I’ve been missing my friend Kimi Serrano in California.
We talk on the phone as often as we can because she’s one of the few people who refuses to go back and forth on text. And honestly, I respect that. Some conversations deserve voice. Tone. Presence.
We’ve known each other for over 25 years.
That means she’s seen every version of me, from my mid-20s to now. She knows my flaws, my strengths, my stubbornness, and my growth.
And she’s still here.
That means something.
We’ve had adventures, laughs, highs, lows, and probably a few moments where we drove each other completely insane. She could tell you exactly how I’ve changed over the years. But more importantly, she could tell you how I haven’t.
She has been a witness to my life.
My successes.
My losses.
My terrible decisions.
Especially my terrible decisions.
There was a moment after my third (technically my 4th) girlfriend was still fvcking with me. Kimi looked at me and said, “What do you need me to do to make you see how terrible she is?”
And I said, “I don’t know… shake me?”
So she did.
And we laughed.
But the truth is, it worked.
Because sometimes you don’t realize your choices are hurting you until you see how they’re affecting the people who love you. The ones who are stuck watching you go in circles, wanting better for you than you’re choosing for yourself.
Kimi has always been that person for me.
She tells me the truth about myself. That I’m the dumbest smart person she knows. That it still surprises her how much I’ve dated, considering how avoidant I am when it comes to dating.
And she’s not wrong.
Sometimes you need someone who can mirror your ridiculousness. Keep you humble. And at the same time believe in you so deeply it feels like oxygen.
She’s been there through everything.
The deaths of friends.
The loss of our parents.
The end of relationships.
She was the first person I told when I was thinking about taking the LSAT and applying to law school.
She didn’t hesitate. “Good. I’m glad you’re finally doing something for yourself.” No doubt. No hesitation. No questioning whether I could do it.
That kind of belief?
It heals something in you.
For some reason, all of this made me think about an old Tom Hanks movie, "The Man with One Red Shoe." It’s an 80s comedy built on mistaken identity, bad assumptions, and pure chaos. A simple misunderstanding turns into something way bigger than it should have been.
Peak 80s camp.
The kind that reminds me of the simple, slightly unhinged adventures of our childhood.
Kimi and I grew up in the same era, just in different parts of California, her in San Diego, me in the Bay Area. We were those kids riding bike until the streetlights came on.
Drinking hose water.
Figuring things out in real time.
Trying not to get caught doing something we absolutely should not have been doing.
Because if our parents found out?
They would kill us.
Bring us back to life.
And then kill us again.
She was raised by an immigrant mother from Japan.
I was raised in an immigrant Filipino household.
We talk about trying to recreate the meals our moms cooked growing up. And how it never quite tastes the same.
Because it’s not just about getting the ingredients right. It’s the absence of our mothers in it. That’s what’s missing. And still, we keep cooking those dishes anyway. Trying to stay close to the memory. Trying to get just a little bit of it back.
I always laugh when Kimi tells the story about asking her mom for a recipe. It drove her crazy. Her mom would just say, “A little bit of this, a little bit of that… I don’t measure.” Yeah. You season until the ancestors tell you to stop.
I watched my mom cook the same way. No measuring cups. No spoons. Just instinct. Muscle memory passed down through generations. Recipes carried by ancestors. Adapted with whatever ingredients were available at the international market down the street.
We both had complicated relationships with our parents. But we came out of it with similar values, similar morals, and a shared understanding of loyalty.
The lesbro code is real.
I remember once, I was already in a relationship with someone, and we ran into a woman I had an… let’s call it complicated history with.
Later, Kimi asked me if it would be okay if she asked her out. Not because she needed permission. But because she cared about me. She wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything unresolved. That it wouldn’t create friction between us.
And that’s the difference.
It wasn’t about ownership.
It was about respect.
Honestly, if more people communicated like that, there would be way less messy queer drama.
And then there’s this whole other conversation happening in the world right now. You’ve got these red-pill podcast guys running around saying you need to be toxic, emotionally unavailable, and disconnected to be a “real man.”
Which is wild. Because masculinity, real masculinity, doesn’t have to be toxic to be powerful. Power doesn’t have to be loud.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
Respectful.
Grounded.
I’ve never wanted to be a man. I like the body I’m in. But I do express myself in ways that people read as masculine.
