I’m writing you this letter on behalf of all of us responsible for the current state of your heart. We’ve left you standing there alone, surrounded by the broken pieces of all the love you once gave us. Before it’s too late, before you can no longer find your way back to who you were and who you deserve to be, we owe you our shameful confessions.

We didn…

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It is long overdue that I recognize and celebrate a friend whose presence in my life has had real evidentiary value, proof not in nights out or tagged selfies, empty words, or selective intentions, but in the way she has shown up, is steady as a rock, can lead a master class in discernment, and made friendship a trust fall you can bet on.

Bitch, you’re getting your flowers.

I will share one very vulnerable and real story with you all. Although the event that transpired might cause you to feel somewhat sympathetic for me, that is not what you should take away. I have never been more proud to know, with unshakable certainty, that I am loved.

The other night, after not having slept for over 40 straight hours, with a very sick child and enough stress in my body to cripple an entire military regime, I had a panic attack. I am not someone who has panic attacks. I am not someone who suffers from anxiety. I am typically a very unserious person who has only ever thrown caution to the wind and used humor as an anchor.

It is concerning how little I experience anxiety.

So the other night, at the height of my sleep deprivation, I closed my eyes, and instantly, I knew something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I was terrified. I considered whether I should knock on my neighbor’s door first and then call 911, or just call 911. At that moment in time, I believed I was having a heart attack.

I was convinced that all my bad decisions had finally caught up to me. I have lived a life of the most feral and hedonistic kind.

I hope as you’re reading this, you are reading this with my dark humor in mind and the accountability of my mischievous ways intact.

Let’s continue, shall we?

At some point, I opened my medicine cabinet and decided that taking my multivitamin might help me score a few last minute points with fate.

This is how scared I was.

Apparently somewhere in the negotiations between me and death, I thought my Nature Made gummy might put in a good word.

And then I remembered something. I had someone I could call. More importantly, I knew she would answer.

Enter Jessy, full name, Jessica Clark.

Jessy has never required me to arrive as the version of myself that is easiest to love.

That might be the rarest thing about her.

She has loved me loud. She has loved me impossible. She has loved me when I was magnificent and when I was making decisions that would have caused a reasonable person to request some distance and possibly change their phone number.

She has loved me when I had something to offer and shown no agenda, and when all I had was a nervous system operating like drunk convicts running a carnival in the sticks of middle America set to the tune of Deliverance.

She has loved me at my very worst and never made me feel like I owed her an apology for it. She just loves me and gives me my dignity.

There is enormous freedom in being loved by someone who knows the whole story and doesn’t use any of it against you. She finds endearing whimsy in my nature and makes it seem like I’m less of a train wreck and more of a theatrical experience.

She knows where the bodies are buried. She insisted we bury them together. Some of them are probably metaphorical. For legal purposes, all of them are metaphorical.

But she knows.

She knows my history. My contradictions. My spectacular capacity for bad judgment. The places where I am most fragile that I pretend aren’t a weakness. She knows when I’m full of shit. She knows when I need to be challenged, when I need to be left alone, and when leaving me alone is absolutely not an option.

That is discernment.

Not agreeing with everything someone does. Not blindly cosigning every bad idea in the name of loyalty. It is knowing someone well enough to understand the difference between the moment they need the truth and the moment they simply need you to get in the fucking car.

At two in the morning, Jessy got in the car.

There was no negotiation. No annoyance disguised as concern. No “keep me posted.” No calculation about what time she had to wake up the next day. I was scared, she heard it in my voice, and suddenly my fear became something she was willing to help carry.

That detail matters to me. Investment is not something that I get offered very often.

The devil, after all, is in the details. That detail gave me a feeling of value and safety that brought me back. The panic started to subside. I started to feel I could rest.

We throw the word friendship around very casually. We use it for people we drink with, travel with, text memes to, stand next to in photographs. Some of those people become family. Some of them disappear the minute life becomes inconvenient, the minute your fallibility threatens to expose theirs.

You don’t actually know which kind of friend you have until inconvenience arrives.

Until you’re embarrassing.

Until you’re failing.

Until you’re sick, grieving, unraveling, broke, irrational, terrified, ashamed, or standing barefoot in your bathroom at two in the morning clutching a multivitamin like it’s the final sacrament.

That’s when friendship stops being a noun and becomes a verb. Jessy is a verb.

She shows up for me, for all of us, again and again and again.

And I think that maybe, the greatest luxury I have accumulated in this completely ridiculous life of mine isn’t access, adventure, stories, backstage passes, places I’ve been, people I’ve met, or anything else I once mistook for evidence that I was lucky. I would now, knowing what I know, trade it all for the privilege of knowing that no matter what version of myself is at the wheel, the people in my life will ride with me till the wheels fall off.

In the midst of my random and rather jarring panic attack, my friend Jessica sat next to me on my couch, started doing breathing exercises with me as if we were both in labor, played me “Yellow Ledbetter,” and then sat there quietly, on the floor next to my bed, until she knew I was peacefully asleep.

So yes, bitch. You’re getting your flowers. And not because you rescued me one night, but for all the things you want for me, for Evie, and for everyone in your life. You want us to be safe. You want us to look fabulous. You want us to shine.

You are extraordinary, in the most rare sense of the word. And yes, you are so very extra and so very far from ordinary.

You have made friendship feel less like an arrangement and more like something you wouldn’t want to do without me.

And Jessy, I hope you know this part most of all, your couch is beige. We can fight about it later.

Thank you for not letting me think I have to settle on just one version of myself to fit in a room. Thank you for giving all of them a place to call home.

I will always comb your hair.

There are few things left that can unite an increasingly divided and complicated world. It is almost impossible to inspire the emotional landscape of humanity from anger and uncertainty to euphoric enthusiasm these days.

I can think of two:

Music is one.

Music has and will always be a thing born of the creation of man that one can argue is proof that a god is in charge. It has the power to disarm us and embolden us, humble and revere us, and turn our vulnerabilities into masterpieces of the human condition. That’s a lot of power.

When music is involved, the burdens of our existence find relief. In laymen’s terms, everything sucks less.

Thanks to music, we can all agree on something. We play a song on repeat. We gather inside venues by the thousands, we sing our lungs out. We all commiserate, purge, sob, transcend, vent, liberate, cleanse, and celebrate…together. No questions asked.

There is no quicker path to gratitude and aliveness than the song that leads you there. And those songs, belong to all of us. No one can rule over them with complete ownership. That’s one less thing we all need to fight over.

There’s something else happening right now. Something so obvious that it may even come off as ridiculous. But there is no denying that it would be a mistake, one only a fool would make, to ignore what is actually happening around the World Cup.

Yes, the World Cup. FÚTBOL!!!!

