The significance of a year without justice
On March 13, 2021, Americans across the country hopped onto social media to remind one another that exactly one year has passed since Breonna Taylor was murdered in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment.
We all know the story, but if you need a refresher: Breonna, 26-year-old EMT, goes to bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, on the evening of March 12. The couple wakes up just after midnight to three plainclothes police officers entering Breonna’s apartment unannounced. Kenneth, thinking intruders are in the apartment, fires a warning shot. The three officers then fire blindly into the apartment, releasing 32 rounds, five…
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It doesn’t have to be complicated
Before we really get into this piece, I need to be honest about one thing: I am exhausted. Starting with shutdowns across the country last March, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in June, and the four-day election mania of November, I still feel the wear of 2020. Any of these events on their own would be draining. But the combination of all three on top of the demands of everyday life — work! chores! planning a wedding! therapy twice a week! maintaining friendships! self-care! writing on Medium! — is almost debilitating. …
Lived Through This
It took me three years to break free
I’ve written a bit about my decision to move to Los Angeles in 2012 and how it changed my life for the better. I was 24 that year—young enough to take a big leap and old enough to make it work.
My journey to Tinseltown wasn’t about finding fame or “making it big.” What I sought was freedom and possibility. I’d seen how difficult it would be to secure the life I wanted in my small Appalachian town, so I headed west.
When I arrived, I resisted the pressure to get a traditional desk job and decided to take up…
This Is Us
Talking to them helps silence my fears
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” — Albus Dumbledore
As a writer, I’ve been well prepared for the voices that manifest in the course of birthing a story. Everyone from high school writing teachers to literary giants warned me to fight inner voices that stifle creativity. Most of them describe the same critical voices: there’s the cruel one that says, Your work is shit, the one who worries, What if your boss reads this? What if your MOM does? And of course, the one who…
‘Do you know how to read?’
In the time of coronavirus, I spend a lot of time sitting around with the friends in my quarantine circle trading stories about our lives before the pandemic. Recently, our conversation turned to the worst dates we’d ever been on, and as I relayed one of my dating failures, I shared a racially charged comment one suiter made on a first date.
Immediately, one of my White friends balked at my date’s behavior while my friends of color laughed and offered to share similar tales of their own. Ignorant, offensive, and racist comments are old hat to most people of…
Heartache offers valuable gifts, if you know what to look for
Breakups are hard. It doesn’t matter if ending it was the right choice, if the split was a long time coming, or if you’ve lost a friend instead of a romantic partner— whatever the details, cutting your connection to another person feels bad.
This, in itself, is not news. Because breaking up is such a universal experience, the stories around it never get old. As a society, we’ve obsessed over vulnerable breakup songs and gotten lost in the on-screen sagas of broken-hearted protagonists. …
If you want to transform your life, alter your process
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been at war with goals. I grew up holding fast to the ones my parents provided for me (working a 9–5, getting married, having kids) to the point that I didn’t even realize there were other ways to do things. Each one of the goals I followed came with a subset of exhausting smaller goals and modest, yet painful, sacrifices. By my college graduation, I was exhausted. I was meeting the goals I’d adopted from my parents, but I wasn’t happy.
To make things harder, by senior year, I’d realized that I…
Even when we express our emotions, we’re forced to consider how the rest of society will see us
When I started therapy, there were a million things I thought would be difficult to acknowledge and discuss. I was prepared to wallow in grief, muster through tough confrontations, and experience awful flashbacks. Those things came, and while they weren’t fun, they weren’t as bad as I’d prepared for.
The parts that have actually been hard are the conversations I didn’t know to expect. You know that saying, “The more I know, I more I realize I don’t know?” Therapy is a lot like that. As my therapist and I work through the things I knew I needed help with…
Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with losing weight
The day before my 24th birthday, I broke up with my girlfriend. It was my first time being in love and that breakup ripped apart my whole being. I cried constantly, completely heartbroken and alone in a new city. I cried myself to sleep, I cried in the bathrooms at work, I cried on the phone to my friends back home. I soon became sick of my own crying but I didn’t know how to stop.
Then I saw a flyer for a pole dancing studio. It was the first thing to distract me from my heartbreak — event for…
Your influence on the future might be bigger than you think
I didn’t go on my first date until I was 24. I wanted to — I dreamt about cute dates and love letters, suffered through crushes, and lamented my loneliness — but there was this small voice in my head that would pop up daily and tell me, “No one will want to date you.” In the mirror, I’d look at my body and think, “No one wants that.” In class, I’d trip over a concept and thing, “You’re so stupid. No one wants to be with you.” Even while writing, that voice would break through, “You’re not that creative…
Sondra Rose Marie
Queer femme examining the twisted trinity of trauma, love, and independence through personal narratives. New stories weekly. http://sondrarosemarie.com
