I write about the small, complicated things we carry. The stuff we don’t always have words for. This one’s about the weight of being a Black woman, and how the Ciara-Amanda-West drama is demonstrative of everything Black women have to deal with. If writing like this resonates with you, join this weird little side of the internet and subscribe.

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I’m sick and tired of white men playing Black women. But do you know what I’m even more tired of? White girl friends playing their Black friends.

As you can tell, this Ciara-Amanda-West bullshit has got me in a mood. Is this Bravo drama as bad as Scandoval? Maybe not at first glance since no cheating occurred (that we know of), but dare I say, it’s worse. Purely because of the racial layers involved. Your white friend, as a Black woman, pursuing the white guy who traumatized you because he thought you were good enough to sleep with but not good enough to be in a relationship with. This distinction is a glaring demonstration of racial desirability politics, where Black women are seen as sexual objects, but romantically, they are not worthy.

Let’s take it back a bit and focus on the harmful actions of mediocre white men. Ciara has probably already been dealing with this prevalent subtype of male off-screen for a while now, before she ever came onto Summer House in 2020 (an occupational hazard of being a Black woman in the US). But the first instance we can all remember is Austen from Southern Charm (they met while on Winter House), who literally called her a Jezebel. For those unfamiliar, the Jezebel is one of the oldest racial slurs used to pathologize Black female sexuality. It’s rooted in slavery and reframes the sexual violation of Black women as seduction, as if they were inherently lascivious, incapable of being victimized, and therefore undeserving of protection. It’s a pillar of anti-Blackness, one that specifically targets Black women through what scholar Moya Bailey coined as misogynoir, the intersection of racism and misogyny aimed at Black women. Austen didn’t just insult Ciara. He reached for an innuendo designed to deny Black women their humanity.

Then, a few years later, West enters the scene as a new castmate with a side fade to signal that “he’s with it,” who we all found attractive only because he made Ciara smile. He immediately sets his eyes on her, because, hello. She makes it clear she doesn’t have physical relationships outside of commitment. Regardless, West is in heat and in hot pursuit, all whilst making the progression of wearing coastal grandma attire, following her around every day, even introducing her to his family off-camera. They apparently do have a physical relationship, and then he drops her, citing that he’s not a relationship guy. And not only that, he goes to the press and says he doesn’t like Ciara that way. Which maybe sounds innocuous to some, but it’s fucked up. You’ve slept with her and now want nothing to do with her, completely ignoring the genuine friendship that developed alongside everything else.

Fast forward to this season: at a dinner with the Summer House castmates, the three Black cast members, Mia, KJ, and Ciara, open up about the exhausting reality of being the only people of color in a group where their white castmates are never asked to carry the same emotional weight. What they’re describing is racial labor. The invisible emotional and psychological work that Black people have to deal with in predominantly white spaces just to survive. The code-switching, the self-monitoring, the constant low hum of having to check whether they’re safe to say what they want to say.

Please, PLEASE tell me why and how Amanda, Ciara’s supposed best friend, listens to all of that, knows all of this, and decides to pursue West romantically anyway.

This is all the while Ciara has spent YEARS being a shoulder for Amanda to cry on, especially now with the divorce from her messy-ass relationship with Kyle. Amanda knows this. She’s at least half aware of the pain it will inflict on Ciara, and it doesn’t matter.

Either that or she’s too dumb, which, honestly, is a possibility. She has a swimwear line and never promotes it on a show where they are literally at the pool all day in the Hamptons. But I digress.

What Amanda is doing is sick. She is perfectly willing to receive the emotional labor, loyalty, and love of her Black friend, but then play her by sleeping with someone she cared about. This is not ignorance. It’s choosing not to think or care that her getting community dick doesn’t have racial implications for her supposed best friend.

Amanda doesn’t stop to think about how triggering it is, not just because she apparently doesn’t know the concept of girl code or basic human decency, but because of the specific anti-Blackness at play here: a white man has once again chosen a white woman over a Black woman, which Ciara has already been navigating her entire life. Another white man WITH HER BEST FRIEND, which basically signals through his actions that she is less than this white woman, who needs to get dicked down, in order to leave her dumpster fire of a marriage. That Ciara can be discarded, while Amanda deserves to be actually chosen and pursued.

This angers me because I’ve been there. Not in the exact same circumstances, but close enough as a Black woman.

Like this most recent example. My sister and I ended up at a St. Paddy’s thing. Jello shots, which I haven’t had in a very long time but was surprised to find can come back to you quickly, and stack cup, which I avoided all of college and am only now, in my thirties, realizing is actually fun. There was a guy I thought was attractive. Short, yes, but I once dated someone who made me realize height doesn’t correlate to everything being on the short end of things, so I didn’t mind. We were talking. I think we were both interested. Then a girl from Florida with Shirley Temple hair, which is fine if you’re five years old and know how to tap dance, but I digress, saw us, walked over, and proceeded to be all over him. She was visiting and sharing a bathroom with six people and probably decided he was her escape hatch. And this man, white, and it being St. Patrick’s Day, made his calculations accordingly.

I felt rejected. And then I felt something worse than rejected, because it took me straight back to college. Hot guy talking to me, white girl materializing out of nowhere. When you try to name it aloud, it sounds like a conspiracy. People change the subject. I told a friend about what happened that night and mentioned the racial dimension. She didn’t engage. Moved on like I hadn’t said it. My sister, who was there and saw the whole thing, was the only one who validated what I felt. Which is its own kind of data point about who is willing to sit with you and your reality and who needs it to just not exist.

This is why misogynoir is so insidious. It’s a form of racial gaslighting in real time. That’s why when a Black friend tells you something, you believe them.

I don’t know what comes next for Ciara, but all to say: so much love and respect for her. I hope we can all shower her with support right now. I’m tired of seeing Black women disrespected, not only by white men, but by someone you thought was a friend who genuinely loved you.

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I write about the small, complicated things we carry. The stuff we don’t always have words for. This one’s about grieving the life you thought you’d have. If writing like this resonates with you, join this weird little side of the internet and subscribe.

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Sometimes I wish I were a bit more insane. Right now, I’m at the level of insane where I like to message guys I’ve hooked up with pictures of families on the internet and say, “This could be us.” But I feel like I would reach full freedom if I could go to my ex’s door, knock on it, and demand my stuff back. Yet something tethers me from doing exactly what it is that I want. Which, maybe, is not unique to other parts of my life.

There’s a gap that exists for me between wanting and achieving. Which sucks because apparently I’m one of the psychopaths whose number one value is achievement. But it doesn’t make me any closer to achieving. It just puts me in a constant state of yearning. And not the fun Jacob Elordi yearning. Instead, it’s a type of craving for some level of chaos or drama, instead of sitting with the thought that I’m nowhere close to where I want to be. As my therapist would say, though, thoughts are not facts.

I guess the OCD doesn’t help, but I’d rather obsess over the things that I should have done in a certain situation, finding relief by forensically looking through photos of people who’ve hurt me in an effort to find the answers to what I could have done differently, to rectify a situation so that I’m not here, in this current position of feeling less than.

