Eat less. Spend less. Scroll less. Go out less. Work more. Wake up earlier. Be more disciplined. Be better.

So we build our whole life around not doing things — until we’re exhausted from micromanaging ourselves.

And in all that, we skip the real question:

What do I actually want?

Not what I’m supposed to want. Not what looks good. Not what would make me feel like I’m “doing life right.”

What do I actually want — and what would my life have to look like for me to feel like I’m living it?

We keep borrowing other people’s definitions of a good life

We see someone’s house, relationship, body, career, morning routine — and our brain fills in the blanks. We assume they’re happier. More successful. That they’ve figured out something we haven’t.

Then we try to reverse-engineer their life.

But we’re not there for their arguments, their money stress, their boring Tuesdays. We only see what they choose to show us. And we compare that highlight reel to our entire messy life — bills, insecurities, mistakes and all.

Of course we feel like we’re falling short. We’re comparing the whole movie to a few edited scenes.

Sometimes we’re not even jealous of the person — we’re jealous of what we think their life represents: freedom, security, love, peace, being enough.

Once you name what you’re actually craving, you can stop copying someone else’s life and start figuring out what that thing looks like for you.

Wanting something ≠ wanting the life that comes with it

It’s easy to say “I want that.” It’s harder to ask: do I actually want the life that comes with it? The schedule, the sacrifices, the daily decisions, the parts nobody sees?

Sometimes we fall in love with the outcome and skip the lifestyle behind it.

There’s something freeing about admitting: I want this, but I don’t want to live that way. That’s not failure — that’s information. Maybe it’s not your goal. Maybe there’s a different path to the feeling you’re actually after.

I don’t want my life to be a list of things I’m not allowed to do

So instead of asking what I need to eliminate, I ask what I want more of:

More energy. More creativity. More time outside. More connection. More laughter. More peace. More feeling good in my body. More being present.

Starting there changes the question. Not “I’m not allowed to do this” — but “does this actually give me more of the life I want?”

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Sometimes yes, because life is meant to be lived too.

But choices still have consequences

I don’t want to be so busy “optimizing” that I forget to enjoy my life. But enjoying it doesn’t mean ignoring where my choices lead.

If I keep making the same decision and keep getting the same result, eventually I have to notice — not to punish myself, but because I’m trying to build something different.

What I want right now and what I want long-term aren’t always the same thing. That gap is where self-awareness lives: noticing your patterns, noticing where certain choices usually take you, and slowly getting better at choosing the bigger picture over the next ten minutes.

That’s not restriction. That’s knowing yourself.

I don’t need to get it right all the time

I’m not interested in perfection. I’m interested in direction.

Most days, I want my choices to support the life I’m building. Some days they won’t — I’ll eat the thing, stay in bed, spend the money, scroll too long, say yes when I meant no. That’s life. One detour isn’t an identity crisis. I can notice it and keep moving.

The goal was never to control every choice. It’s to know where I’m going.

So maybe the real questions are:

• What kind of life am I actually trying to create?

• What do I want my days to feel like?

• What do I want my relationships to feel like?

• How do I want to feel in my body?

• What kind of work do I want to do?

• What kind of friend, partner, parent, or person do I want to be?

And then: what choices actually support that?

Not somebody else’s choices. Not the routine that went viral. Mine.

We don’t know anyone else’s whole story, and they don’t know ours. So maybe the answer isn’t another list of rules. Maybe it’s just getting honest about what you want — and building a life that actually feels like yours.

Because I don’t want to look like I have a good life.

I want to actually have one.

This piece was sparked by a perspective from @amberakilla — the reflections and examples here are my own.

I hope you’ll read this to the end.

For years, I chased a version of myself that didn’t exist.

She answered every email.

She was never late.

She remembered birthdays.

She knew exactly where she put her keys.

She finished every project she started.

She never forgot why she walked into a room.

Every Monday, I promised myself...

This is the week I’ll become her.

I never did.

Instead, I kept arriving at the same conclusion.

Maybe I’m just lazy.

Not because I didn’t care.

Because I cared so much.

I had dreams that felt bigger than me.

I wanted to write songs that mattered.

Build a meaningful career.

Be fully present for my son.

Advocate.

Create.

Love well.

Leave the world a little softer than I found it.

The desire was never missing.

Execution was.

I Knew the Diagnosis. I Just Didn’t Understand It.

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was six years old.

It was the ‘90s.

Back then, the conversation was different.

Especially for girls.

Especially for girls who learned to mask.

Most of what people talked about was medication.

My mom wasn’t comfortable putting me on Ritalin.

I understand why.

She made the best decision she could with the information she had.

I don’t look back with blame.

I look back wishing we had more options.

More education.

More support.

More conversations like the ones we’re finally having now.

Because knowing you have ADHD...

...and understanding what it actually means...

...are two very different things.

My ADHD Didn’t Get Worse.

My life got bigger.

For a long time, I managed.

Then life asked more of me.

My career grew.

Motherhood changed everything.

My calendar filled up.

People depended on me.

The mental load became heavier.

Around 2020...

everything felt harder.

I remember asking myself,

What happened to me?

Had I gotten lazy?

Lost my drive?

Stopped caring?

No.

Life had simply reached the point where the way my brain works could no longer hide behind adrenaline and good intentions.

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This Is What ADHD Looks Like for Me

People hear ADHD...

...and think distraction.

Mine looks like this.

Five alarms.

Calendar reminders reminding me to check my calendar.

Walking upstairs...

...and forgetting why I went.

Opening my laptop to answer one email...

...and somehow ending up doing three completely different things.

Hyperfocusing on a song for six hours.

Forgetting to eat.

Forgetting to answer the text I picked up my phone to respond to.

Staring at my to-do list...

Wanting to start...

Knowing exactly what needs to happen...

And feeling like my brain won’t press “go.”

It’s carrying a thousand ideas.

And feeling frozen by where to begin.

For years, I didn’t just experience those moments.

I judged myself for them.

Every forgotten appointment.

Every late arrival.

Every unread email.

Every unfinished task.

They all became evidence.

Evidence that I wasn’t disciplined enough.

Responsible enough.

Good enough.

Looking back...

I spent years trying to manage my symptoms.

What I really needed was to stop making them mean something about my worth.

Grace for ADHD Looks Like This

One day, I walked into a writing session.

I was about fifteen minutes late.

Ironically...

I had actually left earlier than I normally did.

I remember thinking,

I’m getting better.

I opened the studio door.

Everyone laughed.

Apparently, my collaborators had started placing bets on what time I’d show up.

For a split second...

my stomach dropped.

That familiar voice came rushing back.

See?

You’re the late one.

You’re the problem.

But then...

nothing happened.

Nobody was upset.

Nobody rolled their eyes.

Nobody questioned whether I cared.

They laughed.

Gave me a hug.

And we got to work.

Somewhere in the middle of that session...

I realized something that still makes me emotional.

I was safe.

They knew I struggled with time.

They just didn’t confuse that struggle with my character.

They trusted that when I walked into the room—

even if it was fifteen minutes late—

I would show up.

With ideas.

With energy.

With curiosity.

With heart.

With work that made the room better.

They saw the whole person.

Not just the symptom.

That moment quietly unraveled years of shame.

For so long...

I’d measured my worth by the clock.

Not because time doesn’t matter.

It does.

I still set multiple alarms.

I still check my calendar more times than I can count.

I still work hard to respect other people’s time.

The difference is...

I no longer believe one recurring struggle gets to define my character.

That’s what grace for ADHD looks like.

Not lowering expectations.

Not making excuses.

Not pretending the struggle isn’t real.

It’s being held accountable...

...without being shamed.

It’s someone saying,

“I know this is hard for you.”

“And I also know who you are.”

Success Didn’t Cure It

One of the biggest misconceptions about ADHD...

...is that success somehow makes it disappear.

It doesn’t.

I’ve had the privilege of living dreams I once only imagined.

I’ve built a creative life I’m deeply grateful for.

People see those moments.

They don’t always see the systems holding them up.

The alarms.

The sticky notes.

The reminders.

The body doubling.

The invisible work.

Success didn’t change the way my brain works.

It changed my willingness to understand it.

The Grief No One Talks About

The hardest part wasn’t ADHD.

