Voice Notes to Myself

Who are we when suffering no longer explains who we are?

In this episode, I sit inside the strange quiet that comes after first stepping into the shadow—the place where old identities begin to loosen, ambition loses some of its authority, and the self becomes unfamiliar without necessarily feeling lost.

What happens when “I survived something” is no longer allowed to become “I am someone because I survived something”? When productivity ceases to justify existence? When the question What do you do? no longer feels capable of answering Who are you?

This is an exploration of trauma, individuation, outrage, labor, identity, and the frightening freedom of becoming inchoate: neither empty nor unfinished, simply not yet committed to a final form.

Perhaps nothing waits beneath all the dismantling except raw material.

Curiosity. Whimsy. Beauty. Conversation. Pleasure. Rest.

And perhaps that is enough.

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What happens when something enters your life that you cannot quite name, and... for once, you resist the urge to?

In Where Winter Does Not Mean Death, I sit with the strange territory between recognition and surrender, where desire collides with reason and certainty gives way to something far less governable. Against the backdrop of changing seasons, I explore what it means to allow an experience to unfold without demanding that it explain itself, promise permanence, or become anything other than what it is.

Perhaps not everything buried is dead.

Perhaps some things need the darkness.

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I went to Los Angeles intending to explore what happens when pleasure doesn't have to justify itself. I came home with language for something I didn't know I had been searching for: psychological hospitality.

What happens when another person's presence doesn't require you to monitor, shrink, explain, anticipate, defend, or perform? What becomes possible when your nervous system realizes it no longer needs to keep part of itself standing guard?

In this episode, I reflect on pleasure, intimacy, psychological safety, erotic surrender, and the profound difference between being desired and being given room to exist fully. I explore what it means to be met with curiosity rather than containment—and what contrasting relationships have taught me about the emotional labor required when being known becomes synonymous with being misinterpreted.

Hēdonē began as an archetype of pleasure for pleasure's sake. Los Angeles complicated her meaning.

Because sometimes pleasure isn't what someone does to your body.

Sometimes pleasure is what your body finally gets to stop doing in someone's presence.

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What happens when beauty stops functioning as a priviledge, and starts functioning as a provocation?

Walk with me here…as this is not an attempt to defend vanity but an attempt to explore the uncomfortable line between pretty privilege and what I call pretty punishment—the point where attractiveness no longer simply opens doors, but begins to trigger projection, envy, suspicion, fetishization, and eventually dehumanization. 

I talk about  cosmetic surgery, bodily autonomy, the social rules around how beautiful a person is “allowed” to want to become.

I also examine how race complicates the halo effect, particularly for Black women, whose beauty can increase visibility and desirability, while simultaneously intensify objectification and fetishization. 

At what point does beauty go from currency to punishment.

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It started with two glasses of wine, the backseat of an Uber, and a text to a woman in California who made it clear she’s interested. 

Me: So…I’ve been thinking about coming to LA…

She said yes before I could even being arguing with myself.

I call her, Hēdonē, the Ancient Greek personification of pleasure, because what she represents has very little to do with romance and far more to do with something I have spent so much of my life struggling to experience: pleasure for pleasure’s sake. 

In this episode, I unpack the loneliness, grief, and shame I have been reluctant to admit. I also wrestle with the strange pleasure of being desired by someone I don’t desire in return; my complicated relationship with rest, spontaneity, travel, and play and how the father and mother wound screws with all of this. 

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Update on what I’ve been thinking about and a TikTok that sparked the thoughts behind this episode. 

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After therapy, I found myself thinking about my grandmother, and realized something: I cannot conjure her face from memory without looking at a photograph.

...but I can see her hands.

Her hands teaching my little brown girl hands how to work, how to cook, how to farm, how to care for myself and others.

Hands performing tasks.

And somewhere inside that realization is a much larger question: Who was the woman behind those hands?

What did she dream about? What did she love? What did she dislike? What did she want for herself beyond the roles assigned to her as a woman, wife, mother, and grandmother?

This episode is for Martha Lou Brown.

Because she deserves her name.

She deserves her flowers.

And she deserves to be remembered as a whole woman—not just a pair of hands.

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Grief has a way of revealing what we couldn't see while we were living through it.

In this deeply personal episode, I reflect on the quiet sadness that surfaced during my morning shadow work and the realization that healing isn't simply about letting someone go—it's about grieving every moment you didn't choose yourself.

I explore what it means to honor your own boundaries, tell yourself the truth, and take responsibility for the outcomes that come from abandoning your own needs without falling into shame or blaming others. Along the way, I wrestle with a difficult question: If the healthiest version of someone you loved came back into your life, would you finally be able to show up differently?

We also unpack one of the most uncomfortable truths about personal growth: you don't become better at relationships by avoiding them. Healthy relationships don't simply comfort us—they expose us. Our triggers, our conflicts, and even our grief become invitations to deeper healing.

This episode is an honest meditation on heartbreak, accountability, intimacy, and the courage it takes to choose yourself—not in isolation, but in connection with others.

If you've ever found yourself missing someone while simultaneously recognizing that your greatest work is becoming the person who can fully honor herself, this conversation is for you.

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Anyone can observe.

A witness remains present.

A witness resists the impulse to fix, rescue, minimize, or turn away. A witness says, I see what is here. I will not deny it. I will not abandon you because it makes me uncomfortable.

That kind of presence is transformative. "Skotara", a.k.a. The Astute Femme on Threads, TikTok, and Instagram, has done exactly that and more for me as a friend-- and as a sister.

Real healing often begins not when someone gives us the perfect advice, but when someone is willing to sit beside us long enough that we stop believing we have to face our darkness alone.

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For a long time, I believed I was carrying a mother wound.

Recently, I've begun to realize that the story was incomplete.

Trigger Warning! Physical, mental, and emotional abuse is discussed!

I explore the reality that the deepest pattern in my life didn't begin with my mother, but with the only father I ever truly knew: my grandfather. A brilliant, complicated man who taught me to think, reason, write, and question everything—while also shaping the invisible beliefs I carried about love, worth, intelligence, and what it means to be enough.

This isn't an episode about assigning blame or me attempting to rewrite history. It's an exploration of inheritance—of how we can receive extraordinary gifts and painful wounds from the same hands.

As always, these are not conclusions. They're field notes from an ongoing investigation into my own psyche.

I'm starting to see, and you are my witness. Thank you.

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