Recently, I messaged my ex. This came after feeling so proud of not reaching out, despite him having a lot of my stuff, despite him being a menace. Yes, we both were at fault for the toxic relationship, but dare I say he was worse. His pathological petulance sucked the air out of a room. Yet that didn’t stop me from messaging him. In fact, I offered a peace offering. Like some kicked dog trying to give its abusive owner their favorite bone. I messaged him a meme of his favorite show, hoping he’d respond so that he’d rescue me from this weird moment in my life where I’m constantly questioning everything: my career, my life decisions. Be rescued so I can be at peace with the suffering I do know, instead of the obstinate one of not knowing what’s next.

My therapist explained the phenomenon like being a newborn. It starts to get bigger, starts crawling, but right before they start to walk, they seek the safety and warmth of their mom, and start to regress for the certainty of what’s known.

Not like my ex had a comforting bosom or anything, though he had excellent pecs and hairy ones at that. He was at times warm, and he knew just how to hold me and make me feel better, right after he berated me. But then he’d make me pasta.

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These thoughts and feelings are coming to the surface as I close a chapter in my life. I’m leaving my job this spring after deciding to take a voluntary leave package, to see what I can do next with my career. It is also very linked to the end of my past relationship. Though the relationship ended almost a year and a half ago, it still pains me because it represents so much more, a period I’m only now truly reckoning with. And I can’t help but wax nostalgic over how happy I was when it all began after business school.

Moving to NYC, my favorite city in the world, working at the so-called best company in the world, falling in love for the very first time shortly after, traveling to places I’d never been before — fancy places I dreamt of like I was some type of princess, Brandy style. It felt like I had actualized a dream better than I could have ever imagined.

And then the dream started to crack. Slowly at first, giving me enough time to explain things away. But then my curiosity made me peer deeper into those cracks until it broke completely, and I was left to no longer ignore what didn’t work for me anymore.

I so vividly remember entering my first apartment in New York City in FiDi. On the way to it from Michigan, I was listening to a playlist I made of all New York/life changes-inspired songs – think Frank Sinatra, Vampire Weekend, Tangled’s When Will My Life Begin?, and of course, Taylor Swift’s Welcome to New York. It was a cliche, and I fucking loved reeling in the melodrama of it. Entering that apartment, I remember closing the door and jumping and smiling so hard I could feel every muscle in my face being used.

Flash forward to now, living in Bed-Stuy, in an apartment that I made very much my own, the one I moved to after living with my ex. There’s something about this place that I’m so thankful for, because it gave me a safe space to cry, grieve, reimagine my future, try and fail, and sometimes succeed and work on myself. But sometimes the reason why I’m here bothers me. I’ve spent so much time within these walls, yes, restoring and resting, but also crying, with reminders of feeling alone when I thought I would have spent the rest of my life with him eating pasta.

This is all to say that I’m reeling from a season of grieving, and I’ve yapped on and on about the Year of the Fire Horse (I hope in not a culturally appropriative way) because holy shit, this is the year to saddle up and start living. And somewhere deep down, I know leaving behind a lot of things is the right thing to do, but it doesn’t make it any less painful. The thoughts that are resurfacing make it even more difficult, and my OCD is being triggered as I try to find comfort in the uncomfortable. But I know I’m only seeking out the familiar to avoid the terror of an unknown future. Sometimes, it’s the first thing I feel when I wake up. But the unknown future is the whole point. It’s okay to be scared. Because what’s awaiting me is even better than I ever imagined. Giddy up!!! And I can make my own damn pasta.

Thank you for reading Oh Anita Writes. If you want to read more pieces like this, please subscribe.

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And if you’re working through your own version of letting go, I’d love to hear about it in the comments or in the chat!

As a reluctantly loyal Amtrak customer (I live in New York, but my family is in the DMV), I feel obligated to thank it for putting me in a very specific emotional state. One that’s equal parts mind-numbing boredom and nostalgia. Like I’m in a western, except the protagonist is a zillennial with everyday anxiety, which somehow just becomes part of her charm.

I stare out the window, feel inexplicably reflective, and think: I should absolutely write a love letter to Amtrak this February. So here it is folks. My atypical love story.

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It’s another holiday break, the homesickness has arrived just in time for mandatory family fun, and my ass is inevitably on this coffee-stained, slightly questionable Amtrak seat. Lurched left and right, but my memory of 9th-grade physics class assures me, we’re going to be ok.

As I look out the window, sitting opposite the direction of travel, even though I painstakingly chose a seat facing forward, I realize it’s kind of like my life right now: moving in the right direction, just ass-first. I might be moving like a fool, but gosh darn it, I’m moving. I’m no longer paralyzed by the fear of not doing enough or not doing it right. I’m doing it and learning as I go, scared as hell, pushing through with gusto to create momentum while barely hanging on to the tracks. My big ol’ bubble butt helping me to coax people along the way. And at least when I collapse, my fat breaks the fall.

I’ve perfected the Amtrak power squat. That hover technique that keeps every part of my body from touching surfaces better left undescribed. The bathrooms on these trains rank among the most horrifying I’ve encountered, rivaled only by porta-potties at crowded National Parks. Never have I ever needed to use the bathroom so bad, but then as soon as I saw the bathroom, no longer had to.

The one time I made contact was involuntary. The train lurched around a sharp curve, and I fell onto the seat. I nearly cried. The incident required five days of preventative measures I’d rather not detail.

Despite how gross the train can be, despite the puzzling stale smell that permeates every car, I still choose Amtrak. Feels like that calls for a salute or something.

Maybe it’s because Amtrak lets me suspend myself in fantasy which I explore in my outfits. During the fall and winter, when I can wear a really great scarf, I like to partake in my Scarlett O’Hara/Audrey Hepburn fantasy and gaze wistfully out the window at passing landscapes. Or I’ll wear my fake biker boots, the kind made for suburban twenty-somethings, and get really country with it.

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My favorite spectator sport: watching someone confidently settle into the wrong assigned seat. They’ll take off their coat, arrange their bags, and maybe even kick off their shoes. The anticipation of their face dropping when they’re told to move, THAT’s what I live for. Alternatively, my own face drops when I think no one will sit next to me (I always wait long enough before making this assumption), only for someone to claim the seat at the last possible moment. I admit defeat and shift my belongings.

I also pay an odd amount of attention to the white businessmen on these trains, and to anyone getting off at Delaware. They’re the same breed, really. Both carry themselves like they have more important things to do than the rest of us, like their time is somehow more precious. We all know better.

People who sit in business class and make it their entire personality. They act holier than thou, and they’re always trying to see if someone else is not supposed to be where they’re meant to be, then get disappointed when no one gets kicked out. They always have one eye on you, as if it’s their job to make sure everyone in the car behaves. Usually, a woman with a bob and 2010 booties.