The hardest part was believing what it said about me.

Or at least...

what I thought it said about me.

Lazy.

Careless.

Too much.

Not enough.

I wasn’t grieving the diagnosis.

I’d had that since I was six.

I was grieving the years I spent believing I was the problem.

I wonder how many women are carrying that same grief.

Especially Black women.

How many little girls grew into women who still believe they’re lazy...

...when what they really needed was understanding.

I’m Building a Different Kind of Life

These days...

I’m not trying to become someone else.

I’m becoming someone who knows herself.

Someone who builds systems instead of shame.

Someone who asks for help.

Someone who accepts support.

Someone who understands that different...

...doesn’t mean broken.

I still forget things.

I’m still occasionally late.

There are still days when getting started feels impossible.

But I don’t hear that old voice the way I used to.

The one that whispered I wasn’t enough.

The one that confused a symptom with a character flaw.

When I show up...

I show up.

Maybe not perfectly.

Maybe not always right on time.

But with my whole heart.

And these days...

that’s the measure of my character that matters most.

Turns out...

I was never lazy.

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Sometimes, I struggle to do the things I know I need to do to live the life I deserve.

I spent a lot of my life waiting.

Waiting until I felt more confident.

More beautiful.

More worthy.

More ready.

I kept thinking that one day I’d wake up and finally feel like the kind of woman who deserved to take up space.

The kind of woman who could confidently hit “post.”

Walk into the room.

Speak up.

Be seen.

Turns out...

Waiting to feel confident was the very thing keeping me small.

People assume because of the rooms I’ve been in or the things I’ve accomplished that I wake up feeling confident all the time.

I don’t.

There are still mornings where I have to talk myself into showing up.

There are still moments where I question if I’m good enough before I walk through the door, or when I get the call for an opportunity I’ve dreamed of.

There are still days where fear is louder than confidence.

That’s the part that goes unsaid.

We celebrate confidence once we see it.

We scream “PERRRIOD SIS” at the top of our lungs. Not even realizing that woman probably fought for her life to show up and be the baddie we see in front of us.

We rarely talk about the conversation someone had with themselves before they showed up.

Doing the Work

Over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of work.

Therapy.

Childhood wound meditations.

Past life regression.

Shadow work.

Long conversations.

A lot of crying.

A lot of forgiving.

A lot of sitting with uncomfortable parts of myself that I’d spent years avoiding.

The work wasn’t about changing who I am.

It was about understanding where the belief that I wasn’t enough came from.

And if I’m honest...

That belief started a lot earlier than I realized.

The Little Girl Who Was Paying Attention

I grew up in predominantly white spaces.

My mom was in the military, and we were stationed in Pittsburgh. This was the mid-’90s, and while segregation wasn’t legal and times had in fact changed, don’t let the North fool you.

It was very Black and white.

Very little diversity.

And when I say white, I’m talking Polish.

No shade.

I love a good pierogi.

The hardest part about growing up in environments like that is that nobody has to tell you you’re less than.

The messages are subtle.

The damage is quiet.

You just slowly start believing you’re not the kind of girl who gets chosen.

Nobody ever had to pull me aside and tell me I wasn’t beautiful.

They didn’t have to.

Kids are paying attention all the time.

You notice who gets picked.

Who gets complimented.

Who gets pursued.

Who gets called beautiful without trying.

And you notice when you don’t.

You notice when you’re putting in twice the effort and still not really getting seen for it.

You notice when you’re underestimated before you’ve even opened your mouth.

You notice when you’re labeled “difficult” for having the same confidence that’s celebrated in someone else.

You notice every damn thing.

And after enough years...

You stop questioning those messages.

You start believing them.

Looking back now, I realize so much of what I believed about myself wasn’t actually mine.

It was conditioning.

It was survival.

It was years of quietly collecting evidence that maybe I wasn’t enough.

By the time we’re adults, those thoughts don’t even sound like fear anymore.

They sound like us.

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Doubt Still Shows Up

For years, I questioned myself before anyone else had the chance to.

I’d make myself smaller before someone else could reject me.

I’d downplay my accomplishments before someone thought I was doing too much.

I’d dim my own light without even realizing I was the one reaching for the switch.

Even now, after everything I’ve been blessed enough to experience, there are still days I have to remind myself that I earned my seat.

Deep down, I know it wasn’t given to me.

I earned it.

Yet somehow...

Doubt still enters the chat.

That’s what I’ve learned about healing.

You can know something intellectually and still have to fight to believe it emotionally.

Both can be true.

I can look at my life and see the evidence.

The songs.

The rooms.

The relationships.

The opportunities.

The woman I’ve become.

And there are still days where the voice in my head whispers,

“Yeah... but what if you’re still not enough?”

That’s the voice I have to answer.

Not once.

Every single day.

The Shift

These days, in my late thirties, I look back with so much more compassion for the younger version of me.

She wasn’t insecure because something was wrong with her.

She was responding to what she had experienced.

There’s a difference.

I don’t blame her anymore.

And I don’t blame the people who made me question my worth either.

I just don’t let any of them drive anymore.

When I look at my life now, I realize I’ve beaten a lot of odds.

I’ve walked into rooms where women who look like me are still underrepresented.

I don’t say that because I want to be the only Black woman in the room.

Honestly...

I can’t wait for the day when it’s so normal that nobody even notices anymore.

But until then, I carry that responsibility with gratitude.

Because if another little chocolate girl sees me and thinks,

“If Blush can do it... I can too.”

Then every uncomfortable step was worth it.

Do It Anyway

What I know now is this:

I had confidence ass backwards.

I thought confidence came first.

I thought one day I’d magically feel ready.

That I’d finally believe in myself enough to go after the things I wanted.

But confidence doesn’t work like that.

You don’t become confident and then start showing up.

You start showing up...

And that’s how confidence is built.

Every time I hit “post” when I want to delete it...

I’m building confidence.

Every time I walk into a room before I feel ready...

I’m building confidence.

Every time I choose myself instead of my conditioning...

I’m building confidence.

Confidence isn’t something I have.

It’s something I practice.

It’s a muscle.

The more I use it, the stronger it gets.

Some days it’s strong.

Some days it feels weak.

But either way...

I keep showing up.

I do it anyway.

Because confidence isn’t the prerequisite.

It’s the reward.

Tomorrow I’ll probably have to choose myself again.

The day after that too.

And honestly...

I’m okay with that now.

Because every time I choose myself, I make it a little easier for the little girl I used to be.

And my hope is that it ripples.

I make it easier for another little girl who’s watching too.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the female animal kingdom and how watching nature has honestly inspired me to reconnect with myself as a woman.

Not the version of womanhood built around performance.

The version that’s always over-accommodating, over-explaining, overextending, suppressing instinct to appear lovable.

I mean the natural version.

Because when you actually observe female animals, you realize something quickly:

Females in nature are not passive.

They are intuitive. Protective. Strategic. Fierce. Deeply connected to survival, community, and discernment.

And they do not apologize for it.

One of my favorite nature videos ever is The Battle at Kruger. A baby buffalo gets attacked by lions near the water while a crocodile joins in from below. The baby is completely overwhelmed, dragged between predators, and for a moment it feels impossible to watch.

But the part that stays with me is the mother buffalo.

Because she comes back.

Again and again.

She charges directly toward danger without hesitation because instinct overrides fear when something sacred is threatened.

And eventually the herd returns too. They regroup. Fight back together. Protect their own.

That video feels like watching feminine instinct before society got involved.

Not polished femininity.

Not performative softness.

Raw protection.

Raw devotion.

Raw knowing.

And I think many women have spent years being conditioned away from that kind of knowing.

We’re taught to distrust ourselves.

To silence gut feelings.

To stay agreeable even when something feels unsafe.

To confuse self-abandonment with kindness.

Meanwhile nature shows us that female instinct exists for a reason.

A lioness protects the pride.

An elephant matriarch leads through memory and wisdom.

Female wolves guard the den with precision.

Even female birds expect effort before access. The males court, build, perform, and pursue.

Nature never framed discernment as cruelty.

Only humans did.

And honestly, observing animals made me realize how much society centers male symbolism while overlooking female infrastructure.

The lion may be the face of power, but lionesses are the reason the pride survives.