Probably because I grew up wearing my brother’s hand-me-downs. They just fit better. My sister was skinny as a child, I was not. And somewhere along the way, I kept what felt right and let go of what didn’t.
That’s all any of us are really doing. Curating ourselves. Keeping the parts that feel like truth. Letting go of the parts that don’t.
But we’re living in a time where instead of questioning systems, patriarchy, capitalism, all of it, we’re blaming individuals. Men blaming women for the “male loneliness epidemic” instead of looking at the systems that taught them not to feel, not to connect, not to be vulnerable.
Blaming people with less power instead of questioning the structure itself.
It’s exhausting.
And honestly?
It’s lazy.
But back to friendship. Because that’s the part that matters. What I have with Kimi is something I will never be able to replicate.
And I don’t want to.
Not every relationship is meant to be duplicated.
But what I do believe is this, there is nothing wrong with having high standards for the people you let into your life.
You don’t need people who envy you.
Or resent you.
Or try to make you smaller so they can feel bigger.
You need people who see you.
Who tell you the truth.
Who let you be exactly who you are, and still choose to stay.
What I love about Kimi is that she has always loved me without trying to control me.
She has believed in me.
Trusted me.
Let me live my life, even when it was messy.
And yeah… there have been some very cringey moments.
But she stayed anyway.
That kind of loyalty?
It’s rare.
Everyone deserves a friend like that. A friend who has your best interest at heart.
Kimi, thank you.
For all of it.
You’re the best.
Lenten Reflection: Two Are Better Than One (Sometimes)
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
Not everyone is meant to stay in your life forever.
But some people do.
And those are the ones who remind you who you are when you forget.
Who tell you the truth when you don’t want to hear it.
Who love you enough to stay, but not so blindly that they let you lose yourself.
Pay attention to those people.
Be that person for someone else.
Because in a world that constantly pulls us apart, real connections, honest, loyal, grounded connections are sacred. And worth holding onto.
Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other.
“The best way to look back at life fondly is to meet it, and those along your journey, warmly, kindly and mindfully.” — Rasheed Ogunlaru
Living mindfully isn’t easy. But what does it really mean?
The simplest way I’ve found to explain it is through something ordinary. Washing a dish. When you’re washing a dish mindfully, you’re focused only on that act, the feel of the soap, the water, the texture of the dish in your hands. You’re fully in the moment. Nothing else exists.
It sounds simple, but it’s not how most of us live.
Researchers have shown that multitasking actually reduces productivity. Our brains can only fully focus on one complex task at a time. Think about trying to write an email while on a call. You’re either focused on what you’re typing or what the other person is saying, not both. And that’s when mistakes happen.
We know this. And yet we keep doing it.
I’ve always had a strong ability to focus. At work, I used to ask for a few minutes to finish what I was doing before shifting my attention. I’ve learned that our time and our presence are some of the most valuable things we can offer.
Law school has taken that and turned it into something else entirely.
Most of my time now is spent reading, briefing cases, memorizing rules, and working through complex hypotheticals. It requires a different kind of attention, not just focus, but precision. You’re not just reading for understanding. You’re reading to analyze. To separate facts from emotion. To identify what is legally relevant and what is not.
And that’s where things start to shift.
Because law school doesn’t just teach you how to think.
It teaches you how to think like a lawyer.
Which means learning, very quickly, that what is morally wrong is not always illegal. And what is illegal is not always morally wrong.
That tension sits with you.
You read cases where harm is obvious, but the law offers no remedy. Or where the law is applied in a way that feels technically correct but ethically unsettling.
And then you step outside the classroom and realize those same dynamics are playing out in real time.
Like legislation being passed that restricts where trans people can exist safely. Framed as something as simple as “bathroom policy.” But if you sit with it, even for a moment, you know it’s not really about bathrooms.
It’s about control.
It’s about defining who belongs and who doesn’t.
It’s about using the law to enforce boundaries that go far beyond the surface-level explanation.
It's about using the law to enforce morality.
And law school trains you to analyze that. To break it down. To understand the argument being made.
My Legal Writing professor once said that she took cases she knew she could win. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re being trained to do, build arguments and win.
And I get it. That’s the system. That’s the job.
But something about that hasn't been sitting well with me.
Because if the goal is always to win, then what happens to truth? What happens to justice? What happens when the system itself is built in a way that doesn’t treat people equitably?