Another group of people I pay attention to: Folks who eat pungent food on trains. I really admire them. I’m always too nervous to call attention to myself, so anyone who opens a container of something that draws every eye in the car strikes me as genuinely brave. I also admire people who can stow their belongings in the overhead compartment in one smooth motion. No fumbling, no readjusting. Occasionally, I manage this myself, and for those brief moments, I feel superior to everyone else.

This is what Amtrak has made me: a person who finds meaning in silly things. And yet I keep coming back, power squat at the ready.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Thank you for reading! If you like this kind of content, please subscribe. Let me know in the comments if you feel similar love towards Amtrak, and what it is specifically that gets your heart going about that multiple wheeled-cutie.

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I write about life’s in-betweens that get you. This one's about growing pains and the unglorious parts of creating the life you want. If writing like this resonates with you, join this weird little side of the internet and subscribe.

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Often, I find myself sitting in the in-between of radical self-acceptance and relentless self-prosecution. All the different versions of myself, past, present, and future, are put on trial, left staring at each other, making judgy, little faces. They’re cross-examining the one who dated a man with an affinity for Panama hats and a habit of picking his ears while eating at dinner, and the one who briefly believed thinner eyebrows might signal personal growth.

All the while, I know I’m waiting for external validation. I’m a skunk asking strangers if I smell good. The answer is always the same: you smell like what you smell like, and no one’s coming to tell you that’s enough. Once you realize this, you start to feel a little less empty, because chasing validation only deepens the hollowness, especially on days when no one shows up to fill it. I’m learning, slowly, that I have to do it myself.

Lately, though, it feels like I’ve been schlepping through my days. But I’m trying to remind myself of the progress I’ve made. Like recently, I bought a Brick, the thing I used to mercilessly make fun of, but now, it’s the one thing that keeps me from scrolling aimlessly on my phone before bed. And I’m practicing mindfulness. To get better at accepting the things that are out of my control. I’m also letting judgments be noticed, not absorbed, letting them pass like a leaf drifting down a stream.

Younger me would have scoffed. What do you mean we’re not judging the girl who talks too much about herself in group therapy? What do you mean you’re not self-flagellating for not having done your laundry in several weeks? It’s all hard and requires effort, but I realized something: To live the life you dreamed of, you need to take steps toward being kinder to yourself. Even if it’s just being aware of what’s going on and taking it in without judgment.

Because the reality is, growing up is realizing that creating the life that you want is excruciating. Books and annoying folks on TikTok make it seem like sunshine and rainbows. That coming home to yourself feels like a warm hug every day. Instead, it feels like stretching yourself with that masochistic equipment you find at the gym that only skinny white girls use so they can get better at doing the splits at parties.

Growing up and living the life you dreamed of comes after grieving several parts of yourself. Not just the ones you know, but the ones you have hidden deep like a ghost crab sleeping under the sand. It’s lots of therapy, unlearning, and being ok with leaving people and places that no longer nourish you. The things that once excited you when you were busy cosplaying this person you didn’t even respect or take care of.

Growing up is this: being comfortable with silence. It’s drinking your water without having a podcast on. It’s thinking only about drinking that water. Not what comes next. Just this moment of giving yourself what you need.

Thank you for reading Oh Anita Writes. If this resonated with you, would love to hear in the comments or in the chat.

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I write about the small, complicated things we carry. The stuff we don’t always have words for. Typically, I write a letter once a month on Tuesday, but this came flowing from my notes app. If writing like this resonates with you, join this weird little side of the internet and subscribe.

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Saturday nights have a strange way of making you feel brave and stupid at the same time. Let me paint the scene for you.

You’re out with your friends, two IPAs in. This means it’s time to switch to something more champagney. A Miller High Life will do. You’re laughing, being jolly, having a good ol’ time, but then there’s a switch. A pang in your chest that drops to the pit of your stomach. It accompanies a sudden urge to create chaos, despite the tender peace so kindly cultivated by those you love. You pause, knowing exactly where this is headed.

You want to text them. A stupid boy to be exact.

But the funny thing is, you actually don’t. You don’t actually want to see him. What you’re trying to do is avoid uncomfortable feelings. I understand. I get it. I’ve birthed it, then panicked, then swallowed it whole.

So let me carefully illustrate this with the oaf in mind. It’s usually a guy who really tried hard to get you, then once he did, started playing dumb. You saw through it in the beginning, but the idea of feeling chosen by a guy who swears by Head and Shoulders shampoo felt better than spending another night watching SVU reruns.

This is who you think will save you from the feeling that [insert here].

No, that’s not a typo. It’s intentional. Because it very well could be any absent, hollow feeling that you don’t want to confront. One that ends with you being ghosted and feeling hollow afterwards, or getting what you thought you wanted and feeling hollow afterwards, because he’s also the type of guy who will disrupt the perfect order of your carefully curated coffee table books by stupidly deciding to read one of them.

For me, it’s always “what am I doing with my life?” Or more appropriately, “what the fuck is going on? How the hell did I end up here?”

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Right before I text him, those questions start popping in my head louder than usual, and I can’t shoo them away. Not even a good whodunit where everyone thinks it’s the husband, but really it’s the grandmother with cataracts, can distract me when these thoughts really start circling. These are weird feelings. The kind that make you want to crawl out of your skin like you might pop out of yourself, clown-car style.

And the brain always knows exactly which button to press. It serves up his name like a name tag at a socially awkward function, written in thick, rounded letters, closely resembling Comic Sans. The thought alone is shiver-inducing.

It’s not because I want him. I know he doesn’t care about me. But he’ll probably text back. And that’s enough. Because in the minutes between hitting send and feeling the buzz, I feel chosen. Even temporarily. Even by the wrong person.

Or maybe he doesn’t text back, and that’s enough too. Because either way, it confirms what I was looking for: I’m not good enough. It’s far more preferable to live in that moment than the one where I’m petrified and don’t have answers.

Here’s what I’m learning: You’re not texting them because you want them. You’re texting them because you want to disappear from yourself. The phone is an escape hatch from sitting with the vastness of your own life and the question of whether you’re enough on your own.

The real question isn’t whether to text them. It’s whether you can sit without knowing what comes next. Whether you can feel unchosen by someone who doesn’t matter and still choose yourself anyway.

I’m not good at this. I still reach for my phone more than I care to admit. But at least now I’m aware of the feeling in my body when I do it. The scared. The not enough. And occasionally, I put the phone down and just sit there with it.

It doesn’t feel good. But it’s progress.

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Ever think your thoughts are too weird to say outloud? Well, here, I say them for you. Oh Anita Writes is a monthly newsletter where I write about the uncomfortable truths we all live with but rarely admit — for people who like feeling seen (and mildly called out).

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Arlight! Now back to regular programming.

When I was eleven, whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d abandon my bed for the floor. No blankets, no comfort, just cold hard ground. I thought if I made myself physically uncomfortable, I’d eventually accept whatever relief was available, and my brain would let me rest. It worked sometimes.

These days, my anxiety doesn't manifest as wanting to sleep on hard surfaces. It's become more sophisticated, much like myself ;). Now it's fixated on something a bit innocuous: smell.