Elephant herds depend on female leadership and collective memory.

In so many species, the females are sustaining life behind the scenes while the world celebrates the visible dominance of males.

Again… familiar.

Women carry emotional labor.

We organize families and communities.

We anticipate needs.

We remember details that keep people emotionally safe.

So much of what keeps life functioning is maintained quietly by women, yet we’re often taught to see our instincts as “too much” instead of recognizing them as intelligence.

That’s why the female animal kingdom inspires me so much.

Not because it romanticizes struggle, but because it reminds me that fierceness and softness were never opposites.

Female animals nurture deeply because they are protective.

They are gentle with what is safe and ruthless with what threatens it.

That balance feels far more honest than the version of femininity many women were taught to embody.

Because somewhere along the way, women started being rewarded for endurance over instinct.

For tolerating disrespect.

For remaining accessible.

For giving endless chances.

For overriding discomfort in the name of being “understanding.”

But nature doesn’t operate that way.

Female animals do not negotiate with danger to prove they are kind.

And maybe that’s why so many women feel exhausted now. Not because we’re inherently weak, but because suppressing instinct requires constant energy.

Ignoring red flags.

Minimizing intuition.

Trying to remain palatable while carrying the emotional weight of everything around us.

It disconnects women from ourselves.

What I love most about The Battle at Kruger isn’t just the mother buffalo fighting for her baby. It’s the moment the herd comes back.

Because survival in nature is often communal.

The females return for one another.

And I think women are remembering that too.

Not through bitterness.

Not through becoming cold.

But through reconnecting to boundaries, discernment, standards, intuition, and community without shame.

The truth is women were never meant to be tame.

We were meant to create.

To protect.

To lead.

To nurture wisely.

To sense what others miss.

Maybe the goal isn’t becoming harder.

Maybe it’s becoming more natural again.

More connected to instinct.

More honest about what we feel.

More willing to protect our peace instead of abandoning ourselves for approval.

Because female energy in nature is not desperate to be chosen.

It chooses.

Watch The Battle Of Kruger

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She caught it in the mirror one morning. Tight jaw. Cold eyes. A curl to her lip she had never worn before. She stood there longer than she should have, just looking, the way you stare at a word until it stops making sense.

The ugly had moved in quietly. Staining the walls of her mind before she even knew it.

It started small. The overstimulation of trying to be present while looping arguments in her head. The exhaustion of questioning her own memory while the world expected her to just keep moving. It was a sharpness in the way she spoke. A bitterness that flavored everything, even the good moments, even the ones that had nothing to do with him, with them, with any of it. She would be laughing with friends and feel it sitting in the corner of the room, waiting. She would wake up in the morning, just for a second feel okay, and then it would find her. That slow burn crawling up from somewhere below her chest.

Resentment. Frustration. The particular fury of someone who did everything right and still ended up here.

She replayed things. It wasn’t a choice; it was a reflex. Her mind would serve up a memory like a jagged piece of glass, and she’d spend hours turning it over in her hands, wondering how it managed to cut her the same way every single time. She would sit in the quiet and audit the wreckage, checking the math of her own pain, trying to prove to a ghost that she had been right all along.

Her friend Sage watched her from across the table one afternoon and said, soft and without judgment, “You know that’s not you, right?”

Beauty looked up.

“That thing you’ve been carrying around is not you. That’s just the part of you that got hurt grabbing the wheel. And honey, it has been taking your ass for a spin.”

Beauty wanted to argue. The hurt felt so much like her now that she had stopped questioning whose it was.

“You’re not karma,” Sage said. “You don’t have to make sure things balance out. That’s not your job. And every second you spend in that energy, you’re the only one paying for it.”

Beauty was quiet for a long time.

She thought about all the space it was taking up. The room it had rented inside her body, her thoughts, her nervous system. How she had lost her own reflection trying to hold a mirror up to someone who wasn’t even willing to look at themselves.

“So what do I do with it,” she finally said. Not really a question. More like something she had been afraid to ask out loud.

“You alchemize it,” Sage said. “All that intensity, all that energy sitting in your chest pointed backwards at something you can’t change. You just turn it around. Redirect it. Back to yourself.”

“And them?”

“Wish them well. Mean it. Hope they find whatever they’re looking for.” Sage paused. “Not for them. For you. So you can put it down.”

Beauty sat with that for a long time after she got home. Sat at her vanity. Looked at the mirror again.

The ugly was fading. She understood it now. It wasn’t who she was. It was what she had been given. And for the first time in a long time she stopped fighting it, stopped being ashamed of it, stopped letting it drive. She picked up the pain like it was something she could use. Because it was. That was the whole point. That was always the whole point.

You don’t get rid of the fire. You decide to let it light your way instead of burning you.

And then she returned to herself.

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I’ve always believed that creation is its own soul with its own internal clock. It has a frequency that knows exactly when it needs to land in the world. Sometimes we try to rush the process, but the art knows best. It releases itself when the collective energy is ready to receive it

The Power of the Melody

If you know me, you know that melody is my heart. It is the strongest attribute I bring to the room and my favorite part of the entire creative process. There is something about the way a melody hits that words alone can’t always reach.

The Story Behind the Song

Multiplicity is about that painful realization of being with a lover who doesn’t have the discipline to choose just one person. They are living in multiple versions of themselves, trying to be with everybody else while you are standing there just wanting to be loved by the one version you thought you knew. It is about the lack of discipline and the fractured energy that comes with it.

Creating in a Safe Space

What makes this release so special to me is the room where it was born. Every single collaborator on this track is a long time friend and associate. When you are creating from a place of safety and deep love, it changes the DNA of the music.

The energy in the room that day was massive. As creatives, we have to be so intentional about where we create from, because that "where" determines the "what." We created this from a beautiful, grounded space, and I think you can feel that frequency when you listen.

Go listen to "Multiplicity" on India Shawn’s new EP, Subject to Change, right now.

But looking at Niko now, in his tenth grade year, I see the direct result of not pulling back.

The Tools for the Journey

We spent years in the trenches of speech, ABA, occupational, and physical therapies. Back then, the goals felt so far away they were almost invisible. I did not always know if a specific therapy would work. I just knew that to not do was to not know.

Because we took those steps, Niko’s teen years are full of expressiveness and growth. He is walking through doors that were opened by years of advocacy. I see a lot of reluctance, especially in Black and brown communities, to seek out these services. I get it. The system is overwhelming and often feels like it was not built for us. But our children’s lives are bigger than our exhaustion. Their need to express themselves and experience the world is worth every frustrating phone call.

Finding the Village

One of the biggest game changers for us was not just a clinical setting, but a community one. Places like We Rock the Spectrum gave us more than just a gym. They gave us a life. We found lifelong friendships with families who truly see us. We do the birthdays, the holidays, and the school dances together.

We gave our children the most basic and vital human need: Community.

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The New Obstacles

This past year has tested that community in ways I never saw coming. Since September 2025, we have had to navigate a new mountain: seizures. Watching Niko maneuver through EEGs and anti seizure medication on top of everything else has been a heavy load to carry.

It was a new obstacle that I have learned is actually a known reality for many in our community. Statistics show that adolescence is one of two peak periods for the onset of seizures in children with autism. The prevalence of epilepsy can nearly double during these teenage years, rising from about 13 percent in younger children to 26 percent in teens.

But because of the foundation we built, I was not carrying it alone. When the isolation started to creep in, his school reached out. This is a place I fought to get him into back in the eighth grade. They did not just offer support. They offered love. They have seen him through seizures at school with a level of care that reminds me why the work matters.

Why I Advocate

I do not advocate out of righteousness. I advocate out of empathy. I know how hard this ride is. Our children are along for the ride too, and they are bigger than our feelings. They are bigger than our frustration with the system.

I do this because one day I will not be here. One day he will be my age. I want him to be prepared in my presence and in my absence. I want a quality of life for him that I do not have to fear or doubt because I know we took every step possible to ensure he has the tools he needs to survive and thrive.

Sometimes I feel like people get sick of me talking about it, but this is my child. This is the life I brought into the world and this is the life he has been given. Because he cannot always advocate for himself, it would be selfish of me to not go as hard as I can to make sure he lives a good life. We just try. Why not just try?

