Wise words from a reader

This week has been an unbelievably exciting one, friends. After my newest xoJane piece was published, I received several emails from readers. They all touched me, naturally, but what I wasn’t expecting was for people to identify so strongly with my words and with my story. Thanks to readers like Nazanin, I learned a valuable lesson. Nazanin writes…

I feel the cage you have built for yourself. A line you’ve drawn and decided you can’t cross it. We have all drawn these lines in our lives. We have made decisions about ourselves and gave meaning to them and stayed committed and faithful to them- waiting for someone to set us free from those barriers, ignoring that it was us that built them on the first place. You are right..who are you to deserve Stephen? You deserve someone who deserves you. May them be Stephen or someone else. First, believe in your self worth. Establish how much you want to be valued and then ask the world for it.

Thank you, Nazanin, for such a great nugget of advice. I was just talking with my friend Claire about this the other day. Sometimes, we find ourselves in a rut, where we trick ourselves into believing that we are — without a doubt — the only people on the planet who have ever felt the way we feel or have experienced what we have. I’ve felt like that for such a long time. But like Claire said, we all have our own issues that we bring to the table when it comes to relationships. So maybe it’s about learning to integrate them into our lives as opposed to trying desperately to push them out of our lives. What do you think, friends? xoxo

[Photos via Le Love]

xoJane: Essay #2

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was working on a new piece for xoJane (you might remember my first essay on coming to terms with my disability). This time around, I’m sharing what it feels like to be a 31-year-old virgin who’s never been kissed and wonder: How do you tell someone they’re your first? As in first everything -– first kiss, first date, first boyfriend, first, well, time. And how do you even begin to figure out how your physical disability plays into all of this? Oh, and there’s a bit more reflection on a certain guy. You can read the full essay here, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, friends! xoxo