Category: Personal

by L.E. Bowman

I have the best girls in my life. I would be nothing without the love of the women who lift me in my darkest moments.

Here are my favorite birthday wishes that I received yesterday & I want to share them with you (& never forget myself):

“wishing you a happy birthday!!!!! 🥳🩷🌸 i’m so glad we’ve become closer in the past year, and i’m looking forward to more girls nights and pool days and general girlhood!“. -Alex

“Happiest of birthdays Amber!!! I’m so thankful to have a friend as caring and amazing as you. I hope you’re enjoying your day!!”. -Erica

“Happy Birthday to my beautiful and magical Amber. I am so lucky to have the femme, loud, bubbly fun you bring to my life. I hope this year has more smiles and hugs and Maple Syrup kisses in store for you.“ -Letitia

“Eighteen years ago, I had no idea that meeting you would become one of the greatest blessings of my life. 🥰❤️ Through all the laughter, adventures, tears, crazy ideas, life changes and everything in between, you’ve been my chosen family, my sister. I truly can’t imagine my story without you in it. You have the biggest heart, the brightest spirit and a way of making everyone around you feel loved. Thank you for being the kind of friend who celebrates with me during the highs, stands beside me during the lows and somehow always knows exactly what I need. ❤️ I hope this year brings you everything you’ve been dreaming of and so much more—new adventures, endless laughter, good health, peace, love and every little bit of happiness your heart can hold. You deserve all of it and so much more! 💕 Thank you for 18 incredible years of friendship. Here’s to many more birthdays, beach days, late-night talks, inside jokes and making memories we’ll still be laughing about when we’re little old ladies. 😂❤️”. -Laura

“Happy Birthday Soul Sister❤️First… I’m sorry this is coming so late today. If there was ever someone who deserved to be celebrated from the second they opened their eyes this morning, it’s you. But thankfully you know me well enough to know that the timing has absolutely nothing to do with how much I love you. We’ve been doing this life together since 7th grade… and somehow, through every version of ourselves, we’re still here. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I got so lucky.

You’ve seen every side of me. You’ve never judged me (well maybe a little, but only when you knew I could do better) but you’ve never given up on me, You’ve never made me earn your love. You’ve loved me through every season of life, and I hope you know how much that has meant to me. 💓💓

You are the definition of a true friend. people spend a lifetime hoping they’ll find someone like you Amber. You’re an incredible mother, an amazing woman, and the most genuine heart I know. You love with your whole heart, and everyone lucky enough to know you is better because of it. Thank you for laughing with me, crying with me, talking me off ledges, telling me the truth. Thank you for being my safe place, my voice of reason, my family of choice, and my best friend. I hope this next year surprises you in the best ways. I hope it brings peace where you’ve carried stress, healing where you’ve carried hurt, and joy in all the little moments. I hope you get back every ounce of love you’ve poured into everyone around you

I love you endlessly, more than you’ll probably ever realize. Thank you for choosing me all those years ago and for never letting go.

Happy Birthday, Darling. I love You very very very very very much. Here’s to another year of doing life together. ❤️” -Cassidi

And honorable mention for the “rock star birthday song” video that I received from Brittany 😆🥰🥰

To be loved like I am loved is my greatest blessing.

✨Cheers 🥂 to 37 years ✨

“You can love someone deeply and well know that’s it’s best to leave them alone. It’s heartbreaking and liberating…”

-Alex Elle

A one year old boy- Kohen Kartier Wiley- was shot by cops over the accusation of stolen diapers… comments flood in justifying it and blaming the parents for fleeing instead of complying…

An obituary for a 21 year old black trans girl pops up on my feed next- she committed suicide. And people were spewing the most disgusting, vile venom towards this angel who already gave up because the weight of living is too heavy.

I just don’t understand all of the hate.

Someone who I used to consider a very close friend, Didi, posted multiple anti-pride sentiments this week, about us being evil…

My heart is breaking in so many different ways & PMS is hitting really hard right now…

“The level of trauma that someone has endured is not an indicator of the depth or capacity within them.“

“Stay humbly centred in your powerful, rebellious heart that refuses to be conquered by fear and remains faithful to love.”