It is disguised as just another sporting event. It is so much more.

What unfolds every four years is less a tournament and more a temporary suspension of division. It proves time and time again that we weren’t meant to not get along. It’s a blending of cultures so natural and joyous, that is becomes irresistible.

Wrap me up inside of this energy everyday. All. Damn. Day.

Billions of people direct their attention toward this one event. The streets are loud and crowded. Unhinged fans, drunken friends, complete strangers, and families, all share spaces, generating an irresistible esprit de corps. There’s a camaraderie, a tribal bond forming, and it is intoxicating. Nothing matters more than finding a way to be a part of it.

For a month, the world remembers how to gather, all bullshit aside. For that once month, we see humanity flex its potential.

So here’s why the World Cup matters.

Not because futbol is the most important thing in the world. Although, it’s a fucking beautiful sport. Half of everyone that talks shit about it would get eaten alive the second they stand on the pitch.

The World Cup doesn’t need our bullshit to exist. We need the the World Cup, to show us that we have a long way to go.

I’m a fútbol fan at heart. The game is exhilarating and exhausting. It’s poetry in motion and it gets taken for granted. The energy of the World Cup exists in the heart of every die hard, no matter the season, no matter the club.

But even if you are just now getting into it, I am so stoked. Humanity has been in the toilet and this World Cup has dug it out of the shitter.

So enjoy this moment. Get hammered at a pub with friends or strangers. Support a team, a country, a player, a coach, a lore…

Sing “Wonderwall” with England at the top of your goddamn lungs! Belt out “Country Roads,” with America. Row with the Norwegian fans at least once. Understand that watching Messi play right now means you are watching the greatest player the game has ever seen, say goodbye to the sport he has changed forever. We are watching a brilliant man live out his final chapter.

Bask in the aura of the World Cup as long as you can and then take that feeling with you and put it in your back pocket.

This IS once in a lifetime and it’s happening now.

Que viva fútbol!

One of the stranger flaws of being human is that we rarely recognize the best parts of our lives while we’re living them.

We notice them later.

We miss them while we’re busy chasing whatever comes next. It’s an endless and exhausting quest for more, and it will never be enough if you never stop to dig through the treasures.

Today, for reasons I still can’t explain, I noticed.

It was an ordinary Monday. I got up and went to work, as I always do. Lately, I’ve been very calm driving to work. I usually listen to music and let the natural air in through all four windows. The wind dishevels my hair, but I don’t mind it at all. I don’t need to be a perfect presentation of someone who has it all together. I just need to feel like myself. Sometimes messy hair reminds me of my wild nature. I stay rooted in that version of me.

Nothing was different about today. But it felt like it wanted to tell me something.

Every seemingly insignificant moment carried a little more gravitas than usual. I paid attention. I offered my presence to the day. I felt every part of it deserved to have all of me. I don’t know why. I just knew the universe was performing for me.

So I showed up in every way I knew how.

I don’t want to create a huge buildup, and I don’t want to oversell the story. The truth is, what happened today shouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me.

It was simple.

So simple that it kind of rocked me because it’s been in front of me this entire time.

The problem with us humans is that the things right in front of us are often the very things we fail to see. We can be such ignorant animals. It is simultaneously truly sickening and hilarious. We are a comedy of errors.

I have been so distracted by the chaos of my life that I’ve slowly spun myself into a state of overblown victimhood. Somewhere along the way, I started confusing having problems with having a bad life.

I am a psychopath.

I must be insane to think, even for a second, that I don’t have a charmed life.

I do.

It is not perfect. It is not easy. It is not privileged.

But it is charmed.

What happened today was nothing short of a reality check.

All the noise and bullshit rhetoric of old trauma and fear just… stopped. It went silent. Time seemed to pause, and I felt this rush of elation take over. All I could think was how very lucky I am to have the life that I do. If I were to sit and take inventory of the experiences I’ve had in my lifetime, I would be sitting until I die, frazzled by the task. I have seldom been bored for more than a minute. I have had an unbelievable journey.

Today, gratitude became the truth.

Not because anything changed.

Because I finally noticed what had been there all along.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing ever will be.

I am not doing everything right. I am not fully healed from the emotional wounds I carry. I am not who I want to be yet. I am not rich enough or thin enough or successful enough. I am not whatever it is we’re all told matters.

I’m not falling for that shit anymore.

Today I recognized the magnitude of the right choices I do make. Today I found a deep appreciation for the brilliance of my mistakes, the identity that is always under construction, the trips around the world that make life enormous, the conversations that came looking for me, the music, all the amazing fucking music, the little girl who picked me to be her mom…

I hate that we forget how lucky we are. I hate that what we lack has more power over us than the abundance of an ordinary day. I hate seeing life as a glass that’s half full or half empty instead of realizing the cup is refillable.

I hate admitting that I can be an entitled brat who keeps wanting despite already having more than enough.

I am over myself.

And thank God.

Nothing about my life changed today.

My bills are still there. My questions are still there. My flaws are still there. Every pain in my ass is still gnawing on my last nerve.

The only thing that changed today was my attention and where it was going.

Today, on an ordinary Monday, my life let me see that it is more than enough.

It always has been.

I am still a psychopath. But now, I recognize that I’m a grateful one.

As you get older, you start committing to life in a more dutiful way than you did when you still practiced youth with audacity.

You took more risks back then. You mocked the absurdities of adulthood and treated responsibility like a suggestion rather than a command. Settling down felt suspicious. Irresponsible choices made you feel alive, despite the consequences waiting around the corner.

Then, somewhere along the way, you’re convinced you’ve outgrown that version of yourself. Your appetite for adventure starts to feel embarrassing. Anything outside the expectations assigned to your age becomes something you quietly deny yourself.

You become the person who says, “I’m too old for that.”

You start to believe it.

There is nothing more dangerous to the health and longevity of your life than excusing yourself from living it because someone convinced you there was an expiration date.

I know too many people who became the adults they were told they had to be.

You can be a grown-up and still remember how to play like a kid. You can still see the world through the eyes of youth and go to work the next day and handle your business. You can acknowledge that before you were a mom, you were also a woman. You are allowed to be both. You can remember that before you started complaining about being tired all the time, you barely slept but still found the energy to go see that band for the 10th time. You can still have late nights with friends, laugh until dawn, and still respect yourself in the morning.

A lot of people I know have settled down. It makes me happy to see friends plant roots and build new futures. It makes me smile to know they’ve found a different way to experience life, even if they no longer crave the same things I do. That is wonderful, but be careful. It’s a thin line between wanting a domestic life and thinking it’s the only end game in town.

I still believe youth doesn’t die because we get older.

It dies because we deny it the right to exist.

