Rites of Passage

father-daughter

A Breakthrough Moment, Thanks to Dad

One moment does stand out for me. When I was a teenager, my father told me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. I can’t even remember what it was but still remember standing at...

A Week of My Own

There was a time I wore my To Do List like a badge of honor. I did it all: held down a full-time job while raising three children; volunteered for local charities; entertained on the...

Academic Achievement As A Way Out

When I was 12 years old we (my mother and my three siblings) moved from Colombia to the US to live with my dad, who had migrated 7 years earlier. We arrived to discover that he’d become...

Building Boundaries

The most challenging and ongoing struggle in my life is maintaining a relationship with my over-bearing, narcissistic mother. I constantly wrestle with how to preserve my sense of self when...

promise to myself

A Promise to Myself

There have been so many breakthrough moments in which I crossed a barrier to self-acceptance and self-love, moments in which I chose to love me, and to stop sacrificing myself to meet...