Advocacy is not just about the now. It is about ensuring that when they reach those distant goals, they have the community there to celebrate with them

.

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we’ve been doing autism awareness month for a long time now.

and i want to ask — aware of what exactly? because if awareness just means you know autism exists, we’ve been done with that for years. everybody knows. the puzzle pieces, the light it up blue campaigns, the instagram infographics — the awareness is there. it has been.

so why does everything still feel the same?

because awareness was never the finish line. it was the entrance. and somewhere along the way we confused showing up at the door with actually coming inside.

acceptance is different. acceptance costs something.

and i think part of why acceptance is so hard for autism specifically is this — autism doesn’t have a look. it has a function.

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most disabilities that get immediate, unquestioned compassion come with a visual cue. a wheelchair. a walking stick. glasses. Down syndrome has recognized features. Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome — a chromosomal condition — has such a distinctive facial appearance that doctors can often identify it at birth. the body communicates the difference before a single word is said.

autism doesn’t do that. you can look at someone with autism and see nothing that your brain registers as “this person needs accommodation.” and because you can’t see it, a lot of people decide it isn’t there. or that it’s a choice. or a mood. or bad parenting. or someone just being difficult.

this is not a competition. it’s a mirror.

because what it reveals about us — as a society — is worth sitting with. why do we need to see it to make room for it? why does someone have to look a certain way before we extend patience, accommodation, grace? what does it say about how we’ve been trained to respond to difference — that we need it to be visible before we believe it’s real?

that invisibility is exactly why acceptance requires more intentionality with autism than almost any other disability. because nothing is going to remind you. you have to decide to show up for it anyway.

awareness lets you feel good about what you know. acceptance asks you to change what you do. it asks the teacher to actually restructure how she runs her classroom. it asks the employer to actually rethink what a productive employee looks like. it asks you — in your real life, with the real autistic people around you — to stop expecting them to perform neurotypicality just to make you comfortable.

awareness is a ribbon on your shirt. acceptance is patience when someone needs more time. acceptance is not talking over someone who communicates differently. acceptance is letting a kid stim without making it weird. acceptance is building a world that doesn’t demand masking as the price of entry.

one of those things requires nothing from you. the other requires everything.

and i think that’s why we stay so comfortable with awareness. because acceptance means admitting that the way we’ve built everything — our schools, our workplaces, our social expectations — was built for one kind of brain. and that was a choice. and choices can be undone.

awareness lets you off the hook.

acceptance doesn’t.

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he didn’t say his music was good despite being autistic.

he said he wants it to make other autistic and neurodivergent people understand their minds.

that’s a completely different thing. and most people scrolled right past it.

Skepta — Joseph Junior Adenuga — has been one of the most important voices in UK music for over a decade. grime architect. Mercury Prize winner. the kind of artist whose influence you can hear in people who don’t even know his name. but in January 2024 he posted something that stopped me.

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“i want my art to make other autistic / neuro diverse people to understand their minds and to know that mastering their thoughts is a difficult daily challenge but once mastered, the magic and rewards are endless.”

mastering your thoughts. not silencing them. not managing them into something more palatable. mastering them.

that’s not inspirational poster language. that’s someone who knows exactly what it costs to get there — and decided to make that the whole point of the work.

listen to Skepta with that in mind and the music sounds different. the precision of it. the way he controls a track like someone who has thought about every single element. the patterns. the repetition that doesn’t feel like repetition — it feels like emphasis. like someone who needed you to hear that part again until you actually heard it.

autism didn’t get in the way of that.

it was the way.

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i’m tired of the way we talk about this month.

because every year it’s the same thing — the infographics, the statistics, the stories that are framed like someone made it out of something. like autism is a burning building and the goal is to get to the other side of it. and i understand why that narrative exists. i do. but it leaves so much out.

and then — then — someone shows you a piece of art. and suddenly everybody loses their mind. like, how did that come from that. like the beauty snuck past the diagnosis somehow.

that framing. that word. despite.

i need us to stop using it.

because what if the art didn’t sneak past anything. what if the neurology is the reason the art looks like that. the hyperfocus. the way certain brains lock onto a detail and will not let it go until it becomes something. the pattern recognition that isn’t a skill they developed — it’s just how they move through the world.

autism didn’t get in the way. it was the way.

and i want to be clear about something — not every autistic person is a savant. the world loves that story because it feels like a trade. like okay, this is hard, but look what you get in return. that’s not how it works. but what i will say is this — every autistic person has their thing. whatever it is. the thing they go all the way in on. the thing that lights them up in a way nothing else does. it doesn’t have to be extraordinary to anyone else. it’s just theirs.

for some people that thing happens to be art. and that’s what this week is about.

stephen wiltshire, morgan harper nichols, skepta — we’re not going to talk about them like they overcame something. we’re going to look at what they actually made. and ask why it looks the way it looks.

not a gift. not a tragedy.

just — this is how they see. and this is what happens when that hits the page, the canvas, the track.

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big bear is coming too. big bear has been with him since he was little and if niko loves you, big bear is part of the deal. he also wants us to buy her the toys he likes. the ones that matter to him. he wants her to have them.

that’s it. that’s his whole love language. nobody taught him how to perform it. nobody told him what it was supposed to look like. he just wants to bring her into everything he loves. fully. all the way in.

niko doesn’t have a lot of words. but you know exactly how he feels about the girl in his grade because he put her on the plane. niko loves planes. it’s one of his favorite things in the world. and when he started talking about the plane ride — who was coming, who had a seat — she was on it. big bear was on it. the people and things that matter most to him were on it.

that’s not a small thing. that’s everything. that’s niko saying i like you in the only language he needs.

niko is autistic. he’s not the quirky savant, socially awkward rain man version you see in media and television most of the time. he’s more of the spectrum than that. and he has a girlfriend. and he meant it. like genuinely, i really like this girl, meant it.

i need you to sit with that for a second. because if your understanding of autism comes from what you’ve seen on television — and for most people it does — niko doesn’t fit. he wasn’t supposed to have this. nobody wrote it into the script for kids like him.

here’s what the script actually looks like.

rain man. sheldon cooper. the good doctor. brilliant. quirky. socially awkward in ways that are inconvenient but ultimately charming. autism as personality. autism as superpower with a degree of difficulty attached. different enough to be interesting. functional enough to be comfortable.

and i want to be clear — i’m not taking anything away from people on that part of the spectrum. their experience is real. their representation matters.

but representation isn’t inclusion if it only shows the version of something that makes an audience feel safe.

and then there’s love on the spectrum. which i want to be fair about — because it does something the other shows don’t. it centers autistic people in their own love story. it doesn’t use autism as a quirky character trait for someone else’s narrative. the people on that show are real, their feelings are real, and seeing autistic adults pursue love on a major platform matters.

but four seasons in — four — and not one nonverbal cast member. not one person on the more severe end of the spectrum. every person they’ve chosen can articulate their feelings in full sentences, go on a traditional date, and present their experience in a way a mainstream audience can follow without discomfort.

which means the show called love on the spectrum has decided — maybe without meaning to — that only certain parts of the spectrum deserve a love story.

niko doesn’t show up in any of those four seasons. neither do his friends. neither does the couple i watched in a school hallway, both nonverbal, who had chosen each other in every way that didn’t require words, getting ready for prom together.

they exist. they love. they just don’t make the cut.

what it does — what all of it has always done — is tell the world what to expect. and when the world only expects one kind of autism, everyone else pays for it. parents spend half their time correcting assumptions before they can even get to the actual conversation. kids who don’t fit the mold get met with confusion instead of accommodation. and possibility — the simple basic human possibility of a life with feeling in it — gets quietly taken off the table before anyone even asks.