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I constantly feel like I can smell the inside of someone else’s mouth. As well as the farts they have yet to let out. I have a strong sense of smell, and I don’t think it’s done me any favors since it just grosses me out all the time.

It especially happens when in close quarters. Like entering an Uber. Often, I feel like I’ve just climbed inside the mouth of the driver. And then after the ride, I’m paranoid that I’ve somehow attracted the odor, like I’ve magically inherited the role of tongue scraper, and the remnants of their last meal attached to me somehow, and I can’t get rid of it.

While on public transportation, I really don’t want to be that person people secretly loathe. But I think the ultimatum I gave myself, smell good or else, makes me notice every off smell even more. In fact, I’m constantly cataloging the scents around me, wondering if any of them are coming from me. My strong sense of smell has basically trapped me between being disgusted on the daily and being terrified of being disgusting myself.

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On top of it, it’s January, and there is pressure to somehow become a better version of myself. Everywhere I look, there’s a reminder about renewal, how to reset, and self-care. Surprisingly, there are a lot of messages concerning gut health and eating fermented foods. Like, are we just going to pretend that we’re not all talking about pooping? It’s just prebiotics and probiotics disguised as bowel movement convo.

But how can I do any of that when I’m still learning what it means to relax and not be hypervigilant all the time? “New year, new you” suddenly rings hollow when the old you never got to rest in the first place. The wellness advice floods in (meditation, deep breathing, aromatherapy). But I can't focus on my breath without immediately spiraling about whether I farted without noticing. And then I'm cataloging every smell in the room trying to figure out if it's me. You can't exactly be present when it means obsessively tracking every scent that crosses your path.

That said, I did try to tap into smell for good this time.

Spending more money than I would care for on perfumes and candles. Some lavender for calm, some eucalyptus for clarity. Some sandalwood to make the winter time more tolerable and magical. But there’s still an inkling that a smell that’s not supposed to be there is lingering.

Does this make me want to sleep on the floor again? No. Instead, I’ve found a different kind of grounding: playing police procedurals on my little iPad and falling asleep to the sweet sounds of fictional crime in Cabot Cove. Just me and Jessica Fletcher, racing to figure things out before anyone else does, one clue at a time.

If you like essays about the weird, uncomfortable truths of being a person, you’re in the right place. Comment and share what stuck with you! Subscribe if you haven’t already, or share this with a friend who also thinks too much about whether they smell bad.

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I write about the small, complicated things we carry. The stuff we don’t always have words for. This one's about staying stuck in someone else's script for us, or an old dream we had for ourselves. Typically, I write a letter once a month on Tuesday, but this felt heavy on my chest with the new year. If writing like this resonates with you, join this weird little side of the internet and subscribe.

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“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde

Imagine being told a story for as long as you can remember. You believe it so fully that you start living it, only to realize one day that the story led you further and further away from who you were actually meant to be.

As millennials, we were sold a very specific narrative about how life was supposed to look like. Work hard and you’ll be rewarded. Get the degree, get promoted faster, make more money, be happy. As women especially, we were told that if we followed the script and girl-bossed hard enough, if we optimized every single part of our lives, we could have everything. The career. The love. The friendships. The family. All at once.

That’s not what happened for a lot of us.

Instead, we ended up feeling stuck. Living lives that no longer felt like our own. Saying things like “this doesn’t feel quite right,” “the vibes are off,” “the energy is weird,” because we didn’t yet have better language for what we were actually feeling: that we’d been following someone else’s script this whole time.

Smart people don’t feel stuck because we lack awareness. We feel stuck because we were taught that misalignment was acceptable. That staying loyal to the dream mattered more than listening to ourselves, even when that dream was actively hurting us.

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My 2025 was spent letting go of things that no longer served me. Some of it was by choice. Some of it wasn’t. Much of what I struggled to release was tied to my identity and to a version of my life I’d spent years working toward. As a result, I spent most of the year grieving.

Part of that grief came from losing my grandpa, someone I loved with my whole heart. His death made it impossible to compartmentalize everything else. The exhaustion. The dissatisfaction. The quiet knowing that parts of my life weren’t working. I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

At some point, I learned it was the Year of the Snake. A year of shedding. And suddenly, what had felt like constant loss started to look different. Not like punishment. More like information, like permission to finally stop carrying what was dragging me down.

I realized I’d been holding onto a very specific idea of who I wanted to be but was stuck being the person someone else deemed acceptable. And I kept telling myself, “Later, I’ll have the tools to fully step into her.” Later, when I’m more confident. Later, when I’m more successful. Later, when I’ve earned it.

But after losing my grandpa, the waiting started to feel absurd. I couldn’t avoid the question anymore: Why am I delaying my own life? Why am I so comfortable watching other people live the version of it I want?

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Here’s the part I rarely say out loud. After a breakup in 2024, I was consumed with envy, and caught in a feeling of lack and constant wanting. Not just because the relationship ended, but because the life I thought I was building disappeared with it. I’d been in an emotionally unhealthy relationship, tied to a family whose wealth and privilege felt like an entirely different universe. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the belief that access to a glamorous life required sucking it up. That if I could just tolerate being diminished, misunderstood, it would eventually be worth it.

I let people project their version of me onto me. I allowed that projection to make me feel small. And yes, some of that came from self-esteem issues I’m still working through. But what’s not acceptable, what I can’t do anymore, is staying attached to something that required me to shrink in order to belong.

I held onto the pain because it felt like proof that the dream had been real. Letting go felt like admitting I’d been wrong about what I wanted. Or worse, that I’d wasted time. So I stayed tethered to it. I revisited it. I replayed the moments that made me feel little, like somehow the suffering would justify the dream.

That’s when I realized: recognizing misalignment is only the first step. The harder step is walking away. The real work is letting go fully, so you can move toward the life you want instead of circling the one that nearly broke you.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell

This is why so many smart people stay stuck. We’re good at naming what doesn’t fit. Whether that be a job, a city, a partner, a group of friends, etc. But we were never taught how to release a dream we’ve organized our lives around, especially when that dream was never truly ours to begin with.

This is the Year of the Horse. After a year of shedding what no longer served us, maybe it’s time to run toward what actually does. I’m tired of feeling stuck. I want to move. I want to actively create the life I deserve.

Thanks for reading Oh Anita Writes. If this hit for you, subscribe.

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And if you’re working through your own version of letting go, I’d love to hear about it in the comments or in the chat!

Every other Tuesday, I write about the small, complicated things we carry. The stuff we don’t always have words for. Today’s is about grief and the strange ways the holidays amplify it. If writing like this resonates with you, subscribe to get more of it.

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I’m not feeling great today, and I’m stating it plainly because grief doesn’t require euphemisms. The holiday season has arrived with its usual abruptness — the enforced cheer, the Mariah Carey on loop in every CVS, the collective insistence that December should feel like something other than what it is: dark and cold. My apartment smells vaguely of neglect. And it’s Tuesday, which means nothing except that it’s not the weekend.

The fact is, this will be the first holiday season without my grandpa.

