"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." – John 1:5
I have depression. I've lived with it and managed it my whole life. When I was a child, I just thought it was melancholy—mostly because of my brain, generational trauma, and being closeted. With decades of therapy, medication, and a high threshold for pain and suffering, I've made it through. But it hasn’t been easy.
In the last 15 years, I've lost my father, my mother, two close friends to suicide, one to poverty and poor healthcare, four meaningful romantic relationships, and several different jobs. Change is always happening, loss is inevitable, and grief comes with those losses. Healing, we hope, is the byproduct of grief.
The last six months have been tough. Ending another relationship, starting law school, and moving back to Rochester—it's been really difficult to navigate so many emotions coming at me all at once. At times, I've felt like I was circling the drain, close to getting sucked into the dark abyss of nothingness. Healing seemed unattainable.
Many people may think I'm probably an extrovert, but I'm also a GenXer, so I'm real cool at being alone and feral. Surprise! I'm doing the best I can out there in the wild.
I do all the things to appear like a functioning adult—grocery shopping, vacuuming, paying my bills, socializing, etc. For the most part, I try to understand my personal relationship with myself.
There are days I'm totally cool with myself. There are days that I'm not so cool. But after five decades, I've come to an agreement with my depression and myself: If I get out of bed every single day, I should probably be somewhat productive and do something meaningful for me. Something that, in some small way, benefits my world and maybe the world of the people I love, too. Whatever it is, it’s enough for me to want to climb out of bed and do it again the next day.
So, what does that look like? Chillin. Getting centered. Healing my heart. Thinking. Writing. Singing badly in the shower. Dancing in the kitchen. Golfing. Doing all the things I haven't had the time or energy to do before—especially now that the world is in a state of calamity and most likely heading into a recession.
Lenten Reflection: Holding Onto Light in Darkness
Lent is a season of reflection, struggle, and transformation. It is 40 days of walking through the wilderness, much like Jesus did. And in the wilderness, things feel bleak. Heavy. Never-ending.
But John 1:5 reminds us: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
The world is strange and bizarre right now. Nothing feels normal. And maybe that’s because it shouldn’t. Maybe we are meant to sit in this discomfort, to truly feel what is broken, and to push back against it.
So my advice? Learn to love yourself. Love your life. Love your friends. Love your family. Love your enemies (punch them if they’re Yahtzee’s). Love your neighbors. Love the Trans community. People are scared, anxious, and worried. Be a helper. Look to the helpers. Because nothing is normal, and if you’re feeling a bit out of sorts? Good. You should.
It’s rough. It’s unfair. It’s a strange and often brutal world. But we are still here. And as long as we are here, we must choose to love, to resist, and to carry the light forward.
Lent teaches us that transformation is possible. That even in the wilderness, even in grief, we are still moving toward something greater. We are walking toward renewal, resurrection, and hope.
The world keeps testing us. But we persist.
For additional readings for biblical context and connection to Liberation Theology Go HERE
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." – Psalm 34:18
I think what people want to believe is that if everything is perfect—the perfect job, the perfect spouse, house, and dog, the perfect children—then you'll be happy. Maybe.
But no one is ever happy all the time. Happiness is fleeting, and without sadness, you can’t truly appreciate happiness. Without experiencing tragedy, you can’t truly understand pure joy. Life isn’t just a roller coaster—it’s a freakin’ funhouse, a carnival, and one of those spinning rides that make you want to puke. That’s what life is like. A goddamn carnival ride. Mine feels like it is anyway.
This one is hard to talk about because I didn’t answer her last call. It was November 2013.
Robin had called to talk about a movie she had just watched, Blue Is The Warmest Color. It’s a movie about exploring sexuality, falling in love, and experiencing heartbreak and heart ache—the kind that changes you. Robin and I talked a lot when I lived in California, and we kept talking when I moved to Minnesota. She was one of the only friends who braved a Minnesota winter to come visit me. She knew from just my voice on the phone that I wasn’t doing well, that I was homesick, that I needed someone to show up. And she showed up.
She loved tennis and went to the US Open every year. She asked me to go with her that year. I told her I’d see if it worked with my schedule. I didn’t go.
And that was the year she took her life.
I knew. I knew she wasn’t doing well. I knew it in the way she spoke, in the silences between her words. But I was a thousand miles away, and I didn’t know what I could do to help. I listened. I talked. I tried my best to be there for her.
And yet, it still wasn’t enough.
I saved the last message she left me. I listen to it sometimes just to hear her voice.
I don’t talk about Robin enough. Maybe because I still feel guilt. Maybe because I still can’t believe she’s gone. But I know she’s gone. Because if she were here, we’d be on the phone discussing how fucked up the world is right now.
God, I’ve had so much loss in my life, I don’t even know how I get through the day sometimes.
But I do. I always do.
My world is not the same since she left. It is a struggle to make sense of the nonsense, but I persist. Sometimes I think I try to live a good life because that’s what she’d want. Maybe I’m just hoping to find some way to fill the void of her friendship. But it doesn’t work like that.
The void stays.
The missing stays.
Maybe I just ignore it.
I want to believe that her essence, her spirit, her energy—her ancient universal dust—has moved on to the next life, the next dimension, some space-time continuum where she’s happy. Where she’s no longer in pain.
