Author: cheesemichelle310

Sharing my love of books, wine, and writing.

Moments of Kindness: How Strangers Impact Our Lives

Illustrated woodland pond with ripples, golden reflections, and berry branches
Golden reflections ripple across a quiet woodland pond surrounded by berry-laden branches.

Side note: Another Daily prompt I saw on WordPress. I can’t find the draft of this original prompt, but I still wanted to post it and try to keep up with my 30 days of posts. I should have labeled which day was which. What’s a Moment When a Stranger Completely Restored Your Faith in People?

There are so many moments I could talk about that renewed my faith in people, because I am a fortunate person. I won’t sit here and pretend otherwise. Throughout my life, people have always helped me, been there for me, listened, and offered sage wisdom. I want to talk about a few of those times.

The first happened during my first year of graduate school. I was in my twenties. I was dumb, in the way we all are in our twenties. I was in love with a man I thought I’d marry. We had just broken up. He wanted to date other people, and I told him I understood, and then I threw myself into school. I studied. I worked. Then, after a final exam, on a day when I was already emotionally drained, I saw him kiss another woman.

My brain couldn’t process it. I thought I’d failed the exam. I thought I was wasting my time and my money, that maybe everyone who ever doubted me was right. I sat on the green line train and cried, silently, trying not to let anyone see.

A young man came up to me He must have been younger than I was; he looked barely twenty-five Heck, he looked like he was in his early 20s I guess witnessing a grown woman cry on the subway made him pause He asked if I was okay I told him I was going through a lot And without knowing anything about what had happened to me the exam seeing my ex, he spoke life into me He told me that no matter what I was going through, it would be okay, and that someone out there would show up for me and be there for me I don’t remember every word. Still, I remember what it did It poured kindness back into a place that had gone empty.

Yes I used AI sorry.

Then he said something I still think about. He said, “You passed that test.” I hadn’t told him about the exam, and he said, “That man’s not your man. Everything’s gonna work out.” My train came; I thought he’d get on with me. Still, he told me to have a good life and stayed on the platform. When I looked back through the window, he was gone. I went back to that train around that same time for days afterward, hoping to find him, just to say thank you, just to buy him a cup of coffee. I never saw him again. I don’t know his name. Still, I carry him with me, and I thank him in my spirit to this day. I did pass that class. That relationship ended, and it turned out to be the freeing thing he told me it would be.

I used bitmoji this time. Gotta keep you on your toes.

Another time, I went whitewater rafting with friends. I was thrown from the raft into the water. I swam to a rock to wait, just as I’d been told to do if that ever happened A group of strangers, people who didn’t know me at all, pulled me into their raft and carried me back to my own group I was so grateful someone was willing to help a person they had never met If they hadn’t stopped for me, I don’t know how long I would have been stranded on those rocks Probably not long, we were with a tour group, and they had a raft behind us on purpose to save anyone who became hurt, injured, or stranded.

The last is something that has happened to me more than once: car accidents I’ve been in accidents that, by all rights, should have been much worse than they were Each time, whether it was an EMT, a police officer, or a bystander who stopped, someone has told me I was okay before I even knew to believe it myself One told me I needed to understand how fortunate I was, that she had seen people walk away from far less My cousin once saw the wreckage of one of my accidents and broke down crying, because she couldn’t understand how I had walked away from it Another time I was hit by a car going nearly ninety miles an hour. I had the green light and they ran the red light. You can only imagine the boom, it was epic like God sending a bolt of lighting to earth. I don’t remember getting out of the car, but i got out of the car and stood on the side of the street until EMTs showed up.  People kept asking me how I did it , because the door was sealed shut. I didn’t have an answer I still don’t.

I think about all of this, especially the man on the green line. He poured life into me on a day I thought I had hit rock bottom. He did it without asking for anything back. I will never see him again. I pray he is well, successful, and loved. I hope, somehow, he knows that I thank him from the bottom of my heart. These moments remind me that humanity is still capable of good, and I hold onto them with gratitude.

Would you like to fund my next whitewater rafting trip, or maybe my return to grad school? –> Ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

Also I need to do better editing. Sorry for the typos.

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Understanding the Mandela Effect: Time Travel or Memory Glitch?

What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?

