One of the hardest things about starting over is that people remember you for who you were.
They remember the capable version. The confident version. The strong version. They don’t always know what to do with the version of you that is lost. Quiet. Uncertain. Unrecognizable.
And sometimes, neither do you.
When I left everything familiar and went to Kansas City, I wasn’t becoming something new yet. I was deprogramming myself from the life I had built. Untangling my worth from my usefulness. Learning how to exist without constantly proving my value.
I became a shell.
In nature, the caterpillar doesn’t just grow wings. Inside the chrysalis, it dissolves. Its body breaks down into cellular soup before reorganizing into something else entirely. It is soft. Vulnerable. Unformed. A little grotesque.
That was me.
Some friends showed up. They stayed. They didn’t demand timelines or explanations. They loved me without requiring evidence that I was “better” yet.
But not everyone could tolerate the in-between.
People say they support your healing, but what they often mean is they support the version of your healing that still looks productive. I was studying for the LSAT. Working at a coffee shop. Applying to law school. Rebuilding a future from scratch. And even then, it didn’t always feel like enough for the people watching.
Because when you stop performing the version of yourself people depended on, it unsettles them.
Most people don’t believe people actually change.
But change happens slowly.
And then suddenly.
Like a trash panda crawling out of a dumpster fire. Burned. Disoriented. Alive anyway.
I am still emerging. Chrysalis or dumpster fire. Choose your own adventure. Jesus jerk the wheel!!
Lenten Reflection · The Wilderness
Scripture tells us Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days.
Not to perform miracles.
Not to help anyone.
Not to prove anything.
Just to be alone.
To be tempted.
To be emptied.
To confront himself without the expectations of anyone else.
The wilderness was not a failure of faith.
It was part of the formation.
You don’t emerge from the wilderness recognizable.
You emerge honest.
Lent is not about pretending you’re whole.
It’s about admitting where you dissolved.
Because resurrection doesn’t happen to the version of you that existed before.
It happens to the one who survived becoming unrecognizable.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
I’ve been thinking about how imperfect I am.
Not in an abstract, existential way. In a real way. The kind where you replay conversations. The kind where you know you could have been kinder. Braver. More honest. The kind where you recognize that sometimes you really suck at life.
After my mother died, I fell into a trough of despair that lasted for years.
On paper, I was doing everything right. I had spent my entire professional career working in nonprofits. I was the person people called when they didn’t know where to go. I knew the resources. The systems. The people. I was a bridge between communities and the agencies meant to help them.
I was useful.
And I hated it.
I hated what my life had become. I hated that my worth had quietly fused itself to what I could produce, offer, fix, or carry for others. Nonprofit culture has this unspoken expectation that love for the work should compensate for poverty wages. That sacrifice is proof of commitment. That burnout is a badge of honor.
But I still had rent to pay. I still needed to eat. I still had a life to live.
Working for a nonprofit did not mean I took a vow of poverty.
And the longer I stayed, the more I realized something I didn’t want to admit. Sometimes we weren’t fixing the system, we were helping it continue. Filling gaps that should never have existed. Softening the consequences of political neglect and poor policy choices, so the people responsible never have to feel it.
We were asking exhausted communities to save themselves.
I was exhausted too. I was so, so very tired.
I had built an identity around being the strong one. The capable one. The helper. And somewhere along the way, I disappeared inside that role.
So I left.
I walked away from the life I had spent over a decade building and ran south with nothing but the quiet hope that I might still find myself.
That’s where I began to understand something Psalm 103 says plainly: “He remembers that we are dust.”
Dust is not failure.
Dust is origin.
Dust is what we are made of. Fragile. Temporary. Human.
We are constantly trying to make the best decisions we can with incomplete information. Most of our wisdom comes from misfortune. Either our own or someone else’s. Pain becomes the teacher we never asked for.
We are fallible because we are human. Not the other way around.
People love giving advice. Entire industries exist to tell you how to live your life. But the truth is simpler and harder at the same time. You are the only person who wakes up with yourself every morning and falls asleep with yourself every night.
