Six years ago, my life looked very different.
My mother was dying. I had just ended a long-term relationship. COVID was hovering at the edges of the world, not yet fully realized but already being felt in Asian countries. Everything felt unstable, heavy, and unfinished.
I think about that version of myself often. Not with judgment. With understanding.
Grief does strange things to people. It makes you reach for sensation when the sadness feels unbearable. There’s that scene in "High Fidelity," where Laura asks Rob to sleep with her after her father dies, not because it makes sense, but because the body wants to feel anything other than grief. I understand that now in a way I didn’t then.
When we were in the Philippines, my nephew and I ended up at a bar one night. We ran into a group of tourists. I met a man. Of course he was a scuba instructor. Of course he was Irish. Of course it was cliché. We made out. I almost went back to his hotel. And then I didn’t.
I was a responsible aunt. Or maybe just protected by the old saying that God looks out for fools and babies. I’ve probably been both at various points. Yes, I’m very gay. No, I’m not interested in unpacking the spectrum of sexuality here. That’s not the point.
The point is this: that wasn’t the first time I made questionable choices while drowning in grief. And it wasn’t the last. Grief doesn’t ask permission. It shows up in your body, your decisions, and in your longing to escape yourself for even a moment.
Six years ago, I wrote this:
"We are born of love; love is our mother.” – Rumi
"Our mom’s health has been declining quickly in the last six months. That is why my siblings and I have been in the Philippines. Not for vacation, but to see our mother. To tell her we love her.
We traveled 5,000 miles to kiss her, to say thank you. Thank you for your sacrifices, your strength, your resilience, your bravery. Thank you for loving us the best way you knew how. Thank you for letting us love you back.
Watching one parent die from a terminal illness is hard. Watching another forget who you are is something else entirely. Navigating a country where your language skills feel like a four-year-old’s, while handling culture, laws, and banking, is overwhelming.
We were sad. Frustrated. Exhausted. But we had each other.
My mother lived many lives. In the Philippines and in the U.S. She raised four stubborn children and, in her 60s, helped raise our nephew. Even in her weakest moments, she still made sure we ate. Because that’s what good Filipino mothers do. They feed you."
I read that now and feel tenderness for who I was. I was raw. Unmoored. Doing the best I could with a broken heart and a body carrying anticipatory grief.
Six years later, I am different.
Not untouched by grief. But more honest about it. More patient with myself. More aware of how loss lives in the body and leaks out sideways when it isn’t tended to.
I still miss my mother. That never goes away. But I carry her differently now. In how I show up. In how I care for people. In how I feed others. In how I try to choose presence over escape.
Grief didn’t make me weaker. It made me more human. It made me better.
And if I could tell my six-years-ago self anything, it would be this:
You’re not broken. You’re grieving. Be gentle. Stay. Let yourself feel it all.
I’m still learning.
Still healing.
Still loving.
And still grateful for the woman who taught me what love looks like, even at the end.
❤️❤️❤️
Lenten Reflection
Lent reminds me that God and Jesus are always in the margins. In grief. In confusion. In the moments we don’t recognize ourselves and make choices we don’t fully understand yet.
When you feel abandoned, maybe you aren’t. Maybe God is sitting beside you in the ache, not rushing you through it. Maybe Jesus is closer in the mess than in the moments when everything looks put together.
Lent doesn’t ask us to be perfect. It asks us to stay. To pay attention. To trust that even in wilderness seasons, we are not alone.
May these days be gentle.
May they be honest.
May they lead us toward wholeness, one small step at a time.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
I was raised Catholic, though my faith has changed many times and in many ways over the years. What has remained constant is this, my faith shows up in how I try to be a good neighbor. A kind, compassionate witness. A helper when help is needed.
If there is a God, I believe she would want us to do everything we can to make the world more whole. Even through all the bulls#it. Especially through it.
The Bible stories that have always stayed with me are the ones about being different. About choosing what is right even when it’s unpopular. About acting with integrity when people disapprove, as long as no one is being harmed. In the end, we are the ones who have to live with our choices. Every day.
For seven years, I was with a UCC pastor. We were engaged, and the main reason I’m in Rochester is because Kayla was called to serve as an associate pastor here. In many ways, I lived the life of a pastor’s “wife” for a long time.