The other night, I had one of the best nights I’ve had in a very long time. It was the kind of night I used to have as a teenager. It was spontaneous, random, and magical. It was a night built on impulsive choices and the willingness to make them.

It was one night. Twenty-four hours of stepping outside the norm. One sunrise and one sunset. One flight. One show. One friend. One never-ending adventure I’ll never forget.

There was an airport, a Paloma, a raccoon, and a college campus. There was Roommate Ryan. There were fireworks, beers, and a little theater in the park with a stage to lie on. There were conversations and there was music. There was a bar in a basement and fake IDs.

It was exactly what I needed.

I have a lot going on in my life. It’s enough to push my anxiety over the edge on any given day. I have responsibilities on top of responsibilities, situations nearly impossible to manage, and the company of strangers that surround me. I have a roommate who just turned 10.

I have to be an adult.

Or do I?

The answer, to me, is quite the opposite.

What I really need is to be a little reckless, a little unpredictable, a charming version of an unreasonable loose cannon.

I am not the type to ignore that.

And I didn’t tell a soul.

You don’t lose your youth. You tether it. The trick is knowing when to untether it again…

…and run.

Anthony Bourdain is a legend.

Whether you admired him or not, you wanted to know him.

Some people try to reduce him to the way his story ended. They treat the final chapter as if it invalidates everything that came before it. I think the opposite is true. It was his humanity, his contradictions, his flaws, and his constant wrestling match with himself that made people love him in the first place.

We knew he was restless. We knew he was haunted. We watched him circle the globe searching for something he could never quite name, never quite find. Maybe peace. Maybe meaning. Maybe evidence that people were better than the headlines suggested. Maybe someone to love who would love him back.

He may not have found what he was looking for, but in the search for whatever it was, he became the anti hero we started to root for.

He dared us to get uncomfortable.

He dared us to look beyond the borders of our own experience.

He showed us that the world is infinitely larger and infinitely smaller than we think. Larger in its complexity, smaller in the ways people ultimately want the same things, dignity, connection, a good meal, someone willing to listen. Love.

He was unpolished, unkempt, tangled in vice after vice, and somehow still hopeful. A hopeless romantic disguised as a cynic. He tried to encourage a less complicated version of himself to lead the way. Sometimes it did. Most of the time it didn’t. Tony only knew himself. Tony also knew how to only be himself.

That was his magic.

People often point to the contradiction. How could a man who preached curiosity, adventure, and engagement with life choose to leave it?

It made people think they never knew him at all. It was a contradiction so extreme that it devastated people’s perception of him.

Not me.

I understood him.

The words he spoke were not the words of a man who had everything figured out. They were the words of a seeker. They were road signs he left behind while trying to navigate his own darkness. They were truths he hoped one day would be enough. Looking for meaning gave him purpose. Finding the heartache in that was his demise.

He was a brave man with a broken heart. He knew too much. There was too little to justify.

He saw a world that could be cruel, divided, and absurd, but he never stopped searching for the parts worth saving. Everywhere he went, he collected evidence of humanity and handed it back to us.

A grandmother making noodles. A fisherman at sunrise. A musician in a bar. A stranger sharing a meal with him. A good cannoli and the kind of intoxication that only unfiltered, boozy conversations in foreign countries can offer.

He reminded us that salvation rarely arrives as a grand revelation. More often, it shows up disguised as an exchanging of truths between two willing souls.

To some, Anthony Bourdain is problematic. To me, he’s essential. Not because he was perfect, but because he wasn’t.

He was a poet and a wanderer. Curious as a kid and rough around the edges. Vulnerable without asking for sympathy, and wise enough to never think he knew more than you. He was sharp enough to cut through bullshit and soft enough to recognize the beauty of messy things.

He loved food, music, art, travel, and stories. He knew that conversations can be as intimate as sex and sometimes far more revealing. He treated people with nothing to offer him as though they had everything to offer him. He was kind to the right people.

To me, he wasn’t a hero. He was my people. A guiding force. A cross between a shaman and a troubadour if both were slightly degenerate and hungover.

I appreciated both his wonder and his wreckage.

He offered us a connection.

He deserved a better ending.

He deserves the entirety of his story to be told.

In honor of his raw candor, here’s what I know…

Live your life. But really really live it. Do not let the appetite of youth expire with age.

Forgive people for their flaws in recognition of your own, but be precious with your energy. Some people won’t know what to do with it.

Love is more than romance. It’s an agreement to jump, fall, get up, and face recovery together.

Look into scary corners. Move slowly when you need to, but act when it’s time. Find a rhythm.

Surrender to music. Let it do things to you. Let it be more than what’s playing.

Eat without guilt.

Talk to strangers.

Learn to listen.

Move your body as a promise to longevity.

Stay curious. There is more to everything. There are stories waiting for you to find. Exploration adds value to living.

Learning new things makes you more interesting. Ask more questions, especially when you aren’t really interested.

This world is ours for the taking. If misery is all you ever find, you’re probably looking in the wrong places. Find a better direction.

Loading a dishwasher is architecture. The little things in life deserve attention too. Everything you do is who you are.

You can’t be an icon without standing in honor. Bad asses know that dignity is power.

Sweet and salty combinations are little tokens from heaven.

Time works. Let it. Get out of its way.

You will survive things you are convinced you won’t survive. Then you’ll help someone else get through it.

You will eventually laugh about someone you once thought you’d never get over.

Boredom is a fate worse than death. Master that and you will have an advantage.

Have better manners.

Be yourself. Not a lot of people have the audacity to.

Water is magic. Keep it all around you.

There is a difference between loving travel and knowing how to travel. Figure it out.

Always leave with a smile.

Take the high road more often. There’s less traffic.

Don’t make a mess of the toothpaste.

Anthony Bourdain got the ending wrong, but he got an lot of the in between right.

No one inspires millions to embrace and pursue the art of living more than Anthony Bourdain.

Suck the marrow from life and let it drip down your chin. Then, go back for one more bite.

Exhaust yourself by the pursuit of life.

For Tony.

If I had a dating profile, my user name would be NOTINTERESTED247.

Unless you are Ryan Gosling or his second coming, I might as well have no pulse, I am dead inside.

Ok, that’s dramatic, I am not “dead” inside, it’s simply not where my interests lie.

I have an acquaintance who I don’t see very often, but every time I see her, her first question always has to do with a guy or my dating life. I hadn’t seen her in a while. We re-connected on social media and her very first question was, “So are you dating?”. I saw her just the other day and she said I was glowing and then inquired about my dating life because to her, if I have a glow, it must be a guy that activated the radiance.

I smile at her and make some joke and then I try and get out as fast as I possibly can.

