Humanity
Dear Rudy
Dear Rudy Lee, During this season of giving thanks I wanted to write you a letter telling you how thankful I am for you. So I wasn’t there when you were born because, well I didn’t exist, but you were there when I was born. The most interesting thing about our first encounter was you tried to convince our mother to leave me at the hospital the day I was born. This might seem cruel to most, but I give you a pass because I did almost cut your eye out when I was just two years old.
By Joe Patterson2 years ago in Confessions
The Last Level. Top Story - November 2024.
Sam and Alex had been best friends since they were kids, growing up in a small town where the only real escape was through a screen. They bonded over their love for video games, spending countless hours huddled together, controllers in hand, saving fictional worlds and leveling up characters that often felt more real than the lives they led outside.
By The Kind Quill2 years ago in Confessions
Women on the throne.. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Iron Lady of Africa
The title of Iron Lady may have been given to a number of powerful women who have ascended to the throne or practiced politics, but Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former President of the Republic of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is considered the most deserving of this title on the African continent, given the challenges she has faced and the difficult path she has taken. She is the first elected female president on the continent, and with her she has led the country into an era of democracy.Birth and upbringing
By Kisama Riyo 2 years ago in Confessions
High demand
I have no idea why but several people were hot on my ass last night. Kind of like a fury of sexual desire and it was so odd because the person I liked really didn't even care or was more taciturn. I am not saying this arrogantly, I have options right now. I think most women or feminine people are like that right now, but for whatever reason it was coming off pretty strong last night. Like people sort of sending me ravenous messages like I was an oasis in a vast desert.
By Kayla McIntosh2 years ago in Confessions
THE POWER OF ALIGNMENT AND COHERENCE: LIVING A PURPOSEFUL, IMPACTIVE LIFE
Aligning with our greater purpose is frequently the path to true fulfillment in life. After years of investigation and introspection, I've realized that we're here for more than just survival. We must consciously align our beliefs, mindset, behaviors, attitudes, values, and principles if we want to live a life that has meaning, impact, and purpose. Our lives and the lives of those around us are enhanced by this alignment, which fosters transformation.
By julius 2 years ago in Confessions
Feelings
My friend asked me recently what I thought about him. It is a hard question to answer. I feel there were so many things that happened. Being with him is kind of respite from most of the chaos that happens around me. I don't even know if it will be ok to go to my grandma's house. I don't want to say I am using you because I care about your wellbeing.. The world calls me, death is assured. I want to be happy too, and I do like the idea of not always being terrified of things. But I know you won't take me where I need to go.
By Kayla McIntosh2 years ago in Confessions
Shortest Stick
Everyone has a bad day. I’ve had my share, but the older that I get, the more that I realize that there is always someone that is facing harder circumstances than I am. For instance, I thought school was pretty hard. I didn’t really fit in, and I didn’t really feel like I was a part of anything. I felt pretty insignificant. Because of this, I had a hard time connecting with other people later on. I was used to being judged, so I instantly figured that everyon that I met was judging me. I was used to being bullied, so I expected it. When I was about nineteen, one of the friends that I did have when I was in high school went to college and got a roommate. My friend wanted me to meet this guy, so I did. The guy that I met was nice. He was different from the guys that I grew up with, and he wasn’t as harsh on others as most people that I knew. This new guy started telling me about how he grew up. He had cerebral palsy, so he had a lot of struggles when he was younger. Mobility was one of them. So, while I was worried about making new friends, he was worried about if he would be able to walk. Then, the new guy told me about how nice everyone was to him in school and about his dreams to be a wrestler. He knew that having cerebral palsy affected the possibility of his dreams and instead of getting all upset about it, he made it work for him. Since he couldn’t wrestle right away, he became an announcer, so he could be a part of the sport that he loved so much. Instead of getting jealous of the other people that were able to participate in the dream sport he so much wanted to be a part of, he became friends with them. He tried not to let his struggles get him down, and he did the best that he could to be a part of the sport that he loved. As I got older, I met several more people just like this guy. I met someone my age that lost his sibling due to addiction. I met a single mother that got pregnant at an early age and had to suffer the loss of the baby’s father. I even followed the story of someone that I went to school with as she suffered a miscarriage. All of these people touched my life in a way. It helped me remember that despite the struggles I was going through, there