The Mandela Effect: Proof That Someone’s Messing with Our Timeline

Here’s mine, and I promise it’s not flat-earth or hollow-earth level nonsense: I think the Mandela Effect is real evidence that time travel exists, and that someone out there is quietly editing our history for us or attempting to edit history, and has messed up horribly.

Let’s start with the basics. The Mandela Effect is that strange phenomenon where huge groups of people remember the same event, image, or phases. They all remember it wrong, in exactly the same way. It got its name back in 2009, when a researcher discovered that tons of people distinctly remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s. Except he didn’t. He walked out of that prison and became President of South Africa. Meanwhile, half the internet swears they remember watching his funeral on TV.

Person holding newspaper beside Retro Arcade and Looney Toons signs
A startled shopper encounters familiar cartoon branding and newspaper headlines on a busy city street.

Scientists have a boring explanation for this, thank you Neil De Grasse Tyson. The reality is memory isn’t a video recording; it’s a reconstruction of everything the brain processed and recreated. Every time you recall something, your brain rebuilds it from scratch, and it’s prone to suggestion, gap-filling, and good old-fashioned misremembering. That’s the “safe” and laymen’s term of the answer.

I am a scientist, a molecular biologist to be exact, don’t buy the boring answer. I think it’s time travel. Says, the person with limited Neuroscience background. Pause.  Scientists do not create equal stop asking your cousin that study astrophysics if you should go to the doctors for growth, you need to go to the doctors. The growth needs a biopsy and better test results and tell you what the growth is, it’s probably a cyst, but don’t ask your cousin the astrophysicist, they know thermodynamics, placement of stars, and how to calculate the distance of black holes.

Here’s my theory: somewhere down the line fifty years from now, a thousand years from now, whenever we finally crack it, humanity figures out how to travel through time. And every single time someone goes back and tweaks something, it doesn’t erase the old timeline completely. It just overwrites it mostly. A few stray memories slip through the cracks, like static from the old channel bleeding into the new one. That static? That’s the Mandela Effect. It’s not a glitch in your brain, it’s a glitch in reality, left behind by whoever’s out there playing timeline Jenga.

Take Nelson Mandela himself. Picture it: he dies in prison in the 80s, and it sends the world into a spiral. Something catastrophic happens as a result maybe South Africa collapses into chaos, maybe the ripple effects are felt globally. So someone from the future looks at this disaster, decides it’s unacceptable, hops in their time machine, and quietly makes sure he survives. World saved. Except a chunk of us still remember the original, uncorrected timeline like it was yesterday.

Or take the corporate angle, which honestly might be my favorite part of this theory. Ever notice how companies barely sell physical copies of anything anymore? Everything’s digital, everything’s a subscription, everything can be patched, updated, or quietly rewritten overnight. I think that’s on purpose. If a company put out a hundred million physical copies of something and time travelers started messing with details in the past, there’d eventually be a mountain of physical evidence that doesn’t match the “current” version of events. Digital is easy to erase. Physical copies are witnesses. Keep everyone renting instead of owning, and there’s nothing left behind to prove the timeline ever looked different.

And don’t even get me started on Chick-fil-A. I would bet good money that logo used to have a “k” in it. Chik-fil-A. I can picture it. Now it’s “Chick-fil-A,” clean as can be, and nobody blinks. Somewhere out there, something happened that was bad enough that someone had to go back and fix a fried chicken logo. We don’t know what yet. But when we figure it out, don’t say I didn’t call it. *While cleaning my desk, I found an old chick-fil-a calendar. It had the ck… so maybe not chick-fil-a.

Now, to be clear I’m not out here claiming the earth is flat, or hollow, or that we’re all NPCs in a simulation running on some cosmic PlayStation (7 billion people, rendered in real time, 24/7? No chance). I like to think I know where the line is between “fun theory” and “actually unhinged.” But the Mandela Effect? That one I believe. Every conflicting memory, every “wait, I *know* it wasn’t spelled like that” moment, is a little scar tissue left over from a timeline that almost was  evidence that somewhere out there, someone hit rewind, changed a few things, and hit play again, hoping we wouldn’t notice. We noticed.

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My Top 5 Apps (Plus an Honorable or Two Mention)

Hello Readers,

This was orginially a Daily Prompt offered by WordPress, and in my goal to do 30 essays in 30 days, i did this one because I thought it was fun. I have lost the Daily prompt draft I created but still wanted to share. Enjoy! Any of these apps want to sponsor a post. Reach out to me!