She loves love. She’s a romantic. I don’t fault her for that. I just wish she would ask me a more interesting question. The truth is, I love love too. I had a bad run and it left me less than enthusiastic when it comes to investing my time in anyone. I figure, if there should occur a spark with someone, I will feel it and I’ll decide where to go from there. Maybe I’ll keep it casual to avoid any mess. I don’t know. For now, my priority is my daughter, my music, and the ongoing art of being alive.

Music is one of the great loves of my life. People underestimate its influence on me. I don’t experience emptiness the way others describe it. I rarely feel lonely.

I have my songs.

I live a full and cinematic life. I don’t spend much time trying to fill voids because I don’t feel many of them. I find romance everywhere. In foreign cities. In crowded venues. In fleeting, yet surprising conversations. In the smile of a stranger. Even in the mundane, I can usually find something worth falling in love with. Everything can be a moment with the right mindset.

I fall in love a thousand times a day.

Love itself is extraordinary. I want everyone to find it, feel it, and lose themselves in it at least once. I have nothing against hopeless romantics. They’re adorable. It’s a noble pursuit, best undertaken with a touch of delusion and a sprinkle of naïveté. Complete realism tends to kill the vibe. There is no magic where logic is applied.

Unfortunately, I am a mere mortal and therefore susceptible to all the same emotional catastrophes as everyone else. But my last one re-arranged me and I am not drawn to the experience. At best, I am love-curious.

I hope to find someone that gets me. I hope to find someone who sees me and spares me the audition. I hope to meet someone who understands my particular brand of crazy and finds it endearing. I hope we go on adventures like the ones I already have.

And when I say, “Hope to find,” what I really mean is, he’s gonna have to find me.

He will have a nice smile, an elite sense of humor, his shit together, and the kind of fascination with me that doesn’t expire. He will be kind to strangers. He will prefer me in sweats and a baseball cap. He will surf my moods not because he has to, but because he understands all of my languages. He will know that sometimes I need to dance on tables in foreign countries until the sun comes up, jump in the ocean as the sun rises, and get lost in the world. He will also know that a lot of the time I just want to feel safe at home.

He is exists, somewhere. I’ll most likely bump into him some day.

He will love watching me charm a room and the next day want nothing to do with people. He will know that I need to be feral all the time. He will know how to make that part of me rest. He will appreciate the little things that no one else sees and he will hold my hand with pride, not obligation.

We will have an unconditional partnership built with trust and held together by the same thirst for a life well lived. It will be a love for the ages. Remarkable.

Most importantly, he will love and cherish, my daughter, as if she were his own.

Until that day comes, my life is already remarkable. I make it so. I live with intention. I demand significance.

So if you see me, and I have a glow about me, you should assume that it is just another day in my life. Maybe I just drove with the windows down and my hair loose, listening to a banger of a song. Maybe I’m just having an ordinary day.

And maybe, that glow is because I’m just happy. And I have everything to do with it.

No one is who they say they are.

Not because they are dishonest, but because no human being can be accurately summarized by a single description of themselves.

We spend our lives trying to arrive at a conclusion. We want to know who we are. We search for a definition, a label, a singular self that can withstand every circumstance and explain every contradiction. We want an answer that remains true no matter where we stand, who we love, what we fear, or what life asks of us.

But people are not conclusions.

People are interpretations.

The mistake is believing there is one definitive version of you hiding beneath the surface, waiting to be discovered. As though if you dig deep enough, you’ll eventually uncover the final draft. The permanent self. The unchanging truth.

There is no final draft.

There is only context.

The person you become when your heart is broken is not the person who emerges when you fall in love. The version of you that stands before a crowd is not the same version that lies awake at three in the morning negotiating with doubt. The self that exists in grief speaks a different language than the self that exists when you are happy.

None of them are real without the moment that they are existing in. None of them are real permanently.

Every version is a performance.

And they are all real for a time.

We are not singular beings moving through life. We are a collection of versions, each one called forward by circumstance, necessity, desire, fear, ambition, wonder, survival, and love, and the relationships that shape us.

Some versions are fleeting. Some stay for decades. Some arrive unexpectedly and alter the course of our lives forever. Some are shitty. Some are enlightened.

The tragedy is not that we contain so many selves.

The tragedy is believing we are only one.

Because the moment you become convinced you know exactly who you are, you stop allowing yourself to become who you might be.

I think we spend too much of our time trying to arrive at a fixed identity. Developing a relationship with our own evolution is far more worthy of our efforts, and yet we lean in hard on constructing a persona.

To know yourself is not to define yourself. It is to recognize your patterns, honor your contradictions, and make peace with the fact that you are both the author and the ongoing revision. You have to be the good guy and the bad guy. It is powerful to relate to both.

No one is one thing.

We are versions.

I am a very polarizing person. I didn’t fully accept that until recently. The entire landscape of my life changed in what felt like an instant, and suddenly I looked around and many of the familiar faces were gone.

Had I driven them away? Had I outgrown them? Why did so many of my relationships seem to exist at opposite extremes? Why was I beloved by some and misunderstood by others? Admired in one room and hated in the next?

The answer, I eventually realized, was surprisingly simple.

Every single one of them had a different version of me living inside their head.

Not a fabricated version. Not a false one. An interpretation.

Their experience of me was filtered through their needs, fears, desires, insecurities, expectations, wounds, and projections. Consciously or not, they assigned me a role in the story they were telling themselves about their lives. They made me from all their past experiences. In one room, I am one thing. In another, it is just as true that I am seen as…

The encourager.

The rebel.

The entertainer.

The disappointment.

The inspiration.

The problem.

The muse.

The villain.

The alpha.

The mess.

The wild creature.

The overly emotional one.

I played all of these characters at one point or another, sometimes without changing a thing about myself.

What changed was the audience.

The same qualities that make one person trust you can make another resent you. The same independence that inspires one person can make another feel abandoned. The same honesty that one person finds refreshing, another may view as threatening.

We like to believe people see us as we are.

More often, they see us as we intersect with their own versions of themselves.

That realization changed everything for me.

Not because it made me cynical, but because it made me free.

I stopped trying to manage every interpretation. I stopped exhausting myself trying to reconcile conflicting versions of myself that existed in the minds of others. I stopped believing it was my responsibility to be understood by everyone.

I know the person I want to be in every story is the one that does not give one single fuck. She is who I respect the most.

It is impossible to be one person in a world where billions of different stories are being told about you.

You are not one version.

Neither am I.

We are a thousand interpretations moving through a thousand different minds, while privately carrying an identity that is still evolving inside our own.

I have spent far too much of my life apologizing for my various versions. Trying to explain them. Defend them. Reconcile them. Trying to understand why someone chose one version of me and promoted it to the status of definition.

But no one has ever met all of me. Shit, neither have I. I’ll let you know when I do.