He died in September, and I keep expecting the pain to dull. But instead, the grief sits in my chest, solid and unmovable, indifferent to Michael Bublé.

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When I was younger, someone told me I looked like him. I cried. I told him about it, and he said, “I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible thing to say.” What I didn’t understand then was that looking like my grandpa was the best compliment I’d ever get.

Not because he was handsome, though he was. But because he moved through the world with a kind of quiet authority that made you fix your own posture without realizing it. He was unflinchingly modest, which I found baffling as a child. Why wouldn’t you show off if you had every reason to? Now I understand: people who need to announce their importance rarely have any.

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My grandparents met during his mandatory military service in Germany, when he was twenty-two and she was twenty-six. They were at a dance, both standing off to the side watching others, when they found each other. Two atypical wallflowers. A few weeks later, they traveled across the country together. The week after that, my grandpa asked her to marry him.

In my grandma’s final years with Alzheimer’s, he never left her side. He wrote her letters she could no longer read, signing them: “to my first and only love.” That devotion was who he was.

And a few other things.

He loved gardening and tended multiple gardens throughout his life. He believed in education with the fervor of someone whose own education had saved him, so he made sure ours was paid for. When something inappropriate happened (which in a large family was often), he’d shake his head and say “oh dear” in a way that conveyed both disapproval and amusement.

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I miss him tremendously. And it feels odd to know that the holidays will continue going on like this without him. When we lost my grandma around this time of year, it was my first real experience with grief. That kind of pain that nothing fills. The load just becomes a little lighter to carry each day. It’s like keeping a plastic ball in your pocket. You fill the pocket up with other things, keys, gum, but they need to find their space around the ball.

Now, when someone says I remind them of my grandpa, I don’t cry anymore. I try to hold myself the same way he did. But maybe a little differently. I go on a walk and observe the funny weirdness around me. Or when I’m too drained and end up just watching Law and Order on the couch, I think how grateful I am to do that. Small stuff. I don’t know if it’s what he would have done. But it’s something.

Thank you so much for reading. If this kind of reflection resonates, please stick around and subscribe. Every other Tuesday, I write about the things we hold close and rarely say out loud. Paid subscribers receive raw essays, plus a monthly Thursday list of the small things I can’t stop noticing.

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This will be my last post of the year until you see me again in January. I’m taking a little time to rest and catch up with family and friends. I hope you’re able to take whatever time you need, too.

Until then, happy holidays and a happy New Year 💖

xo,
Anita

Ever think your thoughts are too weird to say out loud? Every other Tuesday, I say them for you. Paid subscribers get the really raw stuff, plus a monthly Thursday list full of quirky observations you’ll relate to.

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I’ve started using my middle finger for everything. To close out tabs on those little iPads at restaurants, to pay tips, to point at things on pieces of paper. My grandpa used to do this too, and when I was younger, I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I’d watch him gesture at something and think, “Wait, does he know he’s using that finger?” Now here I am, unconsciously inheriting his mannerisms, pointing at the world the same way he did.

I usually write something every other Tuesday and then my little list thing once a month on Thursday, but my brain was doing that thing when you don’t write for a bit, so your thoughts start to eat at you lol. So here I am, just writing and sharing what’s been on my mind. Which I guess was the original point of starting this anyway. It feels good to go back to it.

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Top of mind this Tuesday: people who whistle, and how effortlessly things seem to come to them. Or at least that’s what I thought when I saw a man whistling to himself on the subway. And so naturally, I’m going to write about it lol.

Hope you enjoy 💕

xo,
Anita

“Wit-wooh.” That’s the sound I imagine someone who whistles makes.

Sometimes it’s soft. A melody that drifts with abandon. Other times, it’s that very wet noise people make when they purse their lips, stick two fingers in their mouth, and go “wit-wooh” to get someone’s attention.

I don’t know how to whistle. I never could.

In elementary school, my classmates would whistle so naturally on the playground, trilling like little birds while I used my whole throat to mimic the same sound. Mine always came out hoarse and loud.

Funny thing is, I’ve accidentally whistled. Emphasis on it never being on purpose.

Once, while I was on a coffee date where we each paid for our own drinks. Not bitter (see what I did there?). Anyway, the guy spent the whole time saying words like “sports” while I stared at the ground, wishing the interaction would cease to exist. To cool my coffee down, I blew on it, which is when a tiny whistle slipped out. We both pretended not to hear it. He went back to sports.

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Now, when I see adults who can whistle, I can’t help but admire how easy it looks for them. So effortless, like no thought went into it. It reminds me of the things that come as second nature to people, while others have to work so hard. They move through life fluid, unthinking. And then there’s the rest of us, bobbling our way through life, conscious of every small thing our body does.

Some people are just born knowing where to put their tongue, I guess.

But maybe there’s something to all that effort. People who whistle probably don’t even know what their mouths are doing. Non-whistlers do, though. Whistlers move on instinct; we move with purpose. They don’t notice the way their neck tilts when pretending not to care. We do, judgingly and with intent. While they have words flow out of them fluidly, we feel the weight of the air on our chest before we even speak. And that has to count for something.

After my grandpa passed recently, my aunt found one of my grandma’s old rings in his apartment. I started wearing it, not realizing it would get stuck on my finger for several days. Seven firefighters eventually helped me get it off.

What surprised me most wasn’t how ridiculous it all was, but how close I felt to both of them in that moment.

It’s called Unstuck, and it’s about grief, healing, and the funny, tender ways our people stay close even after they’re gone.

xo,
Anita

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It was completely stuck. Somehow, the ring had nested and found its forever home on my now puffy forefinger. I tried to pull it past my knuckle. Nothing.

“Have you tried soap?” Yeah.

“Dental floss?” Weirdly, yes.

But the truth was, this ring wasn’t going anywhere.

And it wasn’t just any ring. It was my grandma’s. Gold, three bands, held together with understated diamonds. The kind of ring a woman with her life together would wear. And now it was mine, except it was cutting off my circulation.

After three days of putting my finger through hell (ice, lotion, castor oil, dental floss, a prayer), I woke up that morning with my finger completely ballooned up. Still pink, no discoloration yet, but I could feel my anxiety rising. Not panic, though. Just that low hum of “okay, this is a problem I need to solve.”

A year ago, this would’ve sent me spiraling. Now? I Googled what to do, learned that fire departments remove rings, and thought, well, at least this’ll make a stupidly funny story.

But first, I ran errands. Because apparently I’m the kind of person who can have a mild medical emergency and still be productive.

At a consignment store, I handed over a bag of things carrying too many “bleh” memories tinged with “ugh.” The woman behind the counter stopped mid-sort. “Uh, miss? There’s a photo in here.”

Of course there was.

It was my ex and me, the night before his birthday, when he told me I’d already ruined it. I stared at his glossy face for a second. A year ago, this would’ve broken me. But standing there, I just felt… tired? The woman smiled and said, “You can rip it up if you want.”

So I did. Dramatically.