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the numbers say what the screen won’t.

nearly two thirds of autistic children in the most recent CDC data have severe or borderline intellectual disability. the percentage of autistic people with high IQs has actually been decreasing — down to about 36% in the latest numbers. meaning the high functioning, verbally gifted, socially awkward but secretly brilliant autism that wins emmys is statistically the minority.

and for the first time ever the CDC measured what they’re now calling “profound autism.” first time. meaning we didn’t even have language in mainstream data collection for what niko’s world looks like until recently. more than one in four autistic people fall into that category.

more than one in four. invisible in almost every mainstream conversation about autism. definitely invisible on your screen.

that’s not an oversight. that’s a pattern. and patterns have consequences for real kids living real lives in the gap between what people expect and what’s actually true.

i remember the day i toured niko’s school.

he was in middle school at the time and they walked me over to the high school side. his school takes kids across the full spectrum — every level of functioning, verbal and nonverbal, every kind of need. autism is the only requirement to walk through the door.

the vice principal stopped me in the hallway and pointed out this couple. two kids. both nonverbal. going to prom together.

they had chosen each other. in every way that didn’t require words, they had chosen each other.

and i stood there and i let myself allow it. not question it. not manage it away. just — allow it. and i knew in that moment that my job as niko’s mom was always going to be to guide it. to make it a teachable moment about consent, about boundaries, about what it means to have feelings for someone and what you do with that.

but i also let myself feel how extraordinary it was. because we are talking about kids who exist in a world that has never really considered them lovable. never really believed they were capable of something this complicated and this human.

and there they were. proving the world wrong the way they always do. quietly. completely. on their own terms.

because here’s the thing about being an autism parent that nobody prepares you for. you learn to manage your expectations — not because the world beats it into you, though it tries. but because managing your expectations is how you show up for the kid you actually have. not the kid you imagined. not the kid the world told you to grieve. the real one, in front of you, wherever he is on the spectrum.

you hold the hope and the reality at the same time. you facilitate. you support. you meet him where he is while quietly, privately keeping a door open to everywhere he might go.

you just don’t always let yourself walk through it.

and then you see two nonverbal kids in a hallway who picked somebody and got picked back. and the door blows wide open.

niko has done so many things nobody expected.

so many things the world had already quietly decided weren’t for him. and every single time he blows past what someone decided his limit was, i think the same thing.

why not fall in love.

why not her. why not the plane and big bear and the toys he wants her to have. why not a prom. why not love in whatever form it takes for him, on his terms, in his language.

i don’t need it to look like anyone else’s version. i just need the world to know it exists. because the only way to make space for something is to first show people it’s real.

i go to his school’s talent shows and i cry every single time.

not because it’s sad. because it’s the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen.

they are all so different. so completely themselves. and when someone stims or flails their hands or screams out a word or makes noise during the show — nobody shushes them. nobody bats an eye. because it’s not a big deal. it’s just normal. it’s their normal. and everyone in that room knows it and honors it without making it a whole thing.

that’s what actual inclusion looks like.

so here’s what i really want to ask.

when a show like love on the spectrum chooses its cast — and they choose well spoken, relatable, high functioning autistic adults — who are they choosing them for. because i think they’re choosing people that neurotypical audiences can see themselves in. people who express love in ways that feel familiar. words. dates. conversation.

but why can’t you see yourself in someone who is nonverbal. someone who shows you love instead of saying it. someone who chooses you without a single word and you just know.

because we all do that. every single one of us. we hold someone’s hand without explaining why. we show up. we save them a seat. we remember the small thing they mentioned once and we do it. we laugh together. we sit in comfortable silence. we communicate love and joy and intimacy and happiness without a single word every single day.

that’s not an autistic thing. that’s a human thing. and niko does it too.

so why can’t you see yourself in him.

we make space for every kind of love language. every kind of relationship. every kind of connection. why not this one. why not through a lens that looks different but feels exactly the same when you actually let yourself see it.

that’s not a hard ask. that’s just paying attention.

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i said: imagine a person with no volume knob. no off switch. no “that’s probably enough for today.” just pure, unfiltered, unlimited investment in a thing.

they laughed a little. i understood why.

but then i thought — that’s questlove.

ahmir khalib thompson grew up in philadelphia, the son of a musician, surrounded by records and rhythm and a level of sonic obsession that most people couldn’t quite keep up with. he didn’t just love music. he catalogued it. memorized it. lived inside it. became the person in every room who knew the most and had heard everything and could tell you exactly where a sample came from and why it mattered.

he wrote about being autistic in his memoir mo’ meta blues. not as a confession. not as an explanation for why things were hard. just as part of who he is. the kid who went all the way in and never came back out — because why would you?

that kid became one of the most respected musicians alive.

niko goes all the way in too.

when he finds a thing — a song, a subject, a sound — he doesn’t sample it. he moves in. he works in his own bubble, quiet and focused, building whole worlds that he doesn’t always have words for. he’s semi-verbal. he doesn’t narrate his experience the way the world expects. he expresses what he needs, points at what catches his wonder — wow. look at that. what’s that — and then goes back inside.

but the creativity? it’s constant.

he makes his own scoring over songs with his voice. layers sounds together. builds something new out of something that already existed — which, if you think about it, is exactly what producers do. what composers do. what the greatest musical minds in history have always done.

he doesn’t perform it for an audience. but sometimes, if the moment is right, he’ll play it over the speaker. just loud enough for me to hear.

that’s how i know. that’s my invitation in.

the world has spent a lot of time trying to get him to communicate on its terms. i’ve spent a lot of time learning to receive him on his.

the hyperfocus isn’t the obstacle. it’s the engine.

the pattern recognition. the refusal to stop until it’s right. the ability to hear something once and hold it forever. these are not quirks to manage. these are the exact qualities that make someone irreplaceable in a room full of people who are good enough.

Questlove didn’t become the bandleader despite how his brain works. he became the bandleader because of it.

niko’s story doesn’t have an ending yet. but questlove’s gives me something to point to. not as a guarantee. just as proof that the way niko’s brain works — the depth, the immersion, the worlds he builds that he doesn’t have words for yet — that’s not something to fix. someone already built a whole legacy out of it.

that’s enough for me.

First Of All, Press play!

Okay, I need to talk about something that’s been sitting with me for a while.

We love to have the jazz conversation. Billie. Ella. The greats. And don’t get me wrong — those women deserve every flower they get. But every single time we have that conversation, somebody gets left out. And I’m tired of it.

Her name is Sarah Vaughan. And we don’t talk about her nearly enough.

I was in high school the first time I really heard her. I’d been assigned “Misty” for a recital — didn’t choose it, it was just handed to me — and I remember learning the notes and thinking I understood the song. Then I sat down and listened to what Sarah actually did with it. Not the melody. The voice. The way she moved through a phrase like she owned every molecule of air in the room. The depth. The dark warmth. The complete, unhurried authority of it.

I was floored. And then I was confused. Because I’d heard of Billie. I’d heard of Ella. But Sarah? Why had nobody made sure I knew about Sarah?

I’ve been asking that question ever since. And the answer is uncomfortable.

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Let’s start here. Sarah Vaughan grew up carrying a devastating resentment of her own dark skin. She said it herself: “I often wished I was a medium brown-skin color. I imagined people that color were regarded more highly than I. To most persons who knew me, I thought I was just another little black girl for whom the future was just as dark as it was for thousands of others like me.”

Read that again. This is a woman who would go on to be called the greatest singing talent in the world — by Ella Fitzgerald, by the way — and she grew up believing her future was limited by the darkness of her skin. The world didn’t exactly rush to correct her.

When she started performing, a New York critic wrote that she was “not exactly handsome to look at” and then picked her face apart feature by feature. Not her voice. Her face. She was described as lacking the beauty-queen allure of Lena Horne — as if that had anything to do with what was coming out of her mouth.

And here’s the part that really gets me. In 1956, Sepia magazine ran a cover story about how dark-skinned Black performers were “cracking through the color curtain” — and Sarah Vaughan was the example. Her existence as a successful dark-skinned woman was treated like a sociological breakthrough. Not her three-octave range. Not the fact that she was redefining jazz in real time. Her skin color. Her survival of her own skin color.

That was 1956. But let’s not pretend we’ve come that far.

A study found that over a 15-year period, lighter-skinned women dominated the Top 40. Even Beyoncé’s former manager — her own father — acknowledged she may not have had the same career if she’d been darker-skinned. One singer told the BBC she was explicitly told by a music executive to “bleach her skin” because she was “too dark for the industry.” That’s not the 1950s. That’s recent. That’s now.

The industry didn’t change. It just changed the language.

Now let me tell you what they were actually sleeping on.

