Anonymous

My dad had an explosive anger that he took out on his children. My father abused me and I love him in spite of myself. I don’t want him to die.

Women who are nuns do not have intimacy with the opposite sex. Some people never get any. But for me, that was the deal killer. It is like eating potato chips; you can never have just one. Besides, I don't like to watch the news by myself.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about personal style and fashion until I started teaching elementary school. I had more fashion lessons this year than a makeover-show contestant, courtesy of 6-year-old girls.

There really isn't anything unusual about our union. For all intents and purposes it's actually a pretty typical marriage. Except we're in an open marriage.

Yelling. Throwing things. Name-calling. The only thing that holds me back from calling my teenager’s behavior abuse is that they are my child.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

Unlike before, pleasuring myself isn’t a daily or weekly thing. But I'm also not ashamed anymore. As an adult woman, I have granted myself full permission.

I start each day by drawing two cards for guidance, and then further consulting the deck. Last fall, tarot cards saved my life.

I often think about the people in my hometown whose lives were ruined because they live in the “wrong” state. That same stigma causes me to feel horrible after I smoke.

For more than 20 years, I believed I was a slut. A shameful, vile, one-time slut, but a slut all the same. It was you, Mr White Canterbury shorts, that led me to believe this. But, since reading the letter from Brock Turner’s victim, I realized, what you did, Mr White Canterbury Shorts, was in fact rape.