letting love in //
and quilting class!
As the new calendar year unfolds, I am finding myself oscillating between rage (world) and gratitude (my micro-world). 2025 for me was a year of rest, recalibration, fury, and anguish. There is so much to grieve, and all the while we still plod along and find our small, tiny things to celebrate. For me, my gratitude hums deep in my chest for the love in my life, primarily my partnership and chosen family. Even as despair creeps in, as the world becomes a scarier, more uncertain place, I find my gratitude is growing. Often, when laughing with friends, eating dinner with my partner, or walking with my dog, I feel this swell of: if this is all I get in this lifetime, I am so, so lucky. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and it makes me weep. Other times, it’s a friendly, silent nudge, reminding me of the power of letting love in.
In the vein of gratitude, I was diagnosed with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) last spring, which uprooted my life and, in the same fell swoop, propelled it forward. Most people don’t know much about OCD and mischaracterize it. OCD essentially sabotages your values by flooding the brain with distressing thoughts, causing extreme distress and a compulsive need to relieve oneself of said distress, often by seeking certainty. Usually, these thoughts circle around a common “theme”, and are what the pros call “ego dystonic”, meaning they are in direct opposition to your values and what you care about. Value love, safety, and family? You might obsess about whether or not you might kill your partner in your sleep. Value your health? Medical OCD may be yours.
In hindsight, it all makes sense. When I was a kid, my themes were different and changed over time (which is common). I enforced a litany of rules and rituals to ensure that my parents didn’t die. I would tap the drain with my left foot, then my right foot, a certain number of times and in a specific pattern, before leaving the shower because I believed that if I didn’t, a man might come into our house and kill them. I had to set the table forks first, then knives, then spoons, and if it was out of order? That same man could come and kill my brother in his sleep. I had to put my left sock on before my right (or mom dies). Couldn’t sleep with my left foot out of the covers (it might get chopped off). “Don’t step on a crack or it’ll break your mother’s back” caused me years of silent distress. I would revise thoughts in my head to neutralize any “bad energy” for fear that God heard them and would punish me. When I was a teenager, there was a year where my inner monologue had to be in letters instead of words, spelling out every single word that came to mind (which made thinking, school, anything… um, HARD!). If I messed up, I had to start over, and every time I did, the chances of my best friend dying in a freak accident would multiply. In my mid-twenties, if I told a white lie (like if I didn’t tell my boss the whole truth about why I needed a day off, or something benign like that), I would spend days, weeks, obsessing and stressing about whether or not this meant I was actually a part of an evil cabal and didn’t know it! Really cool, fun, relaxing stuff. I’m not going to share my current theme, but it is its own special type of torture. Luckily, with exposure therapy (ERP), it is getting better every day.
When it came to ERP, I thought it would be all mechanical — if scared of this, do it. If obsess about x, don’t y. But instead, it’s largely been a practice in self-compassion and the gray area maintenance of embracing the largely nuanced, complicated human experience as being just that—we do bad things, we do good things, we are cruel, we love deeply, but mostly we all live in the gray area of a messy, juicy, imperfect life. My therapist has me doing things like talking to myself out loud in the mirror and saying what I love about myself. Telling my friends, out loud, these proclamations of self-love. Allowing the people in my life to love on me, and instead of deflecting or joking or jestering or hardening… listening to them.
At first, I was incredibly resistant to this. What did this have to do with anything? I thought of all the exposure therapy tropes from TV. I thought I’d march into an external situation I was afraid of, check a box, and move on to the next harder thing (I’m a good student, after all!). But this practice, of letting love in, felt like an insurmountable hurdle. That if I allowed light, joy, love, admiration, and compassion to beam my way, then surely I deserved spiritual punishment. But with repetition (and professional help!), my protective shell has become more permeable. The voices of self-destruction are quieter. I am looking, really looking, at love that comes my way. Feeling it. Understanding it. Integrating it. Knowing it. Holding it without shame. Asking for it. Proclaiming it. Being with it. Fusing it with the unknown. Holding it hand in hand with uncertainty. Using it as medicine for self-flagellation.
Looking into the new year, I want to continue this fusing, melding, smooshy, sticky process. Of throwing all the proverbial Legos into one big messy box instead of a determination to separate, order, catalog, and know for certain. Of not only saying yes to love but yes to receiving it with the open, gentle hand of gratitude. And using it as fuel for action.
☻
PS!
I didn’t think I’d ever share this or write about it here, and I waffled about even posting. But then I thought about the people who shared about their OCD, which ultimately led me to getting the right diagnosis (after nearly a decade of therapy, misdiagnosis, and anguish). I am eternally grateful to them. It’s not just germs. Thank you for being here with me.
PPS!
OCD is vastly misunderstood, incredibly complicated and nuanced, and specific to each person. When I say it is torture, I mean it. If you make OCD jokes or say you’re “OCD” about something, this is your loving cue to cut that shit.
I’m teaching a class!
QUILTING CLASS - IMPROV WALL HANGING
DEETS:
SUNDAY FEB 22 11-5pm (MASK REQUIRED)
LOCATION: IN MY PERSONAL SEWING STUDIO NEAR SEATTLE BOULDERING PROJECT (POPLAR).
WHAT TO EXPECT:
VERY SMALL CLASS SIZE W/ 1:1 INSTRUCTION
ACCESS TO A SEWING MACHINE (OR BRING YOURS!)
HISTORY OF IMPROV QUILTING & KNOWLEDGE SHARING
ACCESS TO FABRIC STASH (OR BRING YOURS!)
SAFE SPACE TO BE NEW, NOT GOOD AT SOMETHING, AND TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS!!
NO PRECISION OR EXPECTATIONS!
NO PERFECTIONISM!
TOOLS, SCISSORS & WHATNOTS PROVIDED
WHAT YOU WALK AWAY WITH:
A UNIQUE, QUILTED WALL HANGING THAT YOU CAN GAZE UPON WITH LOVE AND JOY!!! OR GIFT TO A FRIEND PAL LOVER OR YOUR MOM!
NEW SKILLS!
A FREE COPY OF MY IMPROV QUILTING ZINETO RESERVE YOUR SPOT:
Reply to this email with intent to attend. Sliding scale $150-280 (Venmo instructions will come via email). First-come, first-served. I would love to see some friendly faces for my first class!
This piece by Spencer Scott, which I’ve shared in other forms, but I really love his work. Superorganism…. SUPERORGANISM!!
A musician I love is going a year without any screens.
Doctors who listen to you (revolutionary)
Watching Heated Rivalry as a queer millennial who was closeted in the 2010s and screaming at the last 6 minutes of episode 5
Letterboxd
Believing no one, not ever, deserves to die at the hands of the state
My print sale is still live! I’m continuing to raise funds for Makers 4 Mutual Aid via print sale through the end of January. Thank you to everyone who has bought so far. We have raised $500 already!
Love ya,
I wanted to write something great that expresses how proud of you I am, how awesome this post is and how awesome you are, and how I feel closer to you because of it. So this, I guess, is that!
Am also very inspired by the musician who is taking a year off screens. Applause all around 👏❤️
I loved reading this. Resonates so much. 💜💜