It made me think about something I’ve noticed, not just in law, but in life.
There are rules. And then there are people who benefit from those rules. And sometimes, those same people are the ones who get to bend them, reinterpret them, or change them entirely.
So you start to wonder… what game are we actually playing?
And who decided the rules? Old white guys, that's who.
Because if the rules are constantly shifting to maintain power, then maybe the goal isn’t just to get better at playing the game.
Maybe the deeper question is whether we should be playing the game at all.
Maybe we don’t win by becoming the best at a system that was never built for everyone.
Maybe we win by refusing to lose ourselves inside it.
By choosing integrity when it would be easier not to.
By choosing people over power.
By remembering that behind every case, every policy, every argument… there are real lives being impacted.
Because in the end, the only thing that truly matters is how we treat each other.
Lenten Reflection
“To be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” — Romans 12:2 (NRSV)
That’s where mindfulness comes back in.
Because it’s easy to get pulled into the mechanics of it all. The rules. The arguments. The frameworks. To start seeing everything as an issue to be spotted and analyzed.
But at some point, you have to pause and ask:
What do I believe is right?
What kind of lawyer am I becoming?
And what am I going to do with this way of thinking once I have it?
Lent is a season that invites us to sit in that tension.
Not to rush past it. Not to numb it. Not to over-intellectualize it.
But to stay present.
To pay attention not just to what we are learning, but to how it is shaping us.
Because rewiring your brain is one thing.
Holding onto your humanity while you do it?
That’s the struggle and that's the work.
Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other. 💛
Happy Day After St. Patrick’s Day!!☘️
If you were out celebrating with green beer and corned beef, hopefully you enjoyed it. It was also Taco Tuesday, and instead of going to a crowded bar for corned beef, I decided to do something a little different, something more on brand for me. I went and had tacos and a margarita, which is also why this is a bit late… I fell asleep. 😂
Which, somehow, leads me right back to golf.
The snowstorm really put a damper on my hopes for an early season. The weekend looks promising for melting snow, but not so much for courses opening.
I have a bucket list. It changes as I get older. I add things once I’ve checked others off. One of those things was learning how to play golf. I figured it would be a good sport to pick up when I turned 40. Because when you’re in your 30s, you think 40 is old, and old people play golf.
I thought it would be a great activity for my later years, when I retire… which will probably be never.
When I turned 41, I finally decided it was time. Learn how to golf, Vangie.
Because that’s how I do most things in life. Thoughtful delay, followed by full commitment.
I didn’t grow up playing golf. My athletic background was tennis, basketball, track, and a brief but meaningful era of intramural softball in my 20s. I’ve always been someone who can pick up a sport and figure it out.
Golf humbled that assumption almost immediately.
Hitting a tiny ball with a stick sounds simple until you’re standing over it, overthinking everything, and then watching it fly directly into the woods, the water, or a sand trap. That’s where most of my balls ended up when I first started playing.
And honestly, at the start of every season? Still happens.
But because of that, I got really good at getting out of trouble.
In the sand. Under a tree. Behind a bush. I think I even hit a ball out of a pond once. Because you play the ball where it lies.
When I decided to learn, I bought a cheap set of clubs because I wasn’t even sure I’d like it. My friend Amy Monson took me out to Lewiston Golf & Country Club (now Heartland Country Club), a small nine-hole course surrounded by cornfields.
There’s something about that place that feels grounded. Unpretentious. A good place to be bad at something new.
A lot of people assume golf is only for wealthy folks. And it is… and it isn’t. It’s not cheap, but it’s also not as expensive as people think. Private country clubs with $3,000 memberships? Sure. But I think I paid maybe $30 for nine holes and a cart at Lewiston, including a chicken sandwich for lunch.
Public and municipal courses make it more accessible. Like anything, there are rules and etiquette. Some places require proper shoes and a collared shirt. Others are more relaxed. You just have to check.
A lot of that comes from tradition. Golf has always been considered a “gentleman’s sport.” It started in 15th-century Scotland, with people hitting pebbles over sand dunes. It was even banned for a while because it distracted from archery before gaining royal approval. Eventually, it became the 18-hole game we know today.
Back to Amy teaching me how to golf.
She showed me the basics, and I mean really basic, and then, without much ceremony, we just… played. Because she said the easiest way to learn is to play.