As I tossed the pieces into the bin, my finger throbbed, but I ignored it. The ring caught the light, my grandma’s ring. Still stuck, still cutting off circulation, but somehow reminding me I was right where I needed to be.

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When I was younger, my grandma always told me to write things down. After I’d tell her a story, she’d say, “Make sure to write that.” She had Alzheimer’s, and I think she knew memory fades, but the written word doesn’t. Sometimes I wonder if she saw this coming. That I’d turn to writing. It’s literally in my last name, which feels like aggressive foreshadowing.

A year ago, I wasn’t writing. I was barely functioning. But standing there, ripping up that photo on my way to a fire station to get a ring cut off, all I could think was, this’ll be interesting to write about later. That shift, from drowning in it to documenting it, felt like proof. Not that I was healed or anything. Just that I could hold the chaos without falling apart.

So I went.

The fire station in Bed-Stuy. A firefighter opened the door, and I blurted, “Hi, my ring’s stuck.” He didn’t blink. Just called out, “Guys, we got a ring situation.”

Suddenly, I had a small audience. One older guy with adult braces and a lisp took charge, explaining his process like a cooking tutorial: soap, ice water, patience. He massaged my finger with the focus of someone who’d seen things. Five others stood around, fully invested.

A year ago, I would’ve been mortified. Now I was just there. Watching the absurdity of it.

Nothing worked. Then they brought out tools. The ring was pure gold and wouldn’t budge. Finally, the one woman in the room suggested yarn. They wrapped, twisted, pulled, and after a few questionable jokes, it slipped off.

The whole station cheered. Seven firefighters fully invested in my stuck ring. I hugged a few of them, thanked everyone, and walked home holding the ring in my palm.

As I walked home, the air felt different, warmer somehow. Maybe because there was no longer the threat of losing a finger, but more likely because I could finally see how far I’d come through this small, absurd chain of events. A year ago, I couldn’t see past the next bad day. And now I was walking home from the most ridiculous errand of my life, holding my grandma’s ring, feeling… happy. Actually happy.

My grandma always told me to write things down.

So here I am, Grandma.

Writing it down.

Thanks so much for being a part of Oh, Anita Writes! If you like what you read, I’d appreciate it if you liked, shared, or subscribed. It helps me continue doing what I love!

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Hello friends!

Top of mind this Tuesday: Imaginary timelines. But first things first, I want to thank you all for your support of Oh Anita Writes 💖

When I started this letter, it was to find my voice again (cheesy, I know) after not writing since high school, and I can’t believe how much stupid fun I’ve had along the way. Being able to share things that have been top of mind, take the time to write them out, and then get support from y’all — it truly means the world. So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!

And if this letter resonates, share it with a friend. It really does help me keep going. Now back to regular programming!

With love,
Anita

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Last night, I played the game: Am I experiencing an allergic reaction, or did I just demolish a bag of sour cream and onion chips to the extent that it burned my mouth? It’s fun to know that even at thirty-two, you’re reminded that you’re still a fucking child.

It reminded me of when a close friend once told me her dad, well into his sixties, still feels like he’s twenty-eight. It made me reconsider everything we say about souls and bodies. How we claim to have a soul, but really are our bodies.

But maybe it’s reversed? Maybe the soul stays fixed, making all the real decisions, while the body is just a vessel that aches and stretches around wherever we decide to go. Aging, then, is just purely physical, while the soul doesn’t age at all. It just is. And sometimes, you might find yourself in a body that may or may not match who you feel like inside.

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I thought about this more today, while I ate tuna straight from a can (the good kind, though, I’m not an animal1).

By thirty-two, I thought I’d be married with multiple kids, because that’s how the math worked in my head when I was in my early twenties and still figuring out tampons. I thought I’d be a marketing director somewhere, kicking ass and taking names, having multiple headshots where I’m in some type of power pose in a turtleneck, multiple rings on my hand, including one that’s so fucking heavy, I just can’t help myself but lean entirely on one side.

The script was clear. And I had help writing it.

Special thanks to society and that ever-looming biological clock that imposes these arbitrary timelines on women, reducing us to livestock on a breeding schedule.

I think about the women I know who did follow the script, or came close enough. You know, the one where you’re supposed to achieve, but also settle down. Be beautiful, but also be capable, professional, domestic, with no time or grace given for any of it. All while doing it in a way that doesn’t intimidate oaf-like men. They, too, are waiting for some switch to flip, some internal confirmation that they’ve arrived at the person they’re supposed to be.

But what if there is no switch? What if the person you were supposed to become is fiction?

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Pablo Neruda wrote, “Someday, somewhere—anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.”2

I used to think that meant discovering yourself through some type of journey. That somewhere down the line, after enough achievement or experience or therapy, that’s when you’d finally find yourself.

But maybe finding yourself isn’t about becoming someone new.

Maybe it’s about realizing you were never meant to change. That the soul you’ve had all along (the one that still wants to demolish a bag of chips, that still feels twenty-eight or seventeen or however old you felt when you were most yourself) doesn’t follow a timeline. It just is.

The bitter part, then, is recognizing how much time you’ve spent trying to become someone else, making decisions based on a script that was never truly yours. It’s recognizing how much pressure you’ve internalized about who you should be by now, what you should have achieved, and what your life should look like so that people you don’t even care about can give you an imaginary thumbs up, while you want to give the middle finger.

The happy part is realizing the truth. That the body ages. That the résumé grows, or it doesn’t. That the timelines society sets are as arbitrary as they are relentless. But the soul? It remains fixed. And maybe that’s not a problem to solve. Maybe that’s the point.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want kids. I still want work that means something. But I want them without the stopwatch, or at least, without the arbitrary idea that I’m going to be this certain type of person before I achieve any of it.

I’m thirty-two, eating tuna from a can, my mouth still slightly raw from last night’s chips. I’m not married. I’m not a hotshot marketing director. And somewhere in the gap between who I am and who I thought I’d be, I think I might have found myself after all.

Not because I’ve become someone different, but because I’ve finally stopped trying to.

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Thanks so much for reading 💕 If this hit home, please write in the comments and share it with a friend! That’s one of the best ways to support my work.

And if you haven’t subscribed yet, I’d love it if you did! Your support truly keeps this going.

xo,
Anita 💗

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With love,
Anita

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “walk in someone else’s shoes.” Usually from a parent, teacher, or just a well-meaning adult trying to teach empathy. They likely have a shirt that says, “Be kind,” and a mug that reads, “Up and at ‘em.” I’m being mansplainy now, but the idea is simple: imagine the world from another person’s perspective, and feel what they feel.

But sometimes, empathy goes too far. Especially if you’re loosely wired like me: anxious, over-observant, and occasionally changing your meds. Suddenly, you’re not just walking in someone’s shoes, you’re crawling into their skin, poking around, and taking notes.

That’s where I found myself once when I was in a less-than-ideal relationship.

