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 p

Asal was 6 months younger than me. She would have turned 51 this year, but instead she will always be 36. Friendships are strange like that. For reasons I never fully understood, she really wanted to be my friend. She saw something in me that she felt she was missing, something she needed in her life. Maybe I gave her a sense of legitimacy. Maybe I made her feel more anchored. I don’t know. I just know that the connection mattered to her, and eventually, it mattered to me too

“The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves…” ― Paulo Freire Signing my niece's marriage...