The staff at the animal shelter looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I wanted to adopt Bernadette. I had been volunteering there for a few months and had become fond of this “high-risk” dog, despite all her growling and snarling. However, I feared, due to her behavior and long stay,…

I am a recovering People Pleaser. Today, at 45, I still wish there was a support group I could attend no less than once a week to walk along with me in this recovery. While it’s true that I am not technically harming anyone, I have, in fact, continuously harmed myself at the cost of…

After a 50+ year career as a counterculture, rock, and movie set photographer, I reinvented myself as a novelist and released “Lenswoman in Love”– a novel of the 1960s & ‘70s in 2025 at age 78 – a reimagining my early career as a romance. And to my surprise, I discovered that I am not…

This is for my pillars, my builders, and the people who need it. “Life used to be fun”. It’s something I always heard when talking about childhood memories or when people left a message on some random 2000s nostalgia video. “Life used to be fun”. It is a powerful phrase to say and so bold.…

Sometimes I really do question my place in the world. And I don’t just mean the whole “What am I doing with my life?” which is a statement that I have come to accept as being an integral part of my inner monologue, provided by the ‘terrible twenties’ period of my life. I am starting…

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to read. The real world was sometimes a scary place and reading took her to an imaginary world full of fun and adventures. She would curl up with a good book whenever she could and was often found in bed, under the covers with…

A note from our writer, Luna Martha: So this is actually what I wish I had said to my mom. Letters hidden in my heart. Every sorry is bound to free my soul from the guilt inside my heart. # 1 Sorry for not being the daughter you expected me to be. Instead of acting…

When I was a child, I had a friend who was so beautiful, with red hair and big eyes. She also had a smile that was so beautiful. We were really happy. We were living next to each other, always playing together and going to the same school, but sometimes she was annoying before we…

Little did I know I would fall in love with a person from the opposite side of the planet. Long-distance love isn’t just about the cinematic tropes we see on our devices, always sun-lit and reunions and smiles. More often, it is late-night calls where one is just waking up to start the day, and…

Birthdays are only celebrated once a year, and my birthday is on January 22nd, which means there is a slight chance each year that it might snow on or near my birthday. When I was a kid, I loved it when it snowed on my birthday because that meant school would be closed or we…