Most only meet the version that appeared in the context of our intersection. The version that emerged when our stories collided. The most convenient to them at the time.

Your reality of me depends largely on what you need me to represent.

The hero.

The cautionary tale.

The rival.

The disappointment.

The dream.

The threat.

The answer.

The question.

I think we are all guilty of filtering people through a self serving and narrow lens.

We do not experience people in their entirety. We experience fragments. Moments. Interpretations. Then we make the mistake of calling them truth.

The older I get, the less interested I am in controlling the narrative. I don’t give a fuck. I’m too tired. Just be exactly as you are. I want to be fascinated by every version of you.

Simply put, my reality is not confined to a single chapter, a single mistake, a single triumph, or a single explanation.

My reality is the sum of every version that ever existed.

The brave one and the frightened one.

The wise one and the reckless one.

The admired one and the misunderstood one.

The version that stayed.

The version that left.

The version that survived.

The version that became.

All of them are mine.

Every single version.

I can be whatever suits your narrative. And that’s none of my business, nor is it my problem.

Forget it. Forget everything. Forget whatever you’ve been taught. Burn it all to the ground. So let’s. Let’s destroy the structure itself and completely lose our goddamn minds. Let’s disassociate from this reality and exist in a new one. Let’s make our own rules. Our “fearless” leaders seem to be doing it, why not the rest of us. Let’s really show them what happens when we all agree to go feral and do as we please. Let’s show ourselves all the pleasures we deserve. Let’s stop asking for permission followed by a please. Instead, if it pleases, then do.

Let’s embrace rebellion. Let’s play the music so loud that it’s offensive to clear thinking. Let’s demand from ourselves unshakable free behavior. Let’s say fuck it as often as possible, let’s let those chips fall where they may, and lets see where caution lands when left to the whimsy of the wind. Let’s not just “live a little”, let’s live a lot and on goddamn purpose. Let’s do it with chutzpah. Let’s be deranged and charismatic. Let’s.

Let’s leave survival to the amateurs and thrive in deviance. Let’s jump into cold bodies of water, dance inside rings of chaos, flirt with risk, and let’s be exactly ourselves. To hell with insecurities and awkwardness; Death to holding back and being too scared to be happy. Let’s just say fuck that and let’s say it on the count of 3. Let’s not forget that we are all on borrowed time and let’s not let anyone waste what time we have. Let’s finally just say fuck it.

Let’s eat pancakes for dinner and devour steaks for breakfast. Let’s wear the band’s shirt to the band’s show because who fucking cares and why is that even a thing?! Let’s have our cake and eat it too, let’s say exactly what we’re thinking, let’s break every rule. Let’s make shit uncomfortable. Let’s make it all matter because it seems nothing does. Let’s find the gifts hidden inside embarrassing moments. Let’s just have a real good time, all the time. Let’s not blame it on the moon or the planets, let’s blame no one and let’s take credit. Let’s. Let’s finally say fuck it.

On the count of 3…

An intense, uncontrollable desire for freedom.

I stumbled across this word and felt relief wash over me. I thought I was alone in this relentless need for emancipation, this refusal to be pinned down by routine, expectation, or ownership of any kind. But if there’s a word for it, there must be others like me wandering around with the same wildfire under their skin.

Ordinary life has always felt like captivity to me. Not because I’m incapable of commitment, but because I cannot breathe inside cages disguised as convention. Something inside me starts clawing at the walls the moment life becomes too predictable, too performative, too obedient.

I do not believe we were given free will just to spend our lives asking permission.

People misunderstand freedom. They think it means recklessness, irresponsibility, chaos. It doesn’t. Freedom is sovereignty over the self. It’s refusing to let fear, guilt, grief, resentment, expectations, or the opinions of strangers take permanent residence in your mind. It’s choosing instinct over practicality. It’s politely declining lives that look good on paper but feel like spiritual death when you try them on.

Freedom is forgiving people who wounded you so they no longer have access to your peace.
Freedom is refusing to build an identity around singular experiences.
Freedom is walking away from anything that asks you to betray yourself to keep it.
Freedom is becoming untethered from the need to be understood.

That kind of freedom costs something.

You disappoint people.
You unsettle them.
You become difficult to categorize.
You become a little dangerous.

Most people want freedom until it threatens their belonging.

But I’ve always had a soft spot for drifters, outlaws, bohemians, people who would rather sleep under uncertain skies than spend one more day trapped inside a life that feels spiritually dead.

The signs were always there.

The way I needed my own space even as a little girl. The way I avoided cliques and sleepovers. The way I never sat with the same people at lunch for too long. The way, to this day, I will find almost any excuse not to wear a bra.

One day not too long ago, I was driving down Laurel Canyon after coming home from Europe. Music blaring. Top down. Golden hour pouring across my face like a religious experience. And suddenly this terrifying feeling came over me.

I felt trapped by the size of my own life.

I could feel my wildness pressing against my skin, looking for somewhere to go. I wanted more than the world around me could offer. More movement. More risk. More music. More sky. More life.

I need freedom the way other people need certainty.

I need to follow my whims like they’re divine instruction. I need to buy the plane ticket to Barcelona for no reason at all. I need to dance while waiting for coffee at 6am. I need to move when music tells me to move. Speak when my thoughts arrive. Disappear sometimes. Reappear louder.

I need to be myself completely or not at all.

I don’t think I make sense to many people anymore. That’s fine.

I was never built for small living.

I am what happens when freedom finally stops asking permission.

I am whatever I want to be.

A Transactional Affair

My love language is acts of service. It’s who I’ve always been.

I help. I create. I grant. I facilitate.

I am an alchemist.

There is not one thing I would change about myself in that way, I don’t trust magic in anyone’s hands but my own.

An ex once told me I “overserve.” I give too much, I love too much.

Too much, a phrase I’ve come to …

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The last two years have been less of a chapter and more of a reckoning. I live a very charmed life, so when trying times present themselves, I am not put off by its audacity. Life doesn’t want to punish me. It wants to make sure I know what I’m holding.

Lately, it seems to suggest that I find it all too easy. It has given every challenge I could face an invitation to all show up at once.

Not in some grand, life-altering way. Just in the sense that things keep… happening. One thing, then another, then another. No real pause in between, no clean transitions, just a steady stream of “okay, now this.”

My parents, suddenly and undeniably mortal. My body, deciding it has opinions. A handful of health things showing up at the same time, like they coordinated it.

It’s not tragic. It’s just… a lot. And strangely, a little ridiculous.

I am not disappointed in how I have been handling it all. I don’t wish for some version of me that’s more prepared, more ahead of it all. That doesn’t exist. You don’t get to organize life into a manageable sequence. It doesn’t care. It doesn’t promise.