were other things out there that people were enduring that were just heartbreaking, and knowing that these people were able to get up every day and do what they needed to do, helped give me the motivation to do the same. Life isn’t perfect. We all have struggles, and being there to witness other peoples’ struggles and help them if you can puts life in perspective. There might be a day where everything seems to go wrong and everything seems crazy and chaotic, but if you look to your left or your right, you might realize that someone else is going through a situation that is ten times worse than what you are. At least I did, and that made me more appreciative of my circumstances. I’m thankful that I was born in a country with clean and available water. I’m thankful that I have a right to an education, and I’m thankful that I have the ability to choose who I marry or who my friends are. Some people don’t even get these basic rights.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue2 years ago in Confessions
I'm Still the One
When I think of a good person, I think of my grandma. She was probably one of the best people that I knew and she was the type of person that was not only willing to talk to anyone that she met, but she was willing to listen to them too. My grandma grew up with four sisters, and her mom was the head of the household. Now, realize that her mom was paying all of the bills and taking care of all of the groceries during a time where there weren’t very many women that worked outside of the home. The concept is not only inspiring but motivating. Anyhow, my grandma grew up poor, and the food that was put on her table would come from the tip money that her mom, who worked as a waitress, received from her daily shift. Her mom would go to the store and pick up the groceries for the night and come home. There wasn’t too much of a fuss over what they ate, because they had to eat what was put in front of them. That was just how it was. When my grandma eventually started going to school, she didn’t like it at all. She got bullied, and if I remember right, I think that the only reason that she actually sought out to accomplish the task was for her mother. She met my grandfather at the tail end of her school days. He was in the military at the time, and since they didn’t have a car, he would walk across town to see her every day. The two of them married, and since they didn’t have a lot of money, they lived with my great grandma until they could get on their feet. They got a car, but it caught on fire, so they had to get another one. They eventually got a house, but my grandpa had to work two jobs at one point to afford their bills. This was difficult for him, and since they had almost immediately started to have children, my grandma was left home tending to the house and their kids, not able to help him by working outside of the house. At some point, this changed, probably when the kids got into school and my grandma got a job so she could help with the bills. This helped her, because she was able to make it so my grandpap didn’t have to work so many hours to take care of their necessities. She worked this job for several years, and then, one day, the place that she worked for was robbed. She was there during the robbery. She was there to hear the criminals walking by her and she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. She was blessed. She did make it through,but she suffered a heart attack right after the incident, and it was at that point that she decided to retire. Now, this woman had been through all kinds of things. She grew up poor. She had her car catch on fire. She had to live with her mom so she could get on her feet. She had to watch her husband exhaust himself working two jobs just to keep their house afloat, and she got robbed. Ironically, she was the reason that a lot of people in my family didn’t have to go through these types of situations. She made sure that the people around her were taken care of, and despite all of her experiences, she never wished them on others. In fact, I grew up not even knowing all of the things that my grandma had to experience. I just thought about her as my grandma. She was the person that brought me to the movie theatre and hid snacks in her purse. She was the one that would take me for the weekend and let me pick out a movie at the local video store. She took me to the zoo, and she even went with me and my mom when we went to see Sesame Street live and the Ninja Turtles. When I was young, I hardly heard my grandma complain about anything. I didn’t even really hear her cuss. She taught me how important it was to be nice to other people regardless of their lifestyle. She also showed me how to give back to the community. In fact, my grandparents took me to one of the first charity events that I ever went to. Her entire life revolved around her faith, her family and taking care of others. When she went to the grocery store, she would greet the people that she ran into. She learned the names of the people that worked at those stores and she listened to stories about their lives and gave them advice. During the holidays, she would even give the associates that helped her out in these places gift cards so they had a little something for themselves or for their families. She was also big on giving things away to the homeless shelters in the community. She would make blankets with my grandpa that she gave to the men’s shelter in the winter. She would buy small crafts for children that she gave to shelters that