Life Experiences

If you ask me how many homes I lived in, I honestly couldn’t tell you. Was it twelve? Fifteen? More? After a while, they all blur together. Each one was supposed to be a “fresh start,” but when you’re a kid in foster care, that phrase loses meaning real quick. Fresh starts just mean more garbage bags to cram your life into. And that’s how it is, by the way—your whole childhood, your entire sense of safety and stability, reduced to a few battered trash bags and whatever you can grab when it’s time to go.

[Read more…] about What It’s Like Growing Up in Foster Care

People always want to know, “So… what’s it like?” As if there’s some secret club or mysterious world that opens up when you’re packing a lot more than the average guy. And I get it. It’s not a topic people discuss over lunch. But honestly, after living with it for years, it’s just part of my everyday reality—one that’s both hilarious and a little complicated.

[Read more…] about What It’s Really Like Having a Giant Penis

I was seventeen when my father told me I was getting married. He said it plainly, like it was a business transaction. And in a way, it was. The groom was a wealthy businessman from Dubai. Older. Already married. Foreign. I didn’t even know his full name until a few days later.

[Read more…] about What It’s Like to Be in a Plural Marriage

It’s hard to put into words how much of my self-confidence has been shaped—sometimes warped—by my height. I’m 6’4” and I don’t think there’s ever been a moment when I didn’t feel huge. Not just tall, but huge: always visible, never able to fade into the background, always standing out whether I want to or not.

[Read more…] about Confessions of a 6’4” Woman

You want to know what it’s like?

Try walking into a room, alone, with a man who butchered his family with an axe—and reminding yourself that your job is to understand him, not to judge. That the entire point of your presence is not justice. It’s treatment. Therapy. That’s the line we walk. It’s razor thin.

[Read more…] about My Life as a Psychologist in a Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane

We met in college—back when late-night pizza runs and procrastinated deadlines were the center of gravity. She was funny. Not in a performative, class-clown way. Her humor had this dry, left-field quality to it. We’d sit next to each other in the computer lab, whispering sarcastic commentary about the professor’s PowerPoint slides. Friendship came easily. Love snuck in quietly, like fog.

[Read more…] about The Weight of Love: My Life With a 500lb Girlfriend