We’ve been broken up for fifteen years now (which is crazy to type), and she recently marked ten years serving her two churches in OKC. That relationship was spiritually formative in my life. It shaped me deeply. Faith during those years wasn’t theoretical. It was lived. Practiced. Argued over. Wrestled with.
What I learned is that belief isn’t about certainty. It’s about responsibility.
She once said something to me that never left, "We create our own heaven and hell. We don’t have to wait for the afterlife to experience either. We live them now." As someone who actively manages my mental health, I know how true that is. Many of us have lived in a hell we built in our own minds.
Ash Wednesday is a reset for me. One of the few practices I still faithfully keep from my upbringing. Lent gives me a container. A pause. A chance to let go of what no longer serves me and to make space for something better. This year, that feels especially important.
In 2026, faith cannot stay abstract. It has to show up in how we respond to injustice. In how we organize locally. In how we protect our neighbors when systems fail them. In how we care for the Earth like it actually belongs to all of us, not just those with power and profit.
For the next 40 days, I’ll be sharing reflections and highlighting local people and groups doing the quiet, necessary work of mutual aid. Neighbors helping neighbors. Repair instead of indifference. Presence instead of denial.
We are made of stardust. We will return to stardust. What matters is how we care for one another and this planet in the time we are given.
Ash Wednesday Lenten Reflection:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?"
— Isaiah 58:6
Ash Wednesday isn’t about shame or self-punishment. It’s a pause. A truth-telling. A reminder that our lives are finite and therefore meaningful.
The ashes don’t say “you are nothing.” They say, “you are responsible.” Responsible for how we show up. For who we protect. For what we refuse to normalize. For how we love our neighbors and this Earth in real, tangible ways.
If Lent is a fast, let it be a fast from indifference. If Lent is repentance, let it be a turning away from harm. If Lent is preparation, let it prepare us to act with courage, clarity, and compassion.
May these forty days loosen what binds us, strengthen what grounds us, and move us closer to repair. As above so below.
Be well.
Stay safe.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
Before the flowers, the fancy restaurant dinners, and the Instagram declarations of “my person,” let’s talk about something less aesthetic.
Self-abandonment.
People can control themselves. They choose not to. It is insulting to pretend otherwise.
When someone says, “If you hadn’t acted that way, I wouldn’t have reacted like that,” what they’re really saying is, "I am entitled to hurt you when I feel uncomfortable."
Abuse doesn’t start with a punch. It starts with control. With blame shifting. With emotional manipulation that happens in private, while a curated version of love is performed in public.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth. Some of the couples we admire are not okay behind closed doors.
You didn’t “see that side” of them? Of course you didn’t. People who know they’re wrong don’t showcase it. They protect their reputation. They protect their power. They protect the narrative.
Power and privilege normalize abuse. Especially when it comes to men who have been taught that women and girls exist to serve, soothe, validate, and absorb their emotional volatility.
Let’s be clear in 2026, it is not a male loneliness crisis. It is a male emotional laziness crisis.
Loneliness is human. Emotional laziness is a choice.
Too many men were never taught to regulate themselves, to communicate directly, to sit with discomfort, to hear “no” without experiencing it as an ego injury. And too often, women are expected to do that labor for them.
We need to be better. And we need to demand better.
Love is not control.
Love is not intimidation.
Love is not surveillance.
Love is not “prove yourself to me.”
Love absolutely includes respect for a woman’s body autonomy. Always. No negotiation.
And let me say this gently but firmly:
Being single is not a failure.
It is not a waiting room.
It is not a deficiency.
If someone is not coming in correct, not adding peace, not respecting your boundaries, not making your life more grounded instead of more chaotic, why would you hand over your time, energy, body, and peace and pH balance to that?
You don’t owe anyone access to you just because it’s Valentine’s season.
Not everyone is having a happy Valentine’s Day. Some people are surviving relationships that are slowly shrinking them. Some are rebuilding after finally leaving. Some are learning to be alone without abandoning themselves.
Love should feel safe.
Love should feel steady.
Love should feel like expansion, not erosion.
Anyone who truly loves you will not treat you like something disposable once your presence stops serving their ego.
Choose peace. Choose wholeness. Choose yourself.
Flowers are nice.
Safety is better.
