personal essays

Joy Comes In The Morning: The Healing Benefits of Crying

We were at my grandmother’s funeral, 13 of her kids, and several dozen of us grandchildren.  The priest was trying to complete the reading of his passage but my one aunt had…

Loving My Black Daughter Requires Me To Love Myself

“Are you ready to have a good day?!” I ask my baby girl in the morning, while en route to school. “Yeah!” she yells with no shortage of enthusiasm. My brown-skinned toddler…

I Quit My Relationship Because I Felt Like It

Rather listen to the story instead? Hear it via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or listen to it online here. Another one bites the dust, but hey! Who’s counting? Hello there: it’s me, Jalyssa…

I Don’t Do Cross Words, But I Do Crosswords

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it. – Albert Einstein  While often exhausted and infuriated, I try not to take for granted all that…

How Mercury In Retrograde Saved Me From Spiraling

And as astrology becomes more and more ingrained in pop culture, the infamous “mercury retrograde” has become the face of astrology memes and the center of tweets every time it comes around.