Sarah Vaughan’s range ran literally from baritone to soprano. Three full octaves. She didn’t just sing melodies — she bent them, the way horn players do. She came up in the same rooms as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie when they were literally inventing bebop. “I always wanted to imitate the horns,” she once said. She wasn’t a vocalist fronting a band. She was the instrument.

Her tone was what set her apart. Nobody sounds like her. Nobody ever will. It wasn’t about pyrotechnics — it was the timbre itself, something that elevated every song and every musician around her.

Ella Fitzgerald called her the world’s greatest singing talent. Mel Tormé said she had the finest vocal instrument in all of popular music. Jazz critic Leonard Feather called her the most important singer to come out of the bop era. She influenced Amy Winehouse, Anita Baker, and Sade. She was that far-reaching.

And we still had her filed under “for people who really know jazz.”

There’s also the masculinity piece that nobody wants to talk about. Sarah smoked and drank and ran with her band on the road. She drove the tour bus when she got restless. She got irritated when men held doors for her. She was not soft. She was not performing for anyone’s comfort. In an era that required Black women performers to be palatable — glamorous, gentle, unthreatening — Sarah showed up as herself. Fully. Loudly. That rich, deep voice that didn’t fit the mold of what a woman was “supposed” to sound like. Darker skin has long been coded as masculine — which means dark-skinned women have always had to fight a double bias just to be seen as feminine enough to be taken seriously.

Sarah was penalized for both. For being dark. For being full. For taking up exactly as much space as her talent required.

We call women like that difficult. We forget them faster.

Here’s the part that stays with me though.

When I stood up at that recital and sang “Misty,” I wasn’t just performing a song. I was watching a dark-skinned woman from an era that had tried everything in its power to make her invisible — command a room from a recording decades after she made it. There’s something about seeing your own reflection not in someone’s struggle, but in someone’s authority, that rewires something in you. It changes what you believe is possible. It changes what you allow yourself to take up.

That mattered to me. It still does.

And I keep thinking about all the girls who didn’t get that moment. Who moved through their entire lives with a Sarah Vaughan-shaped hole in their understanding of what genius looks like and whose body it gets to live in.

We are still waiting on a Sarah Vaughan biopic. Sit with that for a second. The woman Ella Fitzgerald called the greatest. The woman who influenced the artists who influenced your favorite artists. No biopic. No cultural reckoning proportional to what she gave us. Nothing close.

There’s a whole Phyllis Hyman conversation to be had too — different reasons, same result. The industry just found another excuse. But that’s a different episode.

The point is: this isn’t a history lesson. This is a pattern. And the pattern is alive. Colorism quietly determines who becomes a star, who gets marketed as palatable, who gets the crossover push — and who gets filed away as “for people who really know.”

Sarah Vaughan was for everyone. We just decided she wasn’t.

Go find her version of “Misty.” Don’t put it on in the background. Sit down with it. Close your eyes. Let her show you what it sounds like when a woman refuses to be one note less than the fullness of herself.

Then ask yourself who else you’ve been looking past.

Because I promise you — she’s out there. Right now. Underpromoted, underestimated, and absolutely extraordinary.

“I sometimes have to fight off the depressing feeling that I am day-dreaming — that a pinch will awaken me to the realization that I am not what I am.”

— Sarah Vaughan

She was exactly what she was. We just weren’t paying attention.

Not nostalgia. Recognition. The uncomfortable kind.

Because the truth is — Tyra Banks and that entire panel had me genuinely f*cked up. And I didn’t even know it until I was a grown woman sitting on my couch watching it back, thinking wait. What did that actually do to me?

I watched that show religiously at fourteen. I thought I was just watching TV. I didn’t realize I was being taught how to look at myself. Through judges I’d carry around in my head for the next two decades. Picking myself apart in their voices. Searching for their kind of approval in every room I walked into.

That’s not a small thing. That’s a whole adolescence spent measuring yourself against a standard that was specifically designed to make sure you always came up short.

The Show Was Sold As Empowerment. It Wasn’t.

ANTM ran for twenty-four cycles. Millions of viewers at its peak — a huge chunk of them teenage girls who had absolutely no business being taught that this is what the pursuit of beauty was supposed to feel like.

And it wasn’t marketed as a show about tearing women down. It was fierce women. Taking their shot. Claiming their moment.

But underneath all of that? Every episode was a masterclass in how to sit still while someone dissected your face and called it mentorship.

The judges didn’t critique. They “helped.” Tyra didn’t tear you apart. She believed in you — which somehow always required telling you exactly what was wrong with you first.

And we ate it up. Because it was framed as the truth finally being spoken by someone important enough to know it.

Wait. We Just… Watched That? And Thought It Was Fine?

This is the part that genuinely unravels me now.

We watched grown adults tell young women their thighs were too big. On national television. We watched girls get told their faces were “too ethnic” or “too commercial” or just too much of whatever they naturally were — and called it coaching. We watched contestants sob in confessionals about not being pretty or thin or fierce enough — and called it entertainment.

And nobody blinked.

Not really. Because it was so normalized it didn’t even register as cruel. It registered as honest. As the real world. As what you had to be willing to hear if you wanted to make it.

That’s the part that haunts me. Not just that it happened — but that we all just accepted it. Parents let their kids watch it. Magazines celebrated it. We had viewing parties. We picked favorites and debated eliminations and quoted Tyra like she was dropping wisdom instead of casually dismantling young women’s self-worth on a weekly basis.

The body shaming wasn’t subtext. It was the format. A girl would lose weight and the judges would light up. Someone gained a few pounds and suddenly the panel had concerns. Measurements taken on camera. Sizes discussed like they were moral categories. All of it delivered with this tone of caring professionalism — like they were doing these women a favor by being so ruthlessly honest about their bodies.

We were teenagers absorbing all of this in real time. And not one adult said hey, this might be messing with you.

Because they were watching it too.

They Gave Me a Whole Vocabulary for Everything Wrong With Me

I didn’t realize until I watched it back how much of my inner critic is basically a highlight reel of ANTM judges.

That voice that picks apart every photo of myself before anyone else can? Learned that at fourteen. The reflex to immediately find the flaw, name the problem, get there first? Picked that up cycle by cycle.

The show had a taxonomy for every kind of failure. Too commercial. Too stiff. Too much. Not enough. Pretty — but not the right kind of pretty. And I absorbed all of it not as opinion but as fact. Because it was delivered with such certainty by people who seemed to know things about beauty that I didn’t.

By the time I was in high school I had a deeply sophisticated vocabulary for my own inadequacy and almost zero language for my own beauty. I could diagnose everything wrong with how I looked. I couldn’t tell you one thing I genuinely loved.

That asymmetry wasn’t accidental. That’s conditioning.

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Tyra Had Us Out Here Begging for Approval From the Wrong People

Here’s what really got me watching it back. The way Tyra positioned herself as the authority. The one who could see you — really see you — in a way nobody else could. And the way that made her approval feel like something worth suffering for.

She was good at it. Genuinely good. She made cruelty feel like care. Made harsh judgment feel like a gift. And somewhere in my teenage brain that dynamic got wired in deep — the idea that if someone difficult finally approved of you, that was when it counted. That was real validation.

I spent years chasing that feeling in real life. Gravitating toward people who withheld, who criticized, who made me work for it. Treating their approval like it meant more than the people who just loved me easily.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to trace that pattern back to where it started.

But a lot of it started in front of that TV at fourteen.

My Body in My 30s Still Carries What That Show Planted

Here’s where I have to get really honest.

I’m in my thirties. I have done the work. I know better. And I still struggle.

I quit vaping in 2024 and gained weight. And the way I felt about myself — ugly, fat, disgusting, unworthy — told me everything I needed to know about how deep this stuff actually goes. Because it wasn’t new. It was familiar. It was the same voice. Just louder now because my body had changed and the world was ready to confirm everything I feared.

And here’s what nobody talks about enough — the world does treat you differently based on your body size. That’s not in your head. People with smaller bodies are treated as more disciplined. More healthy. More worthy of what they want. More valuable. Their body is seen as evidence of character. And when your body doesn’t fit that mold you’re not just dealing with your own inner critic — you’re dealing with a culture that is constantly co-signing it.

So you internalize it. Of course you do. How could you not.