I’ve just been watching. Letting it all unfold. Taking it as it comes, without trying to assign meaning or turn it into something bigger than it is. I don’t want to practice my reactions or live in anticipation of what comes next. I want my hardships to be as surprising as my blessings.

Maybe it’s not that deep.

Maybe this is just what it looks like sometimes. A series of things, stacked a little too close together, with no real explanation.

The theater of the absurd.

Not tragic. Not profound. Simply the one and only rite of passage that we all experience in our own non-linear way. Beautiful, brutal, ridiculous. A story that doesn’t bother explaining itself.

So I show up for it. No rehearsals, no negotiations.

I will accept all my roles in this theater of the absurd. After all, there is no story without drama. None worth telling anyway.

The freedom to be exactly as I am. That’s what I crave. That’s what I refuse to deny myself.

Someone wrote to me:

“I wish I could be a free spirit like you. I wish I had the money to travel, to do the things you do.”

I wrote back immediately. Not to inspire them. To correct them.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing freedom with access.

As if a plane ticket were a personality.

As if money were the source of a liberated life.

It isn’t.

Money makes movement easier. More comfortable. More spontaneous.

But comfort has never been the requirement for freedom.

Desire is.

The decision to live fully. To want all of it, the risk, the beauty, the uncertainty, the parts that don’t resolve cleanly.

That’s where it begins.

Once you decide, fear loses its authority. And when fear loses its authority, you stop waiting for permission. You realize there was never anyone to ask.

A boundless life isn’t something you earn. It’s something you allow.

I am a free spirit because I move through my life naked and curious.

Not where I go, but how I show up.

Dancing where no one else will.

Singing in my car with the windows down.

Jumping into the ocean fully dressed because I’m there.

Running toward things, not watching from the sidelines.

Choosing expression over explanation.

Meeting moments with vulnerability and gratitude, even when I’m being judged. Especially then.

Stepping into the rain instead of waiting for it to pass.

Saying yes to the life in front of me, as it is.

I am a proud bohemian. My purpose is simple: to live. If I do it well, my life won’t need defending. It will need more time.

If the way I live challenges you, good.

Rise to the occasion. That’s what we’re here for.

*Written to “Mangetout” by Wet Leg.

I am happily not involved in a relationship at the moment. At least not the kind so many people I know chase with desperate delusion and settle for with bittersweet surrender. I don’t want that. I don’t think they do either, but I can’t fault them for wanting to feel the warmth of companionship. I can’t blame anyone for looking for love. Love feels like…

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There are a few songs that circle me when something in my head needs to click, when I need influence. Not new songs, not the ones the algorithm is trying to sell me, just the ones that show up and refuse to leave. The kind that follow you around like ghosts or old friends who know too much. They feel less like music and more like company, like they’re quietly keeping me aligned with something when everything else feels a little off. It’s a good thing. It always is.

This one showed up one day and never let go. James. “Getting Away With It (All Messed Up).” It comes and goes as it pleases. It’s never finished with me.

I didn’t fall for it gently. It was immediate and physical. The first time I heard it, it felt less like listening and more like getting hit in the chest. Some songs you admire or analyze or file away as “good.” This one I wanted to bite. Not metaphorically. Literally. Sink my teeth into it and come up bloody. It had that strange feeling where life seems to leak out of you and rush back in at the same time, that thin line between exhaustion and euphoria. I didn’t even register the lyrics at first. It bypassed language and went straight to my nervous system. Also, I never knew James had any other songs besides “Laid.” I bet most people don’t.

Later, when the obsession cooled into something steadier, I went back and actually listened. That’s when the line caught me: “We’re getting away with it, all messed up. That’s the living.”

It stopped me cold because it’s so unromantic and unsentimental. No self-help, no triumph, no “everything happens for a reason” nonsense. Just this quiet, tossed-off admission that none of us really has this figured out and somehow we’re still here anyway. We’re making a fucking mess and still, miraculously, scraping by. Aren’t we though?

We’re not mastering life. Even as adults, we’re improvising. We drag ourselves through heartbreaks and bad decisions and jobs that drain us and bodies that ache and plans that collapse halfway through. We screw it up constantly. We lose people. We outgrow versions of ourselves. We duct-tape the whole operation together while it’s already in motion and hope it holds. We sell our souls for validation and sometimes completely shit all over the things we should be grateful for. Some might say we’re monsters. Some might say we’re imbeciles. We’re both, because we’re human.

And somehow we get by. Somehow we navigate the human experience.

Not beautifully. Not cleanly. But it flies.

We wake up. We love people. We try again. We survive things we were sure would finish us. We keep showing up with whatever energy we’ve got left. No grand plan. Just momentum.

That line feels like the most honest description of adulthood I’ve ever heard. Not “I nailed it.” More like, “I don’t know how I’m still standing, but I am.”

Getting away with it. All of it a little crooked, a little chaotic, a little bruised. Still moving. Still dancing when the right song comes on. Still alive when we probably shouldn’t be. Still putting one foot in front of the other when we don’t even know where we’re going.

That’s the living.

It’s a disaster sometimes. But somehow, unbelievably, we’re still getting away with it. All messed up.

Here are some more things I know…

Sometimes life will absolutely come for you.

It will beat you down to a bloody pulp and try to finish you off, your face pressed to the concrete, a boot at your neck.

But with one roar from somewhere deep inside, you’ll get back up like the bad bitch you are, look the fight right in the face, and fight like hell to get yourself back.

Magic hour in Los Angeles on a perfect day can be the best in the world.

Effortless conversations with good people, under open air, surrounded by music and delicious food, can refresh your perspective and reinvigorate your soul.

People who honk their horns in bumper-to-bumper traffic are actual c*nts.

Cursing is sometimes necessary to drive the point home.

Learning to do that without foul language is a talent.

If it’s not a fuck yes, it should be a fuck no.

Bad energy is everywhere and should not be entertained. Laugh at it and leave.

Good energy is also everywhere. You just have to find it. When you do, let it open you.

Over-the-ear headphones are way better than AirPods. They also keep the monsters away.

Discovering new music is a great adventure not enough people go on.

Texting is dangerous. One day we all learn that lesson the hard way.

Writing letters is a lost art. It’s a love language.

Miscommunication should be addressed with a good attitude and a sense of humor.

Pointing fingers gets you nowhere. It also teaches people to lie.

How to make a grilled cheese should be discussed more, maybe even taught in schools. There is a perfect way.

Soft T-shirts are gifts from the angels.

There is never enough dancing.

Every day is full of these little lessons and observations that deserve to be collected, appreciated, and applied.

We miss them because we fixate on all the wrong things.

We’re programmed to see the cracks, not the light that shines between them.

I’ve learned that to build a good life, the kind you don’t constantly question or try to escape from, you have to slow down, embrace stillness, and look at your character. You have to sit with yourself and in all the mess and decide who you want to be. You find answers there.

