Christmas makes me sad.

There is a grief that sneaks up on me every year, quietly, like a cat padding up behind me. It sinks its claws deep into my skin and won’t let go. The pain settles into my bones, and I get so used to it that I stop noticing it hurts, until my entire body screams.

As a child, the magical lights of Christmas trees and the festive colors adorning neighboring lawns made me feel like an outsider.

We weren't supposed to know we were beautiful or sexy.

I didn’t realize why inner beauty was so important until I began to grow up. Inner beauty was important because outer beauty was dangerous. Inner beauty and outer beauty were diametrically opposed warriors.

I knew I wasn’t beautiful outwardly, so, like other girls my age, I learned how to be inwardly beautiful. I wanted to leave beauty wherever my fingerprints landed, whether it was a dress, a childhood, or a painting.

“Growing up in a culture that thinks in black and white is easy—until something happens that shatters your black and white paradigm. Then, it’s the hardest thing in the world. All the things you thought were bad—depression, anxiety, sadness, cynicism, bitterness, anger, hatred— they’re all inside you. And religion dictates that there is no place for them in a good person. So, you’re left to stifle them, to pretend they aren’t there, to pray them out of you, and to watch in utter confusion as you lose sight of the person you thought you were.”