I saw this prompt on WordPress and it stuck with me: what are your top five apps on your phone? Not top five rappers (though that’s a whole other debate we need a scoring system for), not top five anything else just the apps I reach for every single day. So, here’s my  or , unranked by cool factor, ranked by real life list. Along with a few extra, and one that I tried to leave off the list but… I couldn’t Pikachu wouldn’t allow it.

5. Voice Recorder

This one might surprise you, but it’s been essential since the beginning of COVID in 2020. I use my phone’s recorder to capture my thoughts before they disappear into the ether. Ideas I can’t get out of my head, ramblings that turn into essays, voice notes that are basically my personal diary. Half the blog posts I’ve ever published started as me talking to myself in the car. Some of it turns into something good. Some of it is just me sounding unhinged. Either way, it works.

4. Spotify

Yes, I know. I know Spotify barely pays artists and has its own controversies. I’m trying to be a conscientious consumer, but I also host trivia and I’m always on the go, so realistically, Spotify runs my life. My only real complaint: it used to introduce me to new artists and genres constantly, and lately it just keeps feeding me the same 150–200 songs on repeat. I don’t need “Don’t Stop Believing” again to give me something new.

The audiobook addition, though? Genius. I’ve “read” three books I never would’ve paid for otherwise. I’ll start a book physically at night, forget to bring it to work, search for it on Spotify. So, I can continue to listen to the book at work, or even on the drive home. Then once I’m back home, I pick the physical copy back up right where I left off. Seamless.

3. Plague Inc.

This is the one game that made the list. I don’t download it often because I will lose hours to it, but there’s something about building out epidemiology scenarios and watching how diseases spread that scratches an itch in my brain. It doesn’t teach me public health (that’s what school is for), but the modeling side of it is genuinely fascinating. An ex-introduced me to this game, I think it freaked him out how much I loved the game and would show him all the different ways I would create diseases.

2. Too Good to Go

When I’ve got a little extra cash and want food from a new spot, this is my go-to. Some of my favorite markets, Whole Foods or Fresh Market, sell surplus food through the app for a fraction of the price. Right now, I am in love with Pure Raw Juice, because Too Good, to Go.  It’s how I get to try places I’ve never been, eat well, and not feel guilty about food waste. It’s also perfect for stocking up on food or a quick surprise meal.

Honorable mention: Tumblr. I’ve had this account since 2008 and I’m not leaving. It’s my refuge from every other chaotic social platform (you know who you are… Book of Faces) a little corner of the internet that still feels like mine.

1. Google Maps

No contest. Even with the “raggedy” voice I keep meaning to change, I check this constantly not just for directions, but to gauge traffic before I even leave the house. It tells me exactly when I need to walk out the door to make it to work on time, and honestly, it’s saved me more stress than almost anything else on my phone. Yes, I know it’s tracking me. No, I don’t really care, I’m just going to work and back anyway. Sometimes it saves me from driving to Virgina, when I am just trying to go to Bowie.

Runners-up that almost made the cut: Keep Notes, Google Docs, Audible, Kindle. Maybe YouTube probably not due to this new algorithm.

p.s. It Pokémon Go. I have logged one too many hours on that app. My quest to get a shiny Charmander again, has driven me to the ends of Baltimore Street. I am embarrassed to say Pokémon Go is the reason I get 20,000 steps in every weekend like clockwork.  Walking around and catching little Pokémon and sending them to Professor Oak, we all know he runs an illegal chop shop of Pokémon.

If you would like to support my Pokémon hobby à https://ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

P.S. if any of these companies would like to sponsor a post… I am here for it 😊

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Cosmos & Culture: Virgo Is Hot Girl (and Hot Boy) Summer Fight Me

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Look, I know what you’re picturing when someone says “Virgo.” A woman in a cardigan alphabetizing her spice rack. A man color-coding a spreadsheet for fun, on a Saturday, voluntarily. The zodiac’s resident hall monitor, the friend who texts “per my last message” with their whole chest. And sure. That’s also true. But I’m here to make the case that underneath the clipboard and the critique, Virgos are quietly running the entire “hot girl summer / hot boy summer” economy. Megan Thee Stallion coined the phrase. Virgos have been living it since the Bronze Age.