housed women and their kids. She would buy baby clothes for the drive that her church had to help new mothers that might not have the resources to pay for those items, and she would volunteer at her local church to help with the business affairs that they had to tend to. Though my grandmother helped a lot in her community, she didn’t forget about her family. She always bought presents for everyone’s birthday. She would do her best to search throughout the year for the things that each person liked and personalize their presents. When someone in her family needed a job, she hired them to do gutters or mow the lawn, and if there was someone that needed something simple like their car fixed or shoes, she would give them the money to get the items required. My grandma never had anything easy, but she was thankful for everything that she had. Sometimes, people were mean to her, and there were plenty of times where she experienced pain or hardship, but she never let that affect who she was. Up to the day that she died, she was thinking of those around her. She did her best to be a good person, and she lived her life in faith, bound and determined to be kind to the people around her and give what she could to make everyone else’s life a little bit easier. She really cared about others, sometimes more than herself. So, in retrospect, it is possible to maintain your morals and the person that you are even when going through a difficult period of your life. It might be difficult to do this, and the experiences that you have might take a little time to recover from. However, maintaining your personality, beliefs, and goals might suit you better in the long run, and it might even touch the life of someone close to you.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue2 years ago in Confessions
Open Wins Over Stubborn Shuns
I waited a couple of years after I came out to start dating women. First of all, when I was younger, there was only one woman that I was kind of interested in and she didn’t like me the same way. Second of all, there wasn’t a large amount of LGBTQI people in my area, so I really didn’t know too much about dating women. I also didn’t know what I was interested in. See, I knew the traits that I wanted in the person that I was dating, or at least I thought that I did, but I didn’t know where to meet them or how to start a good conversation with them or even how to progress these interactions into a relationship. I had absolutely no experience in this area, and most of the people that I was around were straight. So, I felt absolutely alone. Then, when my family moved to a larger city and I started working at a hotel, I began to meet more women that caught my eye. I started to make friends and I found a community of LGBTQI people, which opened my eyes to a world that I had never known. When I had first come out, I was told that I was going through a phase. I was told that being gay was against my religion. I was also misunderstood a lot. For instance, one of my teachers had an open discussion in her class where the students could ask each other questions, and I was asked who I was attracted to in that class. I felt like an outcast, and the way that people reacted to me coming out was to do everything that they could to put me back in the closet. There wasn’t a lot of education back then on LGBTQI people. They didn’t have any laws protecting people that identified with that group, and they weren’t really worried about hurting other peoples’ feelings. People just did or said what they wanted to, and if you weren’t the same as them, then a lot of the time you were outcasted. There were more incidences of hate crimes, deaths, and suicides pertaining to the LGBTQI community too, and there really weren’t any known resources that were widely available to the general public. The Internet wasn’t as big of a thing. In fact, the first Internet that we had in our house cut off the phone line and made a lot of noise when you logged into it. Anyhow, when I came out, I didn’t know what I was looking for or what would make me happy. I had hung out with a lot of men growing up, so I considered myself more masculine, but I didn’t really identify as butch. Therefore, the first few women that I dated were ones that considered themselves more feminine than I was and they were the ones to make the first move. It was easier that way, if I let them call the shots, then I knew they would be happy, and I would be happy for the companionship. At first, dating like this worked for me. I got to experience taking a woman out to dinner for the first time. I was able to have long conversations in the park, and it was nice to have the company of another person after a long day at work. However, after a while, I knew that I needed more. I just didn’t know what. I was tired of dating women that expected me to pick up the tab all of the time. I felt like I had to be more concerned with what was going on in their lives without them giving me the same consideration, and I also thought that in order to have a girlfriend, these were things that I had to deal with. I had to deal with constant chaos, fighting, cheating, and there were even a couple that treated me poorly when they were around their friends. I dated a few that needed or wanted me to pay the bill when we went out, and sometimes, this would break the budget that I had set for myself for the week. There were even times when a girl that I was dating wouldn’t talk to me again until I got paid. I had never been with a real partner, a person that was