Little Miss Universe

How much better things might have been for me if there had been someone like Billie Eilish when I was growing up. In her Rolling Stone interview, Billie spoke openly about self-pleasure and how it helped her develop body positivity and self-confidence. She said it helped her overcome body image issues and build a deeper connection with herself. Hearing something like that as a pre-teen might have completely changed the way I viewed my own body and sexuality. Creative Writing   In high school, we called our teachers by their first names. I've always described them as hippies because that's exactly what they were. Most looked like Mike Stivic from All in the Family or Carly Simon with their long, center-parted hair and earth-toned clothes. Claire was definitely hippie-ish, a woman with graying curls who wore flowing skirts and had ink stains on her fingers from grading late into the night. She was both my English and homeroom teacher. The assignment itself has dissolved from memo...

By the time I entered high school-unconventionally-I’m not sure journalism was my sole focus anymore. I was already sitting in on communications classes at Temple University while still in elementary school. One of our film-developing customers, an older woman attending Temple, had taken me under her wing. She brought me with her to class. I wish we’d kept in touch. I really liked her. Loud, fun, and a little chaotic, she taught me what a food co-op was. Her house was messy, like her long, wiry gray hair. She was short and stocky, and sadly, I always knew to brace myself-she could fall to the floor in an epileptic seizure at any moment. I loved learning how to tell a story through moving pictures, and I loved the vibe of a room full of communications majors. In high school, I also sat in on law classes offered through an off-campus program. I loved challenging the teacher with hypotheticals and what-ifs. Only a curious, uninhibited girl-naive to societal norms- would do that. Law didn’...

The bond with a mother is unlike any other. It can bring burning pain if the connection is strained, yet offer profound joy if it's strong. I had been using TikTok, as a place to hone my storytelling skills and express my creativity. Last year, I worked on a tribute to my mom, on Mother's Day. I also wanted to share this story with friends on other socials offering strength to those who may need it to break a cycle or seek help if necessary. It's a story of love, tragedy, and mental illness, as we all bear our own traumas in this journey we call life. My wish for each of you is to feel blessed with a mother's love, now and always. National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233

I have always been good at reading people. Call it instinct, pattern recognition, or the byproduct of growing up in an adult world where paying attention was not optional. If I had known as a kid that this was a legitimate superpower, maybe I would have leaned into it sooner. But what always got in the way was my chronic hope in people-this tendency to give second, third, and tenth chances. Even after I had been burned, I kept looking for the good.   Is that empathy? Or emotional self-sabotage dressed up as forgiveness? What kind of psychological fuckery makes your brain know better and still leave the door open for vultures?   I have read that whatever trauma you have not healed from, you will either run from or run straight into. The fear of it keeps you circling back to it-through people, situations, even choices that look different but feel the same. Rejection, abandonment, being misunderstood, judged, controlled, lied to-all the things that broke you in childhoo...