just alyssa

I came home again tonight into darkness. I tried to navigate my way through my pitch black garage, cursing myself for not changing that light bulb. I quickly tried to gather the things from my backseat before my automatic headlights turned off, taking all the light I had left around me.  Frustrated, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a new light bulb, determined not to let this happen to me for the 3 rd week in a row. I grabbed a stool and stood there, staring at the light bulb, wondering how in the hell I reached it the last time.   And then I remembered …… I didn’t. You did it for me.  You laughed at my pathetic cries of my own attempts and hugged me for all the height I lacked, before stepping up on the stool and quickly changing the lightbulb that had left me in darkness for months. Before you were there, I came home every night, desperately trying to navigate the dark space. I tried to hurry before it swallowed me. I ...

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and as I’ve stared at my computer screen, sifting through quotes and posts about how our world has changed I grow more and more angry. Which is confusing because anger is not the emotion I should be holding.  Anger should not be my reaction to a day marked in history that has brought our world together, and yet, it is…. I grew up in a small town of only 2,000 people, set on strips of farm land with homes sprinkled between fields of corn and soybeans. Apart from those there were bits of land reserved for livestock, mostly pigs. In town there was the factory, which housed most of the town’s employment opportunities. It wasn’t a bad place, but it lacked diversity. It lacked difference . What I’ve come to realize about my home was that prejudice was carried no differently than family traditions. It was passed on from generation to generation like last names. It was given and taught and never challenged. I grew up confused abo...

Whoever chose the wording for the end of a relationship is a straight up genius. A “break up”. It makes perfect sense. I have never felt so broken in my life… Dating is one of those things that is too confusing to really master. I’d like to say there is no handbook, but we all know there are hundreds of books, movies, blogs, magazines, songs, and podcasts that pave the way for navigating intimate partnerships. But even with all that. Even with the millions of words of advice that are heeded, we still manage to mess things up. I fell in love this year. Hard. I didn’t see it coming. Not even for a second. I swore it wasn’t going to happen. I ignored him. All while this friendship was forming, I was carrying on like normal. No interest. No end goals.  He’s simply just a guy. But all of a sudden he wasn’t just a guy . He was the guy. Things changed quicker than I could exhale a breath. I was in the middle, before I saw it all begin. And that’s ...