willing to pull half the weight, was equally concerned about my wellbeing, and truly wanted to experience life with me. Most of the women that I was dating didn’t really show a huge amount of interest in my life. They were more concerned about their own. They had a picture in their head of what I should be, and for a lot of them it was a stereotype of what a butch woman should do for her partner. The thing was, I wasn’t butch. I wasn’t femme. I wasn’t anything but me, and for a lot of the people that I went out with, this was confusing. I lost some of my respect for relationships around that time. I was tired of having to deal with people that were more concerned about themselves than about me. I was annoyed that there wasn’t give and take in our conversations, and I had a couple people that I had gone out with that were dishonest and unfaithful. So, after talking to one of my friends, I decided to put the idea of being in a relationship on the backburner. I didn’t want to spend my life unhappy and I knew that if I continued dating the same people, I was never going to get very far. So, I stopped looking. I stopped dating, and I just concentrated on myself and hanging out with my friends. I also talked more to a woman that I had become friends with at work. Now, this woman wasn’t always someone that I had gotten along with. She was a manager, and she replaced the job of my original manager, so when I had first met her, I told her right away that I didn’t like her and I didn’t want anything to do with her. Ironically, I worked a lot, and as time went by, I had gotten to know her better. We had similar experiences growing up. We had people in our families that were alike. We even thought alike when it came to our interpretations of the world and other people. It was uncanny. The more we got to know each other, the more I wanted to be around her. I liked her company. I liked to see her happy, and she genuinely cared for me and the things that were occurring in my life. It was an unlikely friendship, and the more time that we spent with each other, the more we relied on each other. Then, one day, I went out with one of my college friends. We hung out, talked, and the woman at work came up in our conversation. At the end of the conversation, my friend smiled and told me that I needed to tell my friend at work how I felt. She explained that the way that I was talking about her made it seem like I was in love with her, and if I didn’t tell the other woman how I felt, I might risk never knowing if a relationship between the two of us could work out. Of course, I shook my head and told my friend that I wasn’t going to do it. I was too worried about there being someone else or the woman at my work turning me down. I didn’t even feel like I was in the same league as the woman that I worked with. She was so nice and caring, and she really did want the best for everyone. There was no way that a woman like that would want to be in a relationship with me. However, my college friend insisted that I talk to the woman at my work and tell her how I felt even after I told her that I couldn’t do it, and those words swirled around my head for the next few days, making me wonder if I should have that conversation. After a few days, I went to work and the woman that I had grown close to at work told me that she needed to talk to me. I agreed to conversate in private, and the two of us went to the back of the building. As I looked at this woman, the woman that I had slowly become friends with, the woman that had won my heart, I wondered why she looked so nervous. I could tell by the expression on her face that something was up, and I knew that if she had a look like that then it probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that I had feelings for her. She began to talk, and then, she would stop. The anticipation of what she had to tell me was making me anxious, so anxious that I started guessing what she was going to tell me, because waiting for her to tell me was too difficult to handle. After a few bad guesses, she finally told me what she had to say. She was in love with me, and she wanted to pursue a relationship. I was astounded. I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I wanted to date her. She was unlike any woman that I had ever known. She didn’t judge me. She didn’t have a preconceived notion of how I should act. She just treated me like a person. She cared about me. She talked to me about my feelings and the things that I wanted out of life, and I did the same for her. We ended up dating, and that evolved into marriage and kids and several other experiences down the road, and I realized that in the romance department, this was the woman that I needed to be with. She made me a better person. My faith was stronger with her by my side, and I had the freedom to be myself without being told what I should do or how I should act. I didn’t know what I needed so it came to me when I least expected it, and I didn’t have to settle for something that made my life harder.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue2 years ago in Confessions
Dear Virgil,. Top Story - November 2024. Content Warning.
The night ebbs on as sleep wanes. What sordid acts led to such restless ease? A past life? The former Selves. Or past lives? The previous renderings of my animating force. Perhaps generational sins, those passed through DNA. I feel the burden of my lineage. The accountability of restoration. The work of repairing what my ancestors wrought.
By kp2 years ago in Confessions