What you do next is who you are.

There’s a difference between a life full of complaints and a life you actually look forward to meeting again at dawn.

It’s not that complicated.

These are just some of the things I know.

Everything is different now, and the strange part is I am the only one who can fully see it. The same streets, the same faces, the same sky, but the lens is different and that changes the whole story. Nothing is what it was. Not safe, not predictable, not wrapped in the illusion that looking away keeps things intact. Nothing hides anymore. I give everyt…

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There’s this song, a timeless anthem if you will, it’s called “Why Can’t We Be Friends” written by the band War in the 1970’s. It seems politics have always been quite a pain in the ass.

I am having an increasingly hard time finding my footing in these absurd, yes, absurd political times. It’s part spectacle, part extreme emotional violence. It is senseless cruelty for the sake of power. It’s the collective pandering to a man well past his prime, that needs to feel arousal in any form, so he sits back while his followers jerk him off and ejaculates all over a once great nation. I am watching too many people swallow it whole.

That is the hardest part. It’s watching people I know, people I love, people I sit in traffic with, people that like the same music as me…It’s trying to make sense of the fact that a lot of people think this is all ok. I know some of these people. I don’t know what that means anymore.

I understand we have different beliefs. I understand that we all have that right. We should. I encourage our differences. Somewhere within them is a chance to consider an alternative side and maybe even a chance to create a better way of doing things. Be conservative, be liberal, but be decent. Be open to understanding. Be open to each other. Be someone who looks at this administration, no matter which way you voted, and can clearly see that something is terribly wrong.

I hate what is happening. It’s hard not to feel disgust and anger and terror. It’s hard to feel sane. Shit, it’s hard to feel sober. I’m not reacting to “politics.” I’m reacting to values, character, and reality. I am reacting to watching an innocent woman get shot in the face, a woman that could have easily been me.

When leadership crosses from policy disagreements into cruelty, instability, contempt for truth, or erosion of norms, it stops being an abstract debate. It becomes moral, nervous system level moral. When it commits cold blooded murder and calls it self defense despite the evidence proving otherwise, we are now getting dangerously close to a point of no return.

The discomfort I’m feeling isn’t judgment. It’s integrity noticing misalignment. It’s also just common sense begging for an explanation. One I can’t give.

And yes, for a lot of people, part of the appeal of this administration really is the chaos. Not policy. Not economics. Not ideology. Some people who are in urgent need of therapy, are salivating over the permission to be cruel, the thrill of disruption, the dopamine of outrage, the feeling of “watching the world burn” from a safe distance, the fantasy of power without responsibility, and the illusion that they are better than someone who challenges their existence.

For some people, lunacy feels like aliveness. That’s not a small thing. Without this nonsense, some of the people behind it wouldn’t feel their own pulse. They roam the Earth sadistic and apathetic, and they need a playground for their unfortunate sociopathy.

You don’t actually have to agree with your friends politically, I know that. But you do need to be able to respect their moral compass. And right now, I don’t. That’s fucked up. Not only is this country being driven straight into the bowels of hell, but it’s also destroying some of these friendships and driving families apart. I don’t think there’s any turning back.

That loss of respect is key. Because once respect erodes, relationships quietly die anyway. They just die slower and more awkwardly. They die in different ways, but they die.

Look, I am not here or obligated to educate, argue, debate, tolerate, or stay close to people whose values disturb the shit out of me. And I mean disturb as in there’s a monster under my bed disturb. It’s that feeling you get when you’re home alone at night and it feels like something evil is lurking. Do I pee in my pants, grab a bat, or run like hell?

Now imagine that evil is your fellow man. A friend. Someone in your family.

I should feel safe at home. Well, not anymore. Not even a little.

I don’t want to lose relationships that mean something to me just because a bunch of grown men are playing cops and robbers with their dicks out in the White House, that includes Kristi Noem by the way. I digress.

Regardless, I have to speak up. We all do. We can do it with as much dignity and respect for ourselves as we want others to also employ, but we must speak. We have to be the counterbalance. I can’t be afraid to lose you if you are willing to support what is happening right now because although you think it’s happening to “them,” it’s happening to all of us.

To the president of the United States this is all a game and we are all pawns. And if you are supporting him, you aren’t a teammate. You’re just another hand jerking him off when JD and the boys need a break.

Godspeed to us all. Or maybe a lobotomy.

This may come as a shock to some of you, or not at all, but I am a Catholic girl. Which I know is vague, loaded, and doing a lot of heavy lifting depending on who is listening. It took me an absurdly long time to figure out what that actually means to me, a realization that arrived tonight on a long drive up Mulholland, which feels appropriate because that road specializes in unannounced clarity.

If I am being honest, I am closer to a lapsed Catholic than I am to the dogma of Catholicism itself. I have not had any formal practice in a long time, if ever, at least not in my adult life. The kneel, sit, stand choreography of mass always felt less like devotion and more like a group fitness class. Church was detention with incense. It did not scare me off, though. Life did that on its own. Life showed up, challenged the clergy, and suddenly none of it was adding up.

I grew up Cuban in Miami, which meant Catholicism was not so much a belief system as it was a default setting. No one asked, we were simply informed. It went hand in hand with speaking spanglish, rice and beans, and the understanding that guilt was the lead singer of the band. Our parents wore large gold crosses and somewhere in the house, usually wedged between the iodine and the Vicks Vapor Rub, there lived a half empty bottle of holy water, just in case one of us took the Lord’s name in vain and burst into flames.

I didn’t question any of it at first. I was Catholic the same way I was Cuban, the same way I knew certain songs by heart without remembering when I learned them. I leaned all the way in. I went to Catholic school. I read in church. I became a Eucharistic minister. I sang in the choir. If there was a checklist for being a Catholic girl, I was hitting every box.

Catholicism, if nothing else, is a religion deeply comfortable with contradiction. It owns it with confidence. I fit right in. I spent my freshman year of Catholic school as a homecoming princess, vice president of the student council, cheerleader, and an undeniable pain in the ass. When I was not in my honors English class, I was in detention. I was a familiar face in the principal’s office, the one who wrote papers for everyone, and I managed to get expelled once, right at the height of my high school career, which felt like both overachieving and underachieving at the same time. I was the walking contradiction my religion helped raise.

I don’t remember the exact moment resentment crept in, but I remember hating confession. It was far too easy to lie and telling the truth felt wildly inefficient and unfair. Any time I trusted a priest with my deepest secrets all I got was ten Our Fathers and six Hail Marys. No counsel. No compassion. I hated communion rules. I hated being benched from the altar for not spilling my guts to a man in a dress and a cummerbund. I hated how transactional it all felt, like faith was a punch card and God was waiting behind the counter with a clipboard. I hated Ash Wednesday so much that I cut bangs out of pure spite, just to interfere with the priest’s aim. Mostly, I hated that none of it was ever up to me. I never chose God. God was chosen for me with very specific instructions on when, where, and how I was allowed to believe.