The thing that really broke me open was looking back at photos of myself when I was smaller. And instead of seeing someone who looked good — I saw someone who still wasn’t good enough. Even then I wanted to be smaller. Even then I was chasing something further away. There was no finish line. There was never going to be one. Because when the goal is just get smaller there’s no real gauge. You can’t see yourself clearly when shrinking is the whole point.

And I think about that now with everything happening in Hollywood. The way women are disappearing in plain sight and everyone is calling it a glow up. These women probably don’t think they’re too thin. If I had to guess — they probably think they could do more. That they’re not quite there yet. That there’s still further to go.

That’s what this does to you. It doesn’t feel like disorder. It feels like discipline. It feels like finally getting close to the thing you were always supposed to be.

Shows like ANTM planted that seed. But it wasn’t just the show.

It was the early 2000s beauty standards, Hollister and American Eagle selling low rise jeans designed for one very specific body type while the rest of us stood in dressing rooms wondering what was wrong with us. Clothing that wasn’t made for curves — not because curves weren’t beautiful but because curves weren’t the point. The point was a body that looked good in clothes designed for straight lines and flat stomachs. And if your body wasn’t that — if you were built differently — the message was clear. You were the problem.

And then there were the BMI charts. The ones that called me obese. The ones that got pulled out at doctor’s offices like a verdict. What most people still don’t know — or don’t say loudly enough — is that the BMI chart was built on data from white men. That’s it. It was never designed with Black women in mind. Never built to account for the fact that Black bodies carry weight differently. That my body composition, my bone density, the way I hold weight — none of that was ever factored in. And yet that chart got to define whether I was healthy. Whether I was worthy of being taken seriously. Whether I was enough.

The whole system was built without us and then used to make us feel like we were failing it.

The Girls We Were Deserved So Much Better

Watching the former contestants in the docuseries — grown women now, looking back at footage of their younger selves — I lost it a little.

Not just for them. For me. For every girl who sat there watching and quietly decided she needed to be different. Smaller. More palatable. More something.

The cultural conversation about ANTM tends to focus on the most obviously indefensible moments — the episodes that aged the worst. And those conversations matter. But the quieter harm doesn’t get talked about enough.

The slow drip of watching beauty get dissected week after week by people who spoke about it like it was science. The way it taught us that our faces were projects. Our bodies, works in progress. Our worth — always conditional. Always pending someone else’s review.

We were kids. We deserved someone to tell us we were already enough.

Nobody did.

This Is What the Other Side Actually Looks Like

I want to be clear — I’m not writing this from a place of still being lost in it. I’m writing this from the other side. Which isn’t a destination so much as a practice I show up to every single day.

I have a trainer now. I work out. I have a genuinely healthy relationship with food — not a performative one, not a restrictive one, not one built around punishment and reward. An actual relationship. One where I fuel my body because I respect it. Because it carries me. Because it deserves that.

I take care of myself mentally. Spiritually. Physically. Not because I’m trying to get smaller. Not because I’m chasing someone else’s standard. But because I actually love myself — and love requires tending.

And that is so different from everything I was taught.

But I want to be honest about what this doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like waking up every morning and automatically feeling beautiful. It doesn’t look like the work being done. It looks like choosing — daily, sometimes hourly — not to let those old seeds run the show.

Because they’re still in there. That’s the thing nobody tells you about healing. The seeds don’t just disappear because you’ve done the work. You just get better at recognizing when they’re growing. You catch it faster. You don’t let it take root the way it used to.

Some days are easier than others. Some days I look in the mirror and I am fully, completely present in my body and grateful for it. Other days the old voice creeps in and I have to actively choose a different thought. Not because I’m broken — but because those grooves were carved deep and early and it takes real intentional work to reroute them.

That’s what uprooting looks like. Not a moment. A practice.

And that’s exactly why I’m writing this. Because somewhere there’s a fourteen year old girl absorbing messages about her body right now that she doesn’t even know are being written into her. And there’s a woman in her thirties still carrying seeds that were planted when she was just a kid who wanted to feel like she was enough.

This is for both of them.

You are not a project. You are not a before photo. You are not a body that needs to be fixed before it deserves love.

You just are. And that has always been enough.

If this hit something in you — share it. There are women in your life who need to read this too.

But here’s the other side of that fear that nobody really talks about: I was just as scared of not going. Scared of what it means to let the state of the world shrink your life down to something small and safe and half-lived. Scared of waking up one day and realizing I stopped dreaming because the world got loud. That fear? That one scared me more.

So I went.

And then I had to leave my babies. My man. My family. That part doesn’t get easier no matter how many times you do it. You’re standing there hugging them goodbye and something in your body goes — wait, are you sure? You sure this is worth it? And I had to keep telling myself yes. Yes it’s worth it. Yes I’m coming back. Yes they’re okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. All the way to the gate.

But London, though. Baby. London.

The second I got there something just... shifted. Like a gear I didn’t know was stuck finally clicked into place. I don’t know if it’s the energy of that city or the fact that nobody there knows me or cares who I am — but I felt free in a way I forget I’m allowed to feel. In LA the sun is always out and it’s always gorgeous and sometimes that pressure to be bright and on and present is exhausting in ways you don’t even notice. Not until you’re somewhere grey and quiet and the rain is coming down and you’re walking through Hyde Park and you realize — oh. Oh, I’ve been tired.

And the work. Oh my God, the work was so good. These weren’t strangers — these were people I’d collaborated with before, familiar faces, people I already had history with. But London made us different with each other. Because we weren’t in our routines. Nobody had somewhere else to be, nobody was rushing to fit five things into a two hour window. We had one job: be creative. That’s it. And when that’s your only responsibility, something opens up — in you, in the room, in the music. We got deeper faster. We went places in the writing we probably would have talked ourselves out of back home. London gave us permission to just be artists. Fully. Without the noise.

We all went to Portobello Market together and I need you to understand how good that day was. Just wandering. Picking up little things for ourselves and our loved ones, no agenda, no schedule. We rode bikes. We people watched. We stayed in a beautiful artist flat and had a chef cook for us every single day — like actual meals, made with care, while we worked and laughed and just existed. We ordered room service at the hotel and didn’t feel guilty about it for one second. Everyone was FaceTiming their kids and spouses in between sessions. It was this perfect mix of being fully away and still fully connected to home. And that balance felt so intentional, so human.

It made me start asking myself a question I haven’t stopped thinking about since I got back: how much of this do I need to bring home with me? Because the version of me in London — the one who walked everywhere and stopped to notice things and didn’t rush through her own life — that’s not a vacation version of me. That’s just me when I give myself permission. So what would it look like to walk more in LA? To explore my own city like a tourist sometimes? To stop racing through my days like there’s a finish line I keep missing?

That’s the real gift London gave me. Not just the music we made or the memories or the market finds. It was the silence. The insight that came from getting quiet enough to actually hear myself think. And realizing I need to protect that more — not just when I’m on a plane to another country, but right at home too.

That said — my phone never stopped. I want to be real about that too. I’m in London, trying to be present, trying to soak in every moment, and I’m still getting texts on LA time. Still managing things across an 8 hour time difference. Still being mama, still being partner, still being businesswoman — just from really far away. There were moments where I had to laugh because what else do you do? You’re exhausted and jet lagged and grateful and guilty all at the same time and honestly? That’s just the tax on a big life.

But when I got still — really still — I kept coming back to this one thought: how many people don’t have this? How many people never get to feel what it feels like to board a plane and go make something on the other side of the world? And I’m not saying that to flex. I’m saying it because I needed to remind myself not to take it for granted. The support system I have. The friends who hype me up instead of making me feel bad for leaving. The family holding things down while I’m gone. That’s not common. That’s everything.

Traveling does this thing to your ego — in the best way. It shrinks it. You land somewhere and you realize how massive this world is. How many people are out here living full, complicated, beautiful lives that have absolutely nothing to do with yours. And instead of that feeling lonely, it feels like relief. Like — oh good. It’s not all on me. The world is big and it’s still turning and there’s so much more to see.

I came home tired in a way that felt earned. The kind of tired that means you were actually alive. And yeah, I missed my babies every single day. And yeah, the world is still scary and the news is still heavy and none of that went away. But I went anyway. I lived anyway. I made something that didn’t exist before I got on that plane.