The Receipts

Before we get into the chart math, let’s look at the lineup, because the lineup does most of the arguing for me: Michael Jackson. Beyoncé. Ludacris. Keke Palmer. Katt Williams. Prince Harry. Zendaya and  Jesus! Yes, I said Jesus, because there’s evidence he was born in September, not December. The whole point of this tangent is Virgos; almost all Virgos are a whole vibe. These are not people who blend into a room. These are people the room rearranges itself around. Case in point, Entertainment Weekly did the “Theater Seating Game” and 85% of the people in the game chose to sit near or next to Keke Palmer, a Virgo.  And here’s the part that should really annoy every Leo reading this: Virgo does it without asking for the spotlight. No sign throws a better main-character moment while insisting, with total sincerity, that they’re just “here to help.” It’s the chess move of charisma.

The Three Decans, or: Why Some Virgos Are Built Different

Every sign gets split into three 10-degree decans with their own sub-ruler, and Virgo’s decans basically read like a character creation screen for “how hot is this Virgo going to be, specifically.”

Decan 1 — Mercury (Aug 23–Sep 1). Double-ruled by Mercury, so this is Virgo at full concentration: quick-witted, fast-processing, fluent in sarcasm, allergic to inefficiency. This is your Michael Jackson decan, the one who watches a dance once and already has it down, who hears a melody and can already tell you where it’s going. Less “sexy,” more “terrifyingly competent,” which, let’s be honest, is its own kind of hot.

Decan 2 — Saturn (Sep 2–Sep 11). This is the superstar decan. Mercury’s cleverness gets bolted onto Saturn’s discipline and staying power, and you get people who don’t just have talent; they have career longevity Beyoncé territory, Ludacris territory. Saturn is the planet of time, structure, and “still relevant twenty years later,” and that’s exactly the energy: perfectionism is real, the critiques are real, but so is the global superstar that perfectionism eventually produces. Sidenote: I think all Virgos have this quality; from my analysis, Michael Jackson has a whole 60-year career, Keke Palmer, Zendaya, I mean they all the Virgos on this list are entering 20-plus years in the business of their choosing.

Decan 3 — Venus (Sep 12–Sep 22). Venus softens the whole operation — beauty, aesthetics, charm, the ability to walk into an award show and have people quietly rearrange the seating chart to sit near you (looking at you, Keke Palmer, but her bday is actually August 26th, so she’s in the first decan, not the 3rd, but this effect is Keke’s energy to a “T”). This decan turns Mercury’s planning and Saturn’s discipline into something that feels good to be around. It’s the secret sauce decan. It’s also, conveniently, your Katt Williams decan, proof that “Venus-ruled” doesn’t only mean soft; it can also mean a man who silences an entire internet for a year with one interview.

Unhealed vs. Healed: A Public Service Announcement

Here’s the asterisk, because I’m not going to sit here and pretend Virgo doesn’t have a setting. Unhealed Virgo is still fun, genuinely the life of the party in small doses. Still, the nitpicking, the running commentary on everything you’re doing slightly wrong, the critique delivered as a love language: you need that in monthly increments, not daily ones, on the hour every hour. Or the woo is me self-deprecating energy. Please stop, go to a therapist; we love you, but if I read another “I am a failure” text, I am transporting to your location and slapping you.

Healed Virgo, though? That’s the version with the humility, the work ethic, and the actual warmth that makes people fall in love with them on a press tour. That’s the Keke Palmer who radiates “everyone in this room loves me” without ever asking for it. That’s the Prince Harry who partied like it was a competitive sport and somehow also became the most relatable and loved royal in modern history. That’s the version that earns the title “Hot Girl/Hot Boy of the summer”

Another sidenote: several songs created by Virgo are perfect songs of the summer; look at MJ, Beyoncé, Ludacris, hell even Zendaya has a song I still play and bop to regularly.

So Yes. It’s Virgo.

I know somebody’s already typing “this is clearly Leo” in the comments. I respect the loyalty, truly. But Leo wants the crown. Virgo just keeps quietly winning Grammys, hosting interviews that stop the news cycle, and aging like they signed a contract with time itself, all while insisting they’re “just detail-oriented.” Aquarius, you’re top four, not top three. Pisces, sit this one out; we’ll get to you.