But I never stopped believing in God. I liked the guy. Still do. I just stopped calling it what I was told to and started calling it something else.

As I got older, religion became spirituality. It was not God anymore, it was the universe. It was not praying, it was meditating. It was not the small holy wafer or the boxed wine they called the blood of Christ, it was yoga and ayahuasca. It was no longer the Bible, it was Siddhartha and The Four Agreements. Religion became whatever made me feel whole, understood, and inspired.

Religion became music. Concerts became church. My passions became my faith. I never stopped believing in something bigger than me, I just stopped letting other people define it.

And still, I never fully let go of the little Cuban girl who once prayed to God for a Cabbage Patch Kid and a Sega Genesis.

Fast forward to tonight. Tonight, after what I can only describe as a biblically surreal evening, my dormant Catholicism tapped me on the shoulder and asked for a conversation. So I listened. I let it swirl around my head and tell me whatever it needed me to hear.

Tonight, I talked to my old friend God.

Here is what I realized.

Some of the things I believe in most are things Catholicism taught me.

I believe in trusting something I cannot see, something bigger than me, to guide my life in meaningful and unexpected ways. I believe that for this to work, I have to be accountable for myself. I believe in not hiding my mistakes, and how doing so, no matter how terrifying the judgment of others may feel, can set me so free that fear loses its grip. I believe there is such a thing as too much incense.

I believe peace should be with me, and also with you. I believe guilt can be a useful tool when it humbles the ego and a dangerous alternative to simply doing the right thing to begin with. I believe life is complicated and contradictions inevitable. I believe in free will and the consequences that come with it. I believe in taking care of each other despite our differences, and I believe that fucking up is not what defines us, what we do next is the point. I also believe it is 2026 and surely we can add some flavor to the Eucharist and maybe we can all chip in for better wine.

I don’t know that I would call myself Catholic, but I know it’s not the worst thing you could call me.

*Written to “Only The Good Die Young” by Billy Joel.

I used to love engaging with idiots on the internet. Truly. I treated it like sport, like sparring, like some civic duty where logic and wit might still win the day. And because I am a public figure on the smallest, almost laughable level, the idiots would come for me first. They still do. Anytime I formulate an opinion that is actually my own and post it on my own page, because it means something to me to express and put something honest into the world, the sour lollipop guild arrives right on schedule.

That is not even the point anymore.

At this stage of my life, you could not pay me to engage with someone whose sole purpose is to be right on the internet. This is their prom court, their battlefield, their sports arena, their schoolyard, their Oval Office, their very own parade of stupidity where they get to be the grand float. You could not fucking pay me to lock horns with the Toon Town trolls anymore. Time served.

I would have to dissociate from whatever intelligence I have left to get into a spitball fight with keyboard mutant ninja turtles, and I am no longer willing to abandon myself for that kind of nonsense. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is still a perverse side of me that bets her kicks every once in a while. But these days it’s more like a little dare to an innocent arm wrestling sesh than a battle to the death.

Today, I received a notification on Instagram that someone left a comment on a post I wrote five years ago about police brutality. Five years ago, I wrote a post condemning the abuse of power. Five years ago, I believed, perhaps foolishly, that calling something wrong was still a meaningful act. Today, a man with a photo of a current member of the US administration as his profile picture decided to resurrect that post and write, “How does it feel to be such a ridiculous bitch?”

Today, this man woke up and chose to seek out people with opposing opinions and unload whatever rot he has been steeping in. Today, of all days, he decided to make that his contribution to the world. Me thinks this man could not pass an elementary level standardized test, but his dog probably could.

Is there no statute of limitations for these purveyors of societal dysfunction? It is safe to assume that that is not the only dysfunction at play. I digress.

The world is, by most measurements, a bucket of shit right now. Violence feels casual. Cruelty feels emboldened. Power is worn like a costume instead of a responsibility. And still, I find this world just as beautiful, and just as worth fighting for, as I ever have. It’s just a little harder to justify.

One year ago today, our city was on fire. Literally. Ash fell from the sky. Sirens became background noise. Fear lived in our throats. And yet, what I remember most is not the destruction. I remember watching this city gather itself. I remember people organizing food drives out of parking lots. I remember neighbors opening their homes to strangers. I remember money being raised, clothes being donated, resources being shared without hesitation. I remember witnessing people choose each other while everything else burned. I remember that “I’ll give you the shirt off my back” energy that carries Los Angeles.

Today, while a power drunk heathen shot an innocent woman in the head, I also had conversation after conversation about how this city showed up when it mattered most. About how, when faced with collapse, people still reached outward instead of turning inward. We became the very version of humanity we claim to be nostalgic for. I am starting to wonder if it ever truly existed or maybe it was just something I saw in a movie once.

History tells us something important, even when the present feels bleak. The good guys do not always win quickly, but they do win eventually. Slavery was defended as tradition until it was dismantled. Women were told they were hysterical until they were given the right to vote. Civil rights protesters were called agitators until history named them heroes. Apartheid fell. The Berlin Wall came down. Authoritarian regimes collapse under their own weight, not because they are confronted by perfection, but because they are confronted by people who refuse to stop insisting on dignity. We have to insist on the duty of character.

History is not kind to those who cling to power at the expense of humanity. It never has been. It records them, studies them, and ultimately discards them.

There is a very obvious right side and a very obvious wrong side to be on right now. And if you are looking through the lens of humanity and still cannot see where you stand, then it is not the so called bad guys who are to blame.

It’s you.

It’s you for choosing comfort over conscience. It’s you for mistaking cruelty for strength. It’s you for outsourcing your moral compass to outrage, fear, and the illusion of winning.

It’s you for allowing the loudest and ugliest voices to shape the future while telling yourself you are not responsible.

Because history is watching.

And eventually, the comments stop mattering. The noise fades.

The trolls disappear. They go back to picking their toe nails and yelling at service workers.

What remains is who stood up, who shut up, and who decided that being on the right side of history was worth the discomfort.

To be clear, attacking each other on the goddamn internet is not a dignified means of fighting the good fight. The good fight starts with an open mind, a kind heart, and an almost aching desire for leadership that pulls us together and doesn’t revel in tearing us all apart because they simply can.

This isn’t right. None of this is right. And I care just as much for you as I do for me. That’s where I’ll start.

I don’t fight people on the Internet anymore, but it’s not a bad place to remind people that there’s definitely something we should be fighting for.

*Written to “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie.