I had some eye-opening experiences during my recent ten-day holiday for which I am very grateful — I forgot that some French women have shocked certain people when they choose not to shave their armpits. However, that didn’t stand out to me at all during my vacation in Dunkirk, France. It was my third time visiting France. The first time was a decade ago. I stayed in…

I wonder how many people will correctly guess my reason why before reading my story — It was the summer of 2016 and I had never exclusively dated any particular race, aside from the human race, in the many years of dating that I had experienced up to that point. Several years prior I had a friend, a Black woman, who was attracted to one of…

Clothing, judgment, and the weight of the world are a few things that people try to set aside inside a typical massage room — I used to be a licensed massage therapist for more than ten years. I can still hardly believe some of the stories I’ve heard from my clients, as well as co-workers. I have worked at a few legitimate, upscale spas that provide various massage and facial services to men and…

I know I’m not alone, and I wonder how some of you handle it — A recent breaking point was when my body was on fire, seemingly every joint ached, my eyeballs burned and my thermometer announced that I officially had a fever. I finally got some much-needed sleep and rest for the first time in too long. However, I could not stop thinking about…

This could be why your stats or earnings are lower and I think everyone here should be aware of this — I have written and published some very personal stories that I thought would never be mistaken as AI-generated. Boy was I wrong. My boyfriend is a cognitive scientist and a big fan of my writing. He has seen the success of my writing here on Medium go up and down…

My heart pounds harder every time I recall my close encounter with a gunman who had just shot someone — There are places I try to avoid in Philly, but never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen to me while in a shadier part of the city. It was a late, hot summer night in July of 2019. I had just dropped a friend and co-worker…

Emotions run deep and wide on this topic, but there’s no real need to run or hide — As a mixed-race person who has often been mistaken for being white or Hispanic, white privilege has been a subject of great interest to me since I was a child, long before I had a name for it. One…

However, everybody should know how to navigate the murky waters of guilt and shame, because, unless you’re a sociopath, the two can deeply affect you — Guilt is not something I have felt much throughout my life. However, my friends who grew up Jewish or Catholic showed me what it was like to go through like being riddled with guilt for one thing or another. I found it bizarre. However, the Shame Wizard (a reference to…

Not only happiness but deep satisfaction can be found, kept, and maintained by shifting perspective — The above photo strongly pulls at my heartstrings. The people featured hold a very special place in my heart for various reasons. I have also come to adore this particular…