You are the one who has to live with your choices.
Good choices. Bad choices. Indifferent choices.
You carry them in your body.
And yet, every morning, you are given another chance to decide again. To live another day. Good. Bad. Or indifferent.
That’s the miracle.
Not perfection.
Continuation.
Lenten Reflection:
"...for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust."
Psalm 103:14 reminds us that God does not treat us as our failures deserve. That compassion, not punishment, is the foundation. That we are not loved because we are useful. We are loved because we exist. Our value is in our humanness.
I had spent years believing my usefulness was my worth.
I was wrong.
You don’t need to be flawless to be worthy of love. You don’t need to have everything figured out to be moving in the right direction. You just need to keep choosing with as much honesty as you can.
With love.
With patience.
With kindness.
With grace.
With humor.
Especially toward yourself.
Because shame does not transform people.
Compassion does.
And most of us are doing the best we can with the version of ourselves we have today.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
People are often surprised by how much I love Jesus.
Not the way most Christians talk about Jesus. Not the weaponized version. Not the one used to threaten queer people or enforce belonging. The Jesus I love lived in the margins. The one who walked toward suffering, not away from it.
I’ve always wrestled with faith.
When I was 13, I saw images of children starving during a famine in Africa. I remember asking myself, if God exists, why aren’t they being saved? Why aren’t prayers enough?
That question never left me.
What I eventually understood is this... faith was never meant to replace action. We are the hands and feet. We are the ones who show up. Prayer was never the endpoint. It was the invitation.
Faith is not certainty. It is participation.
It is showing up even when your tank feels empty.
Our culture talks endlessly about self-care, about protecting your energy. And that matters. But faith also asks something harder. It asks you to trust that when you give what you can, something will refill you. That what you offer is not lost. That care circulates.
That’s mutual aid.
We give what we can.
We ask for what we need.
We trust that community knows how to care for itself.
I feel my faith the same way I feel the sun on my face and the breeze on my skin on a warm summer day on the golf course. You can’t see it. You can’t measure it. But it’s there. It moves through you. It reminds you that you are alive and connected to something larger than yourself.
Being queer taught me something about God that institutional religion never could.
God is not threatened by who I am.
God is present in how I love.
God is present when we witness each other.
God is present when we refuse to let each other disappear.
It takes energy to show up. It takes something out of you. But it also fills you.
Because every time we care for one another, every time we refuse indifference, every time we stand beside someone who would otherwise stand alone, we participate in something sacred.
Not because we are special.
Because we said yes.
💛💛💛
Lenten Reflection · Parable of the Man in the Flood
A man’s town begins to flood. The water rises to his porch, and a neighbor in a truck stops and says,
“Get in. I’ll take you to safety.”
The man replies,
“No, thank you. I have faith. God will save me.”
The water rises higher. He retreats to the second floor. A rescue team in a boat comes by and shouts,
“Climb in! We’ll get you out.”
The man says,
“No, thank you. God will save me.”
The water rises again. He climbs onto the roof. A helicopter hovers overhead and lowers a ladder.
“Grab on! This is your last chance!”
The man refuses.
“I have faith. God will save me.”
The water keeps rising. The man drowns.
When he arrives in heaven, he asks God,
“I had faith. Why didn’t you save me?”
God replies,
“I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”
Faith isn’t passive waiting. It’s recognizing that God shows up through people. Through action. Through community.
Through us.
Right now, my friend Sonja is raising money for We The Gente, an organization dedicated to empowering Latino individuals and families through education, career guidance, mental health support, and basic needs.
This is what faith looks like in practice. Not abstract belief. Concrete care.
If you’re able, consider helping her reach her birthday fundraising goal: https://www.facebook.com/donate/903744395895869/903744422562533/
Because sometimes the truck is a donation.
Sometimes the boat is mutual aid.
Sometimes the helicopter is simply showing up for one another.
And sometimes, we are the ones sent to help.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.