And that? That’s the whole point.

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In the music industry, “free agent” sounds like freedom. It isn’t. Not at first.

It means blood in the water. The moment you’re unattached — off a label deal, out of a publishing contract, between agreements — everyone who’s ever wanted access to what you’ve built starts circling. And if you’ve spent fifteen years building something real, there’s a lot to circle.

That was me in 2023. I had just come off my publishing deal with Disney. Fifteen years of consistent, working songwriter life behind me. A track record that meant something. And I was, officially, a free agent.

I knew my worth. I had always known my worth. The problem was I had never been taught how to exercise it.

What They Teach You vs. What You Actually Need

Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re coming up in this industry: the skills that get you in the room are not the same skills that keep you in power once you’re there.

I was taught to play small. To be careful. To be grateful for the seat at the table, not to demand a better one. “Be careful” instead of “be courageous.” The version of me that built a fifteen-year career was talented, consistent, and deeply conditioned to make everyone else comfortable — often at her own expense.

I didn’t know how to say no. Not to a bad deal. Especially not to a good one…⠀⠀

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It is exposure.

It is standing in front of someone without the armor you perfected over years of surviving.

Loving you did not simply make me happy.
It made me aware.

Aware of the fears I thought I outgrew.
Aware of the insecurities I renamed “strength.”
Aware of the ways I learned to protect myself long before I learned how to soften.

You did not wound me.
You revealed where I was still tender.

And that has been both beautiful and terrifying.

Because none of us arrive in love neutral.

We come carrying old stories.

Stories from people we dated who taught us that love meant anxiety.
Or inconsistency.
Or proving ourselves.
Or staying ready for disappointment.

And before them, there were even earlier lessons.

The love we saw growing up.
The love we received.
The love we did not receive.
The way conflict sounded in our homes.
The way affection felt. Or did not.

All of it became our blueprint.

So when something healthier shows up, it can feel unfamiliar.
And unfamiliar can feel unsafe.

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This year taught me something uncomfortable.

We live in a time where we are fluent in therapy language.
We know how to name behaviors.
We know how to identify warning signs.
We know how to exit quickly.

And sometimes that wisdom protects us.

But sometimes it protects us from intimacy.

Sometimes what looks like emotional maturity is actually emotional avoidance.
Sometimes what feels like clarity is just control.
Sometimes what we call self regulation is actually shutting down.

And it is easy to leave at the first sign of discomfort and call it growth.

But growth is not always clean.

Healing does not always look impressive.
It does not always sound calm.
It does not always arrive perfectly packaged.

Sometimes it looks like two people recognizing their triggers and choosing not to weaponize them.
Sometimes it looks like a hard conversation instead of a dramatic exit.
Sometimes it looks like patience while someone is still learning themselves.

That does not mean tolerating the intolerable.

It does not mean excusing betrayal.
It does not mean accepting abuse.
It does not mean enduring neglect.
It does not mean staying anywhere that harms your body or your spirit.

Deal breakers are real.

Safety is non negotiable.

But there is a space between harm and perfection.

And that is where real love lives.

It lives in the uncomfortable middle.
In the moments where fear rises and neither person runs.
In the humility of admitting, “That reaction was mine.”
In the courage to say, “This scared me,” instead of pretending it did not.

This year taught me discernment.

To pause before reacting.
To ask whether I was responding to you or to my past.
To notice when my nervous system was speaking louder than reality.

Loving you has stretched me.

It has shown me where I still brace.
Where I still expect loss.
Where I still confuse intensity with depth.

It has also shown me what steady feels like.

Not dramatic.
Not performative.
Not loud.

Just consistent.

I have learned that real love is not about ego.
It is not about being the most self aware person in the room.
It is about humility.
It is about accountability.
It is about choosing each other when it would be easier to retreat.

A year in love with you has taught me that the safest kind of love is not the one that never triggers you.

It is the one where both people are willing to grow when they are.

And that kind of love may not look perfect from the outside.

But from the inside, it feels real.

And after a year, I know this.

Real is worth it.

In relationships.
In co-parenting.
In work.
In life.

Every disagreement.
Every irritation.
Every “can you believe this?” moment.

And one day I had a very uncomfortable realization:

I keep talking about the same problems.

Same patterns.
Same triggers.
Same kind of chaos.
Same conversations.

And I remember thinking…
Oh my God. I am exhausted.

And if I’m exhausted talking about it, my friends are probably exhausted hearing about it, even if they love me.

That was the moment something clicked.

I Wasn’t Seeking Support. I Was Sharing Responsibility.

I told myself I just needed validation.

But the truth is, I didn’t trust my own judgment.

I didn’t trust my own intuition.

I didn’t trust myself to make a decision and live with it if it went wrong.

If I asked five friends what they thought, and they agreed with me, then the outcome wasn’t just on me anymore.

If it failed?
We all decided.

It felt safer.

But it was unhealthy.

Through therapy, I realized how much of a crutch I had made my inner circle.

Yes, they were there to support me.
Yes, they loved me.
Yes, they would stand ten toes down behind me.

But my life is mine. And mine alone to decide.

That realization humbled me.

The Group Chat Doesn’t Have To Rebuild What You Reconcile

Here’s the other part no one talks about:

When you vent in real time, your friends only hear the worst moments.

They don’t see the repair.
They don’t feel the apology.
They don’t witness the growth.

So when you reconcile, they’re still mad.

They’re holding onto a version of your partner you’ve already moved past.

And now you’re rebuilding something while your circle quietly questions it.

That tension doesn’t just disappear. It leaks into everything.

I didn’t realize how much that dynamic was shaping my relationships.

The Co-Parenting Wake Up Call

The biggest shift for me happened with my ex-husband.

For years, our co-parenting relationship was terrible.

We were constantly at odds.
Nothing was aligned.
Everything felt tense.

And before therapy, it was a constant conversation with my friends.

A lot of “fuck him.”
A lot of “take him to court.”
A lot of “why is he like this?”

A lot of complaining.

A lot of unproductive conversations around him.

Then therapy happened.

And my therapist said something that shattered me:

“Didn’t you say you wanted him to show up?”

I’ll never forget it.

One time I was sick, and he wanted to take Niko hiking.

And because of my distrust, because of our romantic history, I interfered with his parental relationship with our son.

I felt justified.

I called my best friends like, “I can’t believe this nigga thought he could take Niko on a hike.”

And they validated me.

Of course they did.

They knew his history as a partner.
They knew our history as a couple.
They knew how much he hadn’t showed up over the years.

So when he tried to show up, it felt insincere. It felt scary. It felt like, don’t play with my child.

But in all honesty, I didn’t give him a chance in that moment to change the narrative.

My therapist said:

“You’re holding the old version of him against him, even when he’s showing up the way you said you wanted.”

When I tell you that shattered me.

Because I had to face a hard truth:

I played a role in my own suffering too.

Not because I was a bad person.
Not because I was wrong for being protective.

But because my fear had turned into control.

And control will make you feel safe, while keeping you stuck.

That was the moment I grew.

I went inward.

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I Went Inward

Instead of running outward, I started asking myself:

• What am I afraid of right now?

• Is this intuition or ego?

• Am I reacting from history or responding to the present?

• Do I actually want change, or do I just want to be right?

I stopped narrating my life in real time.

I started sitting with it.

Processing it.

Regulating before reacting.

And slowly, my discernment got stronger.

How I Show Up for My Friends Now

Now when my friends come to me distraught, I listen.

We talk our shit. Of course we do.

But I also let them decide.

If they take the man back, I’m standing ten toes down with their choice, as long as they’re not being abused.

If they stay at the job they hate, I support them where they are.

If they don’t go to the gym after saying they would, I don’t shame them.

I’ll hold them accountable.

But I will not try to control their decisions to make myself feel safer.

Because that’s what I was doing before.

Trying to share responsibility for choices that were mine to make.

Support Is Love. Control Is Fear.

There’s a difference between community and dependency.

Between seeking counsel and outsourcing responsibility.

Between protection and projection.

My friends are my support system.

But they are not my steering wheel.

My life is mine.

My intuition is mine.

My mistakes are mine.

And so is my growth.

And once I accepted that, everything changed.