I want to believe that.
But my realist mind just thinks it’s emptiness. That she is gone, and there’s nothing but this stupid void of nothingness.
But still. We carry on.
We carry on the memories of our loved ones.
Their hearts.
Their names.
Their love.
I still look at my phone, hoping her name will pop up. I know it won’t. I know it never will.
And yet, the world keeps turning.
Round and round.
There’s so much more I could say about Robin, and yet, I can’t.
My feelings are tangled. My heart is heavy.
I struggle not to let the grief spill out like a dam breaking after a heavy rainstorm.
I don’t know if it’s a gift or a curse to love people so deeply when you know they leave.
But I do know this. Our friendship and loving her was worth it.
And that’s what I will carry.
Lenten Reflection: The Love That Stays
Lent is a season of reflection, of grief, of loss—but also of hope.
Psalm 34:18 reminds us: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
Grief is the weight of love that had nowhere to go. But love itself never dies.
Robin is gone. But love stays.
Her kindness, her laughter, her friendship—they remain in every memory, every moment I carry forward.
And maybe that’s what faith is. Not answers, not certainty.
Just the choice to keep loving, keep remembering, and keep moving forward.
Even when it hurts.
Life isn’t about flawless filters, curated perfection, or pretending we’re fine when we’re not.
Life is about loving people while they’re here.
And honoring them when they’re gone.
I honor Robin by remembering her.
By living a life that still has room for joy.
By carrying her love forward.
She loved mint chocolate chip ice cream. On her birthday, April 4th, I’ll eat some in her honor. I hope you will too.
Love stays.
Always.
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." – Isaiah 43:18-19
I’m trying to sit in my sadness and figure out how to move on. I want to eventually not feel sad anymore. And honestly? It f#cking sucks to be sad and disappointed all the time. I want to feel different.
Psychotherapists say we should have some kind of routine during times of shambles, but not necessarily the same schedule we used to have. It’s what they call a “the world is in shambles” routine (I might have made that up). I used to make to-do lists for my day, but now I mostly just stare into the void and wonder when this nightmare will end.
That said, I take a shower every day (mostly). It helps me feel human—less like a sloth drifting through existential dread. The other day, though, I was so lost in my head that I think I shampooed with body wash. It didn’t lather right, so I shampooed again just to be sure. That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling lately. The constant sense of forgetting something, but not knowing what.
And yet—it’s not like I’m doing anything or going anywhere important. I’m just trying to figure this out like the rest of us. The funny thing is, by the time we settle into some kind of rhythm with the state of the world, another disaster hits, and we’re thrown into chaos all over again. Ever since the pandemic, I’ve felt feral in public. Confused by how quickly things went “back to normal,” but also by how fast we slipped back into our cruel way of life: trapped in capitalism, toxic individualism, and collective exhaustion.
I used to have an ex who would cry after sex. Let’s call her Nelly to protect her identity. She is also the same ex who broke up with me to be with another woman. To this day, I can’t tell you what she found more appealing about the other person—I mean, I am a beacon of joy.
The breakup was not smooth. It was one of those emotionally destructive back-and-forth situations that leave you wondering why you even tried to hold onto something already broken. But I was 21 and just starting to become very familiar with rejection and disappointment.
Fast forward four years. I’m at a bar in Walnut Creek, CA. The Bay Area is a vast land where exes can disappear into the void forever—until, of course, they don’t.
Once in a blue moon, you run into them. Maybe at Pride, or some other massive event where thousands of people are present, and yet, the one person you’re actively avoiding is somehow the one you end up face-to-face with. That night, it happened. Nelly was there. The bar wasn’t that busy. And just like that, she came up and started talking to me. She looked mostly the same—except for her tragic Karen haircut, the kind that seems ready to demand to speak to a manager at any moment.
And then, the most unexpected thing happened.
She apologized for how she treated me. She told me she was sorry for breaking my heart.
It had been four years. But the universe works on its own damn timeline.
I still remember exactly what I said: “It’s water under the bridge. It’s been four years. And thank you for apologizing—that’s really big of you. Let me buy you a drink.”
Can you believe that? I actually bought her a drink.
We might have tried to stay in touch after that, but nothing ever really came from it. And that was fine. I wasn’t about to go back down that broken road. Lesson learned.
At the time, I might have felt vindicated. But looking back now? I realize something: Maybe there is no real satisfaction in being right about being wronged. Did it feel good to get an apology? Sure. But what I really would have preferred was to be treated right from the beginning. And that’s the thing about healing—it doesn’t erase what happened. It doesn’t undo the hurt. But it does allow us to move forward, to grow, and to leave behind what no longer serves us.
Lenten Reflection
Lent is about transformation—letting go of the past so we can make space for something new.
Isaiah 43:18-19 reminds us: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!"
Some things do not need to be carried any further. Some wounds do not need to be reopened. Some roads do not need to be walked again.
The lesson? Keep the faith, embrace change, and trust that something new is on the way.
Healing isn’t linear. Some days, it looks like forgiving the past. On other days, it looks like shampooing your hair twice because you forgot you already did it.
Either way, we keep moving forward.
Lent is about learning to trust that forward is enough.
Take care of yourself and take care of each other.