Alaina Leary

The education system isn’t designed for students like me. From as early as preschool up through my master’s degree, I struggled in a traditional classroom setting for a few reasons, and needed to adapt my own methods of surviving education.

I told Winnie that I was queer before I told anyone human—late at night, in my room, after writing it down in my journal. “You won’t stop loving me if I’m gay, will you?” I asked him. He replied with his signature loud meow.

I have a lifetime of momless moments ahead of me, but I’ve prepared for those since her death. What I hadn’t prepared for was that I’d have to celebrate one of those milestones on a day that I typically spend in mourning.

"Writing about trauma or difficult experiences doesn’t repair that trauma,” said Melanie. “It doesn’t make it go away. But I kept hearing what a transformative thing it was for [the memoirists] to shape these stories into something that they could be proud of.”

Remembering to do things isn’t exactly my strong suit, so I need to actively plan so that my partner isn’t the only one making lists, cleaning the dishes, and checking that our bills are paid on time.

When I was in seventh grade, I logged onto my MySpace blog and wrote a short blog post about being gay and afraid to come out to my family and frie

I’ve walked the line between visibly and invisibly disabled my entire life.