Zumba class used to be my happy place. Several times a week I would walk into this class and I’d forget about all the hard things in my life. Fun music, people sweating and laughing. We literally looked like we had taken a group shower when we were done. It felt so good. The instructor…
I found calm Steady breath A place where The quiet feels… Composed But what if I’m in the eye Of the storm? What if chaos Has just settled Like sand does Waiting for the heat To clash with the cold Inside my brain What if his screams What if his anger What if their words…
I look around at all the people who have made me feel unimportant and the crowd never gets smaller. And it never will. They have taken my smiles and put them in a pocket stuffed with their crumpled up receipts and mostly chewed gum wads. They’ve stolen my words and my deeds and gave them…
Sometimes you just have to stand back, take a few big breaths, and refocus on the world around you. I think sometimes everything feels too tight, too set, too closed in. Feelings of being penned into a corner, and like there are only a few choices can be stifling. The world is so big. So…
I remember the exact moment it felt like everything in my life changed. It was like a strange shift. A falling through floors. As if destiny was reaching out urging me to take its hand. To be honest, that night was blurry as though I wasn’t in my right mind or had too much to…
It was an early December morning and I was hungover. I had far too much to drink the night before for someone who hardly ever drank. I remember walking outside to cool off and sitting in the snow. It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Little did I know the next morning was going…
I first met Micheal Jason Allen when my daughter and I signed up to be extras on a movie set. My best friend Yousef Kazemi wrote and was directing a movie called The Stand-in. Follow its progress here. He was a well-dressed man (because we were in the wedding party) with a bowtie and a…
Please help me welcome Stephanie Musarra to #BeReal as she shares with us her experience with homelessness. It is easy to make assumptions about someone who is homeless because let’s face it… many of us have never been there. We tend to believe this is a problem we will never be faced with. But I…
I don’t remember the first time I thought, “man I wish I could be more…”. More classy, more beautiful, more funny, more smart, more stable, more serious. I’ve lost count of how often I wished I was less messy, less emotional, less sad, less weak, less random, less awkward. Seems I’m constantly wishing I had…
I got lost. One moment I was speed typing my thoughts across the page. My thoughts racing so fast I could barely keep up. I’d slap a corresponding picture up, type in a few tags and hit publish. Not once a day but several times a day. The next moment, two years later or maybe…