Yes, woes me, blah blah blah. But I’m sharing because I often found myself second-guessing my own instincts. Like a diabolical football coach (wait, did anyone watch Him?1 Tryique tho. And like, why was Marlon kind of hot? Anyways I digress). An emotionally stunted high school football coach who has seen their players suffer way too many concussions, but keeps them in the game anyway. I somehow convinced myself it wasn’t that bad. In fact, I would lecture myself that I was overreacting, that this is what happens when you’re deeply in love with a sadboi. These are the sacrifices you make for deep conversations, late-night belly laughs,2 and that fun mix of shit-talking and great gossip with your boyfriend: unpredictability and being yelled at for cleaning a kitchen counter and accidentally throwing adderall in the trash. What, too specific?

I ignored every gut feeling that said leave because it felt comfortable and familiar. I told myself that love meant staying, that I was the problem, and that maybe my OCD was tricking me into finding fault. In reality, my OCD was a defense mechanism trying to protect me from something that just wasn’t right. But that’s a story for another day that includes falling in love with a billionaire’s son.3

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So I stayed. And when I finally left, I spent months blaming myself for not being able to handle the mistreatment with more grace. It felt like trying to endure a Fear Factor4 challenge, where you have to walk on glass barefoot for several feet, and you feel guilty for not finishing, even though the pile of glass is also on fire.

After the breakup, I often found myself in a toxic game of comparison. I kept measuring myself against people in my ex’s family, the ones who stayed. I decided they were stronger, more resilient, less dramatic. Meanwhile, I was crying every day and calling it growth.

If I could go back, I’d tell myself what every New Yorker already knows: trust your gut. There’s a reason you don’t hear people say that stepping in shit is a rite of passage for natives.

Hear me out. I have a point lol.

It’s because New Yorkers have an innate superpower, an instinct, to avoid shit whenever they walk down the sidewalk. It’s a sixth sense, where you’re not even actively looking down. You can just tell that something is about to ruin your day, and sure enough, you look down and see a pile of shit that could be animal or otherwise.

I wish I’d had that same instinct back then. Turns out, “trust your gut” applies just as much to sidewalks as it does to shitty relationships. When something feels off, it probably is. And you don’t owe it to anyone to stay standing in the mess.

Thanks so much for reading this and for being a part of Oh, Anita Writes. It means the world to me. If this resonated with you or you feel a friend would benefit from reading this, please like, share, or subscribe. It helps me keep writing.

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I’m going to paint a picture for you. You ready?

You’re walking down Atlantic Ave1 on a crisp fall day. It’s not too busy. You’re running errands, probably making your way to the post office to return a pair of jeans you thought you could pull off, but instead made you look like you had a mild skeletal disorder. Anyways, you’re walking down the street, enjoying the first few days of autumn, when an oaf of a man stops right in front of you to stomp furiously on god knows what with the fierce determination of someone who has been wronged. After he walks off and you’ve personally recovered from the blind frustration of nearly running into this man, you glance down. It’s a spotted lanternfly.2 It has been pulverized beyond belief with the brute force of a samba, probably. The energy they used to stomp on this bug could have been better suited for walking two miles per hour faster, but oh well.

Ok, picture over. You’re welcome.

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If you’re on the East Coast, especially in the North, you’re no stranger to these invasive species. The squashed remains of these bugs, who have no sense of direction and no instinct for self-preservation, can be found everywhere. If they’re not flying directly into your face, guaranteed, with every twenty steps you take in New York, if you look down, you’ll see their flattened exoskeletons.

It’s funny to think people just needed permission to go on a crusade to really crush something to death. Which is why I want to do a quick psycho-examination on the people who so gleefully kill spotted lanternflies.

I know it’s something that we’re all supposed to do for the sake of the environment, but so is recycling, and people don’t go around foaming at the mouth to do that. There’s something to be said about people who go absolutely feral when they kill them.

I guess what this says about humanity, if I choose to embrace the positive spin side and not the darker one I wanted to share but stopped myself from writing because I’ve already posted a few pieces with preludes to murder, is that we have a deep need to feel helpful, to accomplish something together, even if it’s dumb and a little violent. The second the government said, “Kill these bugs, they’re bad for the environment,” people heard, Finally. A purpose. It’s like the agricultural agencies accidentally tapped into everyone’s innate desire to kill and then gave it a PR spin. Somewhere, a lanternfly takes its last breath, and someone feels useful.

Being a woman interested in men is signing up for lifelong therapy, plus the recurring nightmare where you’re back in school, wondering if you ever actually graduated. The same problems on repeat, while your therapist books their vacation to France, knowing job security is guaranteed.

As someone who once questioned whether I was straight after a relationship with a man so bad my OCD tried to convince me I was a lesbian just to escape it, I’ve reached a sort of peace, or maybe more like begrudging acceptance, that I am unfortunately only sexually and romantically attracted to men. This is despite the fact that women are objectively more physically attractive, and that I would make a perfect femme thanks to my high cheekbones and great taste. But that is beside the point.

When you’re a woman and you're dating men, you’re told that attraction grows. I think that’s a scam.

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Let me back up. Here’s how it usually goes: you tell a friend about a guy who’s interested in you, but you’re not really feeling it. You show a picture, hoping for backup, and instead they say, it doesn’t matter what he looks like, you’ll grow more attracted once you get to know him. How is that fair? Men get to lock eyes across the room, feel instant chemistry, and pursue it with confidence, while women get… homework.

More attracted after you talk to them? No. I want to be attracted immediately. And yes, some men can hypnotize you on sight. But they know it, and nine times out of ten they’re unbearable. The tenth one has “done the work,” which just means he now mansplains with therapy buzzwords.

I don’t even believe in the whole “project” nonsense. I don’t want another assignment where I’m more focused on a man’s improvement than my own. Yet somehow we get caught in it again and again. There’s even a TikTok trend right now where straight women show the before-and-after glow ups of their husbands, proudly assuming they’re the reason. I don’t want that. I want a man who’s already meaningfully done the work on his own, so when we’re together it’s an actual relationship where we grow together, not a group project where one person ends up doing all the work.

And I blame it on this idea that “attraction grows after talking.” No. You get hoodwinked into thinking the guy you feel nothing for is actually a “nice guy” who needs you and is going to take care of you, so you start making excuses for him. As women, we convince ourselves he’s magically gained five more attractive points just because he asked how our day was or sent a polite follow-up text, even though he can recall every obscure sports stat but can’t plan a single original date. We ignore the way he repeatedly tries to hold in a burp mid-sentence while his chest inflates. Because by then, we’ve already written the fantasy: who he is, who he could become, and whether other moms will thirst after him at school pickup.

So yes, it’s a scam. We shouldn’t be told to talk ourselves into a spark that was never there. This isn’t about men who are unconventionally attractive. Attraction can take many shapes. This is about being persuaded to like someone when there’s nothing to hold on to. We don’t need to hurry into a relationship that exists just to exist. We deserve better. And if that means waiting, fine. Waiting is still better than homework.

College is sold as this place where you become more of yourself. Figure out what you like and don’t like, and make questionable decisions that supposedly lead you toward the right path.

But am I the only one who ended up becoming less of myself? Who left not with a sharpened sense of identity, but one defined by cinnamon Burnett’s and an unfortunate habit of falling down all the time?