I hope you feel seen when she listens.

I hope that you are so happy that you can’t recall the sound of my laughter or the angle of my smile anymore.

I hope that the passing smell of coconut and vanilla doesn’t bring you back to me. Or our slow, humid days baking on sandy beaches.

I want you to be so deeply fulfilled that you forget about our dreams together.

I want you to be loved so countlessly that you can’t even remember feeling of my warmth.

I don’t wish you hell anymore; I never really did, no matter what I said. I spoke from the wound you left in my chest.

But I don’t wish you well, either.

I don’t wish you anything at all. Wishing shouldn’t break your heart. So I won’t waste my wishes on you anymore.

Only that it were easier to forget…

I wish that I could tuck the thoughts of you into the box that has all of our loving mementos: our book of notes back-and-forth over the first years; the other book with our too frequent coincidences for it not to be fate; the page where I wrote down your favorite things so I’d never forget your love for Klee, infinite mint green, or ginger flavored everything.

So many notes, memories, photos— moments, tucked away into the attic behind my mother’s old Christmas decorations.

I want to forget it all until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

And when I’m ready, I’ll tenderly appreciate all of the precious life that we shared and how we changed each other for the better.

But until then, I’m mending wounds.

It still hurts nine months later. I hold on to the fact that I was where I needed to be & I am where I need to be now.

My future is even brighter than my past. It has to be…

I think that the reason why I’m hurting so bad after the ending of my relationship is that I never planned for this.

Hear me out…

Yes, I felt our romantic love fading.

Yes, I felt our deep, tender emotional connection evaporating.

Yes, I felt our inability to show up how the other one needed.

But I never stop loving her. I never thought that there was ever a chance that she wouldn’t be in my life in some capacity. I never even considered it…

And now I feel like the universe is pulling another one of the most influential souls from my life.

But is it the universe? Or is it what she really wants? Will I ever really know? Is it even really any of my business?

“Love always shines, that’s how I’ll find you. In case you forgot, I hope this reminds you now.

Take me to that old, familiar place.
Take me to memories we won’t erase.
Take me to all that we had, the good and the bad.
I’ll never forget you.
I’ll never let you go.
I’ll always remember, I hope you know…”

My mom died at the age of 51 from congestive heart failure on September 19, 2024. Twenty-five years of using hard drugs will do that to you.

My (then) 11-year-old brother was less than a month into his 6th grade year, just starting middle school. It was just the two of them.

Like every morning before, he got up and got himself dressed. On his way out the door, he went to kiss her goodbye and found her there in her bed.

I missed his first call. I heard it on the second ring of the second call. He was frantic. I knew as soon as he described the situation: he could not get her to wake up, she was cold and not breathing with her eyes open. I told him to walk onto the front porch.

I stayed on the line with him for the 45 minute drive to their house while my fiancé called an ambulance. My mom was long gone by the time the medics arrived. My brother has been in my care ever since. 

My easy, carefree life at the beach is gone. I had to move back to my one square mile, very red, conservative, & rural hometown. I didn’t want to completely turn my brother’s life upside down further by pulling him out of the group of kids that he has grown up with since kindergarten. Luckily, I work from home so it was feasible.

But my mom had mild hoarding tendencies, and no life insurance, and no will. Her funeral, burial, and headstone had to be financed. I couldn’t pay the mortgage and my rent at the beach apartment. So I packed all of my stuff & left the little home that I had made for five years into an already packed house.

Week after week, I have thrown away, organized, saved for family members, and donated so many things: furniture, clothes, media, mementos, and photos. It’s been a year and a half and I’m still not nearly complete.

I’ve paid a cleaning lady to help me organize once a month but it’s been such an overwhelming task. And the household income has cut in half since I initially moved in.

My fiancé left last August because the weight of her trauma was too much to bear with my new grief & responsibilities. I miss her so much as a person, but the reality is that she wasn’t a great partner. She did not do much to help with the house or my brother or any responsibilities beyond splitting bills and the occasional drop off.

