The blessing (privilege?) of wanting what I have

Blooming in Brooklyn, baby

Before I dive into my medicine cabinet and other things, I want to share something about writing.

Writing has felt clunky to me lately and IDGAF. How I feel reminds me of a revelation I had while studying and practicing Spanish more intensively in 2023. I realized that I am never upset when someone’s English isn’t perfect because we can figure it out and make it work through whatever words they do have and non-verbal communication. The point is to communicate. Not to communicate perfectly.

That’s how I feel about my writing right now. I’m very much in a “I’m just gonna run my mouth and see what comes out” phase and I trust that you’ll get whatever is here for you from my words, whether they’re super polished, well crafted, or properly punctuated.

That’s what I always care most about anyway.

Moving on…

In 2018, after some healthy peer pressure from a few friends, I started doing stand-up comedy for fun. One of my favorite open mics was a standup-improv hybrid. The host placed 50 or so words on folded pieces of paper in a bucket that sat on a stool in the middle of the stage (you can see it just off to the right in the pic below). There was no preparing for this because your paper could say anything. You had to just pick one and go.

I loved it so much because writing jokes wasn’t my strong suit. Stage presence, crowd work, and storytelling were.

One night, I brought a white male friend of mine with me from the “entrepreneur world.” He was a coach and a speaker, and he thought it sounded like a fun challenge.

Yes, it matters that he was both white and male. You’ll see why in a moment.

During his time on stage, he referred to a tattoo he had of the word BLESSED on one of his wrists. He’d been doing okay up to that point, when a Black dude off to the side shouted out a joke about being blessed or being privileged.

My friend proceeded to have the kind of meltdown that those whose ancestors are an assortment of crackers are known to have. It wasn’t major. But it was indicative of the level of unexamined privilege he was working with. And listen, even though this was my friend, it was the funniest part of the night.

I think about this little anecdote anytime I’m considering the intersections between my blessings and my own privileges, both of which I’ve been really reflecting on lately because…

I am so happy to be here.

Here being here at this moment in my life AND here in Brooklyn where I live now.

I wrote a post on IG about it last week. Here’s most of it:

“Y’all. This is a very Virgo-coded post through and through 👀

In all my years of apartment living, which is my preferred way to live for so many reasons, I have never mastered storage and organization. Somehow in this new spot it has been so so easy and enjoyable.

I suspect that part of it is a result of simplifying and pairing down my belongings and having a much deeper understanding now in my 40s of the kind of “stuff” and materials I do and don’t “need.”

Compared to many, what I have is not much, and yet
in a world where too many people have next to nothing, I feel like a rich-ass biatch in my little studio — a place my guides and ancestors led me to step by step over the last two years. (Could write friggin’ book about this winding journey of trauma healing, neurodivergence-navigating and lineage gift / inheritance claiming but I probably won’t!)

Wanting what I have is such a phenomenal feeling given the bizarre and conflicting existence it is to be alive in these times.

I’m also constantly struck by how tender, beautiful, and awe-inducing it is, too.

2025 has been stretching me to the max to hold so many truths and paradoxes and make some really major shifts and I know I’m not alone in that!”

Aside from my current joy, I’m also in awe of how things continue to unfold.

How, in many ways, I've been drained of all I thought I wanted and also many things I "gained" by operating both outside my design, from my trauma, and in response to movements and ideologies over the years from my late twenties up until very recently. From "positive thinking" and "law of attraction" to the online entrepreneur world. Then into spirituality, social justice and liberation spaces...

What all of it has allowed me to do is land in MYSELF. My whole-entire-mother-fuggin’ self—at least the self that I’m aware of because you know, insert the infinite nature of reality and the Great Mystery of it all.

Now, I know this will continue to shift and change, but I'm seeing how–now that I'm home in Brooklyn–the truest parts are the strongest.

I was reflecting this morning on feeling similarly in this phase of my "career" as I have after some romantic relationships. The "Was any of it real?" - that comes from retrospectively looking back and seeing how wrong so much of it was. However, I must always remember that it was absolutely right at the time, it just isn't aligned NOW.

And how necessary all of it was on the way to getting HERE.

I am at peace with that.

Also in awe of it.

The divine orchestration.

The Twists and Turns.

The detours, scenic routes, shortcuts, and winding roads that have coalesced into this “perfect” path.

I don't speak for others when I describe my own experience and I have no attachment to people experiencing their own lives this way. I see the value in considering it for everyone, but it's not my philosophy to push or my ministry to press on anybody else.

But like, I'm sitting here in my king-sized bed, in my gorgeous studio apartment. If I gaze up and just slightly to the right, I see my terrace, with a beautiful blue used vase from West Elm that I bought off FB Marketplace. The sun is reflecting off of it. Beside it are two bags. Soil + drainage rocks for the flowers and herbs I potted last week. This is simple, sensual pleasure and joy to me.

I'm about to teach my first Wild Soul Movement session from this new space. It is not a fancy or high tech set up but it is beautiful, and it is "mine."

I’ve recently experienced some healing/revelations around dehumanization and objectification. How I have been dehumanized and objectified almost my whole life for my power, strength, charisma, capacity, and, of course, my physicality. And how I have also been among the perpetrators of this against myself.

A humbling ass thing to move through, integrate, and release.

It's bringing on significant identity shifts, life-changes, and choices, all of which feel like such sweet and expansive relief. Keys to doors that have been locked until now in the castle of my Life.

[h/t to Caroline Myss + Teresa of Avila for that castle metaphor.]

And with that…

TO BE CONTINUED