I wasn’t good. Not even a little bit. I was terrible. I could barely hit the ball 50 yards. I think I was taking 10 or 11 strokes per hole.
I was definitely getting my money’s worth.
But I was hooked.
Golf works with how my brain works. I like seeing improvement based on practice and effort. It’s a game of physics. You hit the ground before you hit the ball, which I still find both fascinating and slightly confusing.
It’s also a game of feedback. The smallest adjustment can send your ball 100 yards to the right with a beautiful banana slice.
After about ten years of playing, I’m what most people would call a bogey golfer, which is actually pretty solid.
There’s something peaceful about being on a golf course. The focus. The quiet. The sound of my club hitting bushes and branches while I search for my ball.
One of the pros at the golf store once told me, “Every shot is a new shot.”
You have to forget the last one, even if you shanked it straight into a tree.
My body knows what it needs to do to hit a good shot, straight, 180 yards off the tee. But if I have too many swing thoughts, if I’m having a bad day, or if my mind is somewhere else, it shows up in my game.
Over time, golf became more than just a hobby. It became one of the few places where my mind actually slows down.
When everything in my life feels loud, law school, relationships, the constant internal analysis I can’t seem to turn off, golf gives me somewhere to put all of that energy.
It asks for one thing: focus on this shot.
Not the last one. Not the next five. Just this one.
And that’s rare.
Because most of my life isn’t lived one shot at a time. I tend to think a few steps ahead, considering choices, understanding consequences, figuring out what actually matters. And if it doesn’t, I don’t hold onto it.
Golf doesn’t care about any of that.
It doesn’t care who you are, what you do for a living, or how many followers you have on TikTok. It’s just you and the course.
And there’s something really honest about that.
Over the years, I’ve upgraded my clubs a few times. The first time was after a breakup, a gift to myself, because why not?
I even convinced my friend Brandy to love golf. She’s one of the few people willing to golf with me when the ponds are still frozen.
Brandy: “Why are we doing this?”
Me: “Because we love golf. And we’re Minnesotan.”
I love to golf with friends, but I’ve realized I also love golfing alone. It’s one of the few times my mind is completely quiet. I’m not thinking about work or stress. I’m just thinking about that little ball and trying to keep it out of the big pond.
But golf has also given me something I didn’t expect... community.
When I decided to join league, I wasn’t sure what it would be like. I just knew I wanted to play more consistently. What I didn’t realize was how many incredible women I would meet because of it.
Golf has this way of bringing people together. You spend a few hours walking or riding alongside someone, talking between shots, laughing at the bad ones, celebrating the good ones. There’s time. There’s space. You actually get to know people.
Some of the friendships I’ve built through golf have been real, solid, and unexpected. The kind where you show up for each other on and off the course.
And I think that’s part of why I keep coming back to it.
It’s not just the game.
It’s the people I get to share it with.
Golf is a lot like life.
One moment, you hit an absolutely terrible shot. The next, you hit something surprisingly beautiful.
It takes persistence. Patience. Practice.
Three things that make us better at anything.
I’m good at a lot of things because I love to learn, and I’m tenacious. I’m never going to go pro, but every season, I get a little better.
Golf even helped rehabilitate my back after my 2017 injury. I told my physical therapist if anything I want to still be able to golf. She said, "we can make that happen." My back isn't perfect, but it feels better than it did 7 years ago. And if you’ve ever herniated a disc (try 3), you know… it’s awful. Zero stars don't recommend.
Lenten Reflection: Keep Going, One Shot at a Time
Lent is a season that reminds us growth is rarely clean.
Romans 5:3-4 tells us: "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
But perseverance isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like quiet consistency. Like choosing to show up again, even when you’re tired. Even when you’re unsure. Even when the last attempt didn’t go the way you wanted.
Where in your life are you trying to play the entire course at once instead of focusing on the next shot?
Where are you being asked to slow down, to trust the process, to stay with something long enough to see what it can become?
This season isn’t about getting everything right.
It’s about staying in it.
Taking the next step.
Making the next swing.
Trusting that even imperfect progress is still progress.
The fairway might be long. The course unpredictable.
But you don’t get there all at once.
You get there one shot at a time.
☘️ Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! May your shots be a little straighter, your patience a little deeper, and your faith steady enough to keep going.