About two weeks before she actually moved out, the Florida department of children and families called me. They asked if I would be willing to take custody of my 16 year-old cousin Jamie to keep him out of the system. They said they had exhausted all options and he was going to a children’s home unless they could find somewhere to put him. I agreed. This was the final straw that pushed her out the door. I don’t regret it. I think it was a blessing in disguise for both of us.

It’s been really hard to become an overnight parent to two neurodivergent teenage boys. And doing it alone has truly been a struggle.

But this is the path that I have chosen and I’m proud of my decisions and my heart. I am proud to watch them grow and to help influence them into being emotionally competent, kind, thoughtful young men. I do my best to lead with love and be the parent that I wish I would’ve had.

I still miss her & think of her almost every single day. We haven’t spoken since November & it was just an email. A hateful, poisonous email…

I don’t want to miss her. I wish that I didn’t. I wish that I had control over it. I keep practicing forgetting and I’m gonna keep at it until I don’t miss her anymore. I’m simultaneously mourning her & the life that we were supposed to have together accompanied by the deaths of my mother, my sister, & my freedom. It all gets so heavy sometimes…

She did me wrong. She hurt me. She left me in a lurch and even after, I offered kindness because I wanted to maintain her friendship. And she spit in my face.

How could I still miss someone who said so many horrible things to and about me?

Because I still miss my friend. I miss her opinions and takes. I miss her stories. I miss her dog. I miss her Spotify playlists. I miss cooking for her and knowing that she’s well. I miss her audiobooks & suggestions. I miss the lovers that we used to be together and how vulnerable and tender we were. I miss her trinkets and tiny thoughtful things that made me know her more. I miss her choosing me. I miss how it felt to be loved by her.

And at the same time, I was so unhappy in our relationship by the time she left.

I feel like all of the practice that I had romanticizing my life as a form of survival in my childhood bleeds into other aspects. The way that I had to ignore my mother’s dangerous tendencies turned into my ignoring and excusing poor behavior and treatment by partners who are supposed to love me.

I let things slide far too many times. And I need to accept that I deserve better. The universe won’t allow me to settle for less.

It’s nothing that I haven’t said before. But I know that you have a hard time remembering the good things. So I’ll say it again, in the permanence of the internet:

You changed so many of my multitudes for the better. You taught me new levels of grace and bravery. You opened my eyes to the pain of others that I could not see. I was waking up and you wiped the sleep from my eyes.

You were so gentle in the beginning. And I thought that you loved me so truly. I really felt safe for the first time, at the start. It was like real tangible magic when you loved me. I had never felt so beautiful or adored.

In fact, you were so magical, that I’ll never be able to settle for less. From the moment we connected, there was a deep knowing. A recognition. A spark. A changing that can never be undone. And now I don’t ever want anything less than just that.

It didn’t end up as the forever we had planned. We didn’t even make it to our fourth anniversary. But it was still something precious and life altering for me.

I don’t know why everything changed on that odd November morning. We had been split up for nearly 4 months and I genuinely thought that we were friends. I thought we were gonna live out the lesbian trope of being besties with your ex. I don’t know what you could possibly have been going through to try and build a wall between me and our friends. Or why you would ever steal from me. But I guess that’s not for me to know. Spilt milk, and all that jazz.

Even still, I don’t think you’re a bad person at all. I actually still believe that you’re an astounding person. You’re deeply wounded and you’re just trying to survive, like me. I don’t think you meant to hurt me as severely as you did. At least I hope you didn’t. You nearly succeeded at shaking the foundation of my security. But instead, you’ve given me a chance to prove my resilience to myself, yet again. (a reoccurring theme in my life, as you know)

So thank you countlessly for the lessons. Thank you countlessly for your time and your effort. Thank you countlessly for providing a love safe enough for me to be honest with the world about who I truly am.

And thank you for opening the closet door. It was dark in there.

PS. If you read this, please unblock me from Spotify; that one stung the worst 😭

I’ve told myself for years that I’m an eternal optimist, but I’m considering that it’s really just a constant need to make sense of all the pain.

From a tiny apple screen, my heart eats bite sized clips of war. Sitting in a rocking chair on a calm, cool Florida spring night with children & crickets laughing in the driveway. Simultaneously watching whole communities vanish in walls of flames under sprinkles of bombs.