Virgo: ruled by Mercury, mutable enough to evolve with every era, and against every stereotype the internet has assigned you, the actual hot girl, hot boy summer of the zodiac.

*This is part of an ongoing Cosmos & Culture series working through all twelve sun signs, with rising signs and other placements to come. New essay weekly; stick around.*

If you love a Virgo you should share this essay or buy me a coffee https://ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

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Bring Back Jerry…Well Not Quite

 The Springer Thesis: How Salacious Talk Shows Kept America Sane

Here is an unpopular opinion: we need to bring back Jerry Springer. Not the man himself, that how you end up with an undead legion of idiots. Also, God rest his soul but everything he represented. The chaos, the confrontation, the unfiltered audacity of it all. I know how that sounds. I know the reflexive response is to say that Jerry Springer was the fall of America, that Maury Povich and Sally Jesse Raphael and Jenny Jones were symptoms of everything wrong with this country. But what if we had it exactly backwards? What if those shows weren’t the disease at all what if they were the Band-Aid holding us together?

 A Brief History of the Talk Show

To understand what we lost, you have to understand what we had. I was born in 1983, which means I grew up watching this entire arc in real time. In the 1980s, the landscape was dominated by Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, and Sally Jesse Raphael. These were scandalous shows by the standards of the time, but they came wrapped in a moral framework. There was always a lesson, always a reckoning, always a sense that the host was guiding the audience somewhere meaningful. Then came the 1990s, and with them the golden age of daytime television. Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Jenny Jones, Ricki Lake these shows stripped away the pretense and gave the audience something rawer, louder, and infinitely more watchable. People aired their most embarrassing secrets on national television. Paternity tests were revealed in front of studio audiences. Estranged relatives confronted each other under hot studio lights. It was messy and it was real and millions of people tuned in every single day.

Then something shifted. By the 2000s- 2010s, the talk show had reinvented itself around the Ellen DeGeneres model celebrity interviews, feel-good segments, viral dance moments. The audacity was gone. The mess was gone. What replaced it was relentlessly positive, carefully curated, and, if we’re being honest, a little bit boring. By the 2020s, the format had nearly collapsed entirely, replaced by a fragmented constellation of social media platforms that promised to deliver the same fix but never quite could.

 What Those Shows Actually Did

Here is what nobody wants to admit: those salacious talk shows were doing real cultural work. They served functions that we didn’t recognize as functions until they were gone.

The first and most obvious was public accountability When someone with absolutely no awareness walked onto the Jerry Springer stage convinced that their behavior was perfectly reasonable, the audience disabused them of that notion immediately. Sally Jesse Raphael, with those iconic red-framed glasses and her oversized blazer, had a gift for calling people to the carpet with a kind of no-nonsense clarity that was genuinely clarifying. There was a social check built into that format. If you were living your life sideways, the talk show was a mirror that showed you exactly how sideways it was.

The second function was subtler but just as important: those shows (Springer, Ricki, Jenny Jones) scratched an itch that nothing else can scratch. World Star tried, but it never gave a true moral resolution, just drama. The drama, through juicy and satisfying to watch in other people’s lives, while your own lives remain drama free. Having a salacious talk show with a host to contextualize the issue, the drama, and calling out the delusional b*llsh!t. There is something deep in the human brain that craves this. It’s not lowbrow. It’s not shameful. It’s just simply human need and trait. And the talk show, at its salacious peak, was the only format that delivered it reliably, consistently, and at scale.

Third, and perhaps most surprisingly, those shows snuck in genuine education. I have always given credit to Bill Nye the Science Guy and Star Trek: The Next Generation for sparking my love of science. But if I’m being honest? Maury Povich and his DNA tests deserve some of that credit too. Hearing “you are NOT the father” week after week made me genuinely curious about how DNA testing worked, how paternity could be proven, what science looked like. Furthermore, it was a stern reinforcement of why people should use birth control and protection. The number of people sleeping with the whole town always had me asking about STIs.  Ricki Lake, meanwhile, was doing something quietly radical normalizing LGBTQ+ relationships and pushing back against homophobia at a time when mainstream culture was far less willing to do so. These shows were not as dumb as they looked.