I remember when I got into the school I ended up at, I was smug. I thanked God, who at the time doubled as my nightly therapist. What I didn’t realize? I was celebrating my own fall into East Coast insanity. This was a school where fun went to die.

Fun at this school meant catching a glimpse of the sunset only if you escaped the library before midnight. It meant being surrounded by type-A kids, all Ivy League rejects, treating it like some type of consolation prize. And it meant being the only Black woman on my floor at a time when I didn’t even fully understand what being a Black woman meant.

Oh, right. Let me back up.

I was one of those kids. The one who never knew what to say when people asked where they were from. By eighteen, I’d lived in six countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. My dad’s a white British immigrant, my mom Cameroonian. Being mixed meant always negotiating where I fit and how to belong.

So naturally, when I got to college, my plan for belonging came straight from the Air Force Network’s reruns of Greek. The solution? Join a very white sorority. At the time, racial dynamics were beyond me, growing up around people of all different backgrounds. I figured, I get along with everyone. How bad could it be?

Right. Well, we’re not even going to touch freshman year. Because, yeah.

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By sophomore year, I’d joined a sorority and decided this was the only way to have a socially acceptable personality, aka the kind men would want to sleep with. Which, as a wide-eyed virgin, felt urgent.

The damage was real, and it went well beyond my hair. I started chasing men who didn’t like me just to feel worthy. I carried a mini straightener everywhere, because apparently God thought it was hilarious to give me curly hair and then drop me in the whitest part of the South that quite literally was a colonial village.

At parties, I’d dart into bathrooms to fry my curls into oblivion. My own private ritual of self-erasure. If I’d known age itself would eventually destroy my hair, maybe I would’ve embraced the curls. But probably not. Not when the one guy I liked kept making Rihanna and Beyoncé references. Because, let’s be honest, those were probably the only Black women he knew, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

And that’s the part that still hurts. Growing up, I liked men of all backgrounds. But the longer I was in college, the whiter my crushes became. Looking back, it’s obvious: I was chasing an impossible standard to fit in. It’s a pattern I’m still unlearning.

At the time, I didn’t even have the language for it. That, and the uneasy, incendiary feeling I got walking into rooms where no one looked like me. I didn’t know to call it racism. It wasn’t until senior year, after three years of Africana history courses, that I finally thought: oh. That’s what this is.

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That was also the year I stopped clinging to “mixed” and identified as a Black woman, something people had always assumed for me. But for the first time, I carried it on my terms.

This is because, growing up in Africa, Blackness was not a category so much as a given. The fault lines of discrimination weren’t drawn only on race. The US was different. Here, people needed to put you in a box, and asking where you were “really from” was less curiosity than an act of flattening. I was still learning this dynamic even as I found myself, ironically, learning more about the places I had lived than I ever learned while actually living there.

Let’s touch on that irony for a second.

It wasn’t until a Modern African History class in bumfuck Virginia that I realized that, when I was a child in Mozambique, apartheid had only just ended. My white British father and Black Cameroonian mother still had to choose which section of the beach to sit in: white, Black, or Indian. I also had no idea Mozambique had been a critical center for South African liberation movements, where exiled leaders strategized futures that reshaped the continent. I had lived there. I had walked those beaches. And I had not known.

Meanwhile, my college experience looked a bit like this.

A mini fridge stocked with Chipotle leftovers and half-empty handles of vodka. I was sad most of the time, though I found flashes of solace in the most astonishing friends. Panic attacks came in waves, but my History classes gave me something like peace. I lost my virginity to a white guy who didn’t care about me, and honestly, I didn’t care much about me either. I abandoned the things that once made me myself (writing, singing, acting, reading) and traded them for frat basements, shaking ass, and the hollow victory of drinking men under the table.

I came in believing college would shape me. Instead, it hollowed me.

And somewhere in that emptiness, I began to see the outlines of the life I wanted, and the person I could become. Through pain, and the friends I technically paid for along the way (sorority joke), I learned the value of vulnerability, of telling the truth so people feel less alone. I stopped trying to fit into boxes other people built for me and began reclaiming my own identity.

These days, I sometimes catch myself mid-performance, about to twist into whatever shape seems most lovable. But I stop. What started as emptiness has become something sturdier: the courage to live the life I want and be the person I choose, without permission.

I’m a bit obsessed with men who have middle parts.

There, I said it.

It’s not just that their hair is unnaturally thick, the kind of thick you resent when you’re holding your own three strands in a claw clip. It’s not even the fact that their hair always smells like the Pantene shampoo you swore by in the eighth grade. It’s this.

They’re transparent.

The line they part down the middle of their head is like a confession. Exposed. Honest. And… weirdly intimate?

They try so hard to sell this black cat energy: aloof, mysterious, the type to leave you on read for dramatic effect. But really, they’re little pick-mes. Not in a bad way. In a cute, needy, please-notice-me way that only men can get away with.

They think they’re puzzles, but they’re actually open books, dog-eared and underlined. They’re blubber. Little softies you could poke holes through like Pillsbury dough. Stick a straw in and it’s all yours, squishy and embarrassing.

And the algorithm knows it. See, these are the men who get TikToks on how amazing it feels to let a woman lock you in a cage for a few hours. They think about what it would be like to get feathered in areas they’ve always wanted their girlfriend’s tongue to reach.

Yes. Men with middle parts are dreadfully obvious. And they only want one thing…..

……..

………………………..

………………………………………

To watch Murder, She Wrote in bed under a giant duvet.

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I know. I was surprised to learn this too.

But after sleeping with a few of them, you start to see the pattern. When they ignore your desperate texts disguised as casual check-ins, it’s not that they don’t care. Far from it. It’s because they’re in bed searching, “how much fiber really is in Poppi,” while worrying about how Jessica Fletcher isn’t the number-one suspect when bodies drop in every town she visits.

Which is cliché, but anything obvious is. Why else would you wake up every morning and spend time drawing a straight line across your skull like a third grader with a new ruler? It’s not styling. It’s begging. It’s, “Please look at me. Please acknowledge my symmetry.” And also, “Jessica, why didn’t you ever give Seth a fucking chance? He loves you, would do anything for you, has done everything for you, and apparently, he’s a terrific cook.”

But let’s not forget the two offshoots of men with middle parts.

There are the ones who get perms. Those guys are basically writing alternate endings to the episode If It’s Thursday, It Must Be Beverly. Aka the episode where all the women in Cabot Cove are in heat. Devious, like the curls they fought so hard to have, they imagine a world where Jessica stops investigating and just… embraces Jonathan.

The middle-parted men to scoff over? Ugh. Blondes with middle parts. They secretly want Jessica to be the murderer and can’t stand that she always has timeless statement pieces that work for both fall and spring. That, and they can’t handle the fact that after her husband’s death, she reclaimed herself and built a new identity as a writer.

So yeah. Men with middle parts. Gotta love ’em. Almost as much as Murder, She Wrote.

A lot of the guys who match with me on dating apps look like future Dateline specials.

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