LeoLin Bowen

My son had just lost another tooth. When he looked up at me with his big, brown eyes and asked, “Mommy is the tooth fairy real?”

I am usually introduced to people as “the vegan.” I get it. Vegan is the new “it” word and now you are actually meeting one.

“I just love your squishy belly!” Then, as only children can do, he gave it a nickname: belly jelly. So I'm learning to love my belly jelly.

Inevitably, it happens. A well-meaning (or maybe not so well-meaning) white person will utter the phrase, “Well, I just don’t see color.”

I am not the only one who is running on this hamster wheel of debt. In 2017 Americans had a revolving debt of $1,022 billion. So, dear debt, it's over!

I was a good girl from the start. Now I am speaking up, setting boundaries, saying no to the things I don’t want and yes to the things that I do.

You are about to embark on a journey that you will be talking about and remembering for the rest of your life, so spend these next year’s enjoying it.

I didn’t see similarities between my mother and I until years later, after I became a mother. The constant conflict hid how my mother and I are alike.

I knew there was still a culture of fear surrounding black people, but this was the first time I had experienced a person scared of black people.