What happens when you’re 22, grieving the loss of your dad, and get the chance to leave everything behind?

I packed a suitcase, got on a plane, and spent the next eight months traveling across the country.

At the time, I thought I was chasing adventure. Almost 20 years later, I can see I might have been running from grief, too.

California. Coachella. Concerts. Radio Stations. Life on the road. Hotel rooms. Adele. Espinoza Paz. Luis Miguel. Hombres G. Enanitos Verdes. Foo Fighters. Linkin Park. El Gordo y La Flaca. David Zepeda. Questionable decisions. Unexpected friendships. A 23rd birthday I only partially remember. Young love. A private pilot. A broken foot. And a younger version of myself I didn’t realize I missed.

This is a story about grief, friendships, your messy 20s, finding yourself, and what can happen when you say fuck it and go.

In this episode of Hey, Is This Mic On?, Luisa explores the quiet ways exclusion follows us from childhood playgrounds and sleepovers to friendships, motherhood, relationships, and the rooms we still wonder whether we belong in.

Through stories of moving to the United States, learning English, being left out, navigating mom friendships, and finally experiencing what real sisterhood can feel like, Luisa asks an important question: Were women ever meant to compete with one another, or were we simply handed the wrong story?

This episode is about the words that stay with us, the wounds we carry, and the women who remind us that belonging was never something we had to earn.

Maybe sisterhood isn’t about being perfect or always agreeing.

Maybe it’s simply choosing, over and over again, to make room.

Come here.

We’ve been saving you a seat.

Before anyone else knew my name… before the world had an opinion… there was my dad.

In this deeply personal episode, I share the stories that shaped my childhood from summer nights filled with fireflies and Led Zeppelin, to Royals games, old cars, quiet sacrifices, and the ordinary moments that became extraordinary after he was gone.

This is an episode about grief, love, and the people who see us before we ever learn to see ourselves.

It's also about the conversations we never got to have, inspired by my brother's poem, "Missed Call."

If you've ever lost a parent, a sibling, a friend, or anyone who left a space in your heart, I hope this episode reminds you that you're not alone.

Stay until the end… your homework might change someone's life

This episode is about the people we overlook.

The waitress.
The stripper.
The exhausted mom.
The woman barely surviving while still trying to hold herself together.

Luisa shares stories from her own life. Working in the service industry, friendships that challenged the way she viewed women and survival, conversations about shame, identity, judgment, and the versions of ourselves we try to outgrow.

From Wendy’s lunch tables… to stories about stripping, motherhood, survival, and watching The Deuce, this episode explores what happens when you stop reducing people to labels and start actually seeing them.

Raw. reflective. uncomfortable at times.

But human.

Because people are never just one thing.

And maybe being deeply seen…
is one of the most healing things in the world.

A night at the Velvet Elk in Boulder turns into something deeper than just live music. In this first episode, Luisa talks about identity, motherhood, music, presence, postpartum shifts, managing the room, Selena, dancing, ego, and what happens when people stop performing and actually feel something together. A conversation about reconnecting to yourself underneath all the roles we carry.