears of joy when I got divorced. I cried when I fell in love again. I cried when I found out my house might be saved.

I think I cry less and less when people give me compliments. Not because those compliments mean less to me, but because I actually believe them. I used to cry because I didn’t feel worthy of them, and now I do.

How can I start my day with a more positive attitude?

This is something I’m working a lot on more. Sometimes, whether it’s because of the pandemic, or worries about the country, or a big project, or just me goofing off, I’ll get up late. And it really bothers me sometimes. I love sleep, but I feel like so much of the day is wasted if I get up at 10, 11, or noon, or even 1. I’ll feel this sense of panic; like I have to get to work right away because I am running late.

Instead, I’m purposefully forcing myself to still do my routines that I know put me in a good mindset. Praying, meditating, stretching, doing a quick workout, making a good breakfast.

Those things make me feel good and change the whole outlook of my day.

How would you spend your time if you turned invisible for a week?


I would definitely sneak into all kinds of places. I’d go through city and state governmental offices, and leak all kinds of information surrounding inequality. I’d go through big corporate offices and leak salary information to employees. I’d siphon money off billionaires and put it to work feeding the poor and housing the homeless. I’d sabotage immigration detention centres by causing chaos among the guards, and help people get free. I’d depose corrupt officials by leaking evidence of their dealings to the news. I’d shut down crime rings, and find the sources of drugs flowing into Baltimore city, and cut it out at the roots.

I think I would have trouble sleeping that week.

On a scale of 1-10 how content are you with your life? What can you do to change the things you don’t like?


I’m at an 8.5 right now. There are a few things that could be better; but most of them are around the pandemic. And that will pass. I’m content with my trajectory. I know I’m on the right path.