I’m grieving tonight for the loss of Theia, a standard Goldendoodle who stole my heart twelve years and five months ago when she arrived high and dry on a Delta flight from South Carolina into Los Angeles. I drove around to the cargo pick-up, spotted her crate, and carried it to a grassy patch where I was parked. Upon opening the door, she tumbled out, took a pee, then drank from cool water I’d poured into my hand. The sensation of her small tongue licking my palm melted my heart and I was a goner.

I did it! After ten months of being housebound except for grocery shopping and the occasional outdoor coffee meet during the spring and summer months, I flew to southern California for the holidays—COVID be damned! In reality, I weighed the risks versus rewards and the night before I was as nervous as I was excited about traveling during the pandemic. However, I am a huge proponent of mental health and having a change of scenery and a body to talk to other than my two dogs became a need rather than a choice.

Women are catching up! I’ve been shaving my head for ten years so when I came across an article in Glamour Magazine regarding a new trend of young women deciding to sport buzz cuts, I wanted to share their thoughts—nine women who took the clippers to task and found just what I did the first time—liberation!

I came across a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962).

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

I didn’t have to think to know what I did every day that scared me—writing.

Even now, nerves twist in my belly. The more important the work influences the extent of dread I experience. My need to get it right, to make my words both beautiful and efficient war with the accepting non-critic who remains hidden in the recesses of my brain, craving to be set free but more often than not, held captive.

In her famous book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Angelou’s quote is personal because after a lifetime I’ve finally told my story. It’s one filled with the trauma of incest and mental cruelty, staying closeted and the specter of my father’ gun. The title of my book is Paradise and it’s inspired by real life. Carrying the burden of my story for so many years has truly been agony but I was so afraid of what people would think of me if they knew the truth of who I was, and why I’d made so many bad choices in my life regarding the people I invited into my life.