 Why Social Media Doesn’t Fill the Gap

When the talk shows disappeared, we told ourselves we had something better. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat are an entire ecosystem of user-generated drama, available twenty-four hours a day. And yet something is missing. The itch is not being scratched. Yes, we had commentators pointing out the issues with the internet drama. It’s not the same. It lacked resolution.

The resolution was mediation and explained the moral of the story. On a talk show, there was always a host a Sally Jesse, a Maury, a Ricki whose job was to hold the space, to name what was happening, to look the person with no shame dead in the eyes and says, “you cannot be serious right now.” Forcing the party to have some accountability. The question of behavior, calling out delusional logic, was built into the architecture of the format. Social media has no such architecture. Drama on TikTok is consequence-free (sidenote not anymore, people are getting divorced, fired from jobs losing sponsorships). You can post your most unhinged behavior and the algorithm will reward you for it. There is no Sally Jesse to drag you to the carpet. There is no studio audience to gasp. There is no moment where someone you respect looks at you and says, clearly and publicly, that your life is in shambles.

And because that moment no longer exists, people no longer know their lives are in shambles. That is the real crisis. It is not that people are behaving badly, people have always behaved badly. It is that the cultural mechanism that once reflected that behavior back at them, that once made them feel the weight of public judgment, has been dismantled. We thought we were evolving past it. What we were doing was removing the mirror.

The Path Forward: Healing and Drama

The answer is not simply to resurrect Jerry Springer format. That moment has passed, and honestly, some of what those shows did was genuinely harmful, it was rooted in racism, homophobia, and the exploitation of vulnerable people for ratings. We do not need to bring that back.

What we need is the next evolution of the format one that holds onto the accountability and the drama while adding something that was often missing: healing. The talk show arc was always supposed to move in this direction. You start with the spectacle “I have sixteen baby mamas and none of them know about each other” and you work your way toward the question underneath it: “why are you like this, and what would it take to be different?” The 2000s and 2010s gestured toward this transition, and hosts like Iyanla Vanzant were genuinely trying to bridge that gap.

The clearest example of what this could look like is Karamo. He saw the void and understood it. He knew that America still needed someone to look a person in the eye and say, without flinching, that their behavior was unacceptable but he also knew that the confrontation had to be paired with compassion, with curiosity, with a genuine desire to help the person find their way out. That is the model. Call out the audacity, then do the healing work. Don’t just expose the wound treat it.

 Conclusion

Let me be direct about something. America is the spoiled, disillusioned child of the world. We have convinced ourselves that we are the greatest, the smartest, the most exceptional while simultaneously being among the most overworked, the most indebted, and the most unwilling to look honestly at ourselves. We demonized the salacious talk show because we wanted to believe we were better than it. We were not. We are not. The soul of this country will not be saved by political speeches or policy debates or any of the other mechanisms we have decided are appropriately serious. It will be saved if it is saved at all by honest, unflinching, occasionally uncomfortable public reckoning. By someone on a stage asking hard questions and refusing to accept non-answers. By a format that says: you can come here with your mess, and we will not look away from it, and we will not let you look away from it either.

Bring back the salacious talk show. Bring it back smarter, bring it back kinder, bring it back with the healing built in. But bring it back. America needs the mirror. We have needed it for a long time.

If you would like more blogs like this… or I will bring Jerry Springer Drama to your door  Ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

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Canceling Subscriptions? Blame Gas Prices!

I’ve cracked the code for escaping subscriptions. No more pretending your card was stolen. What I found is simpler, rooted in the chaos of modern life.

Gas prices.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You’re welcome. But stay with me, because this is where it gets interesting.

Now hear me out before you close this tab, because I know what you’re thinking. What does gas have to do with my Netflix? The answer: everything. In today’s world, filling a tank costs as much as a car payment, and I refuse, and I mean refuse for the folks in the back to also be paying $21.99 a month just for a giant corporation to cancel every show I actually like. Suddenly, these seemingly unrelated things are intertwined, and I have connected them.

So how does this play out in real life? You call up whatever subscription has been quietly bleeding you dry for the past eight months the gym you joined in January, the meal kit service you forgot existed, the meditation app with the audacity to charge you for stress. (I’m already stressed about living in America; your little bird isn’t helping me relax!) When customer service asks why you’re canceling, you answer with full conviction: “Gas prices.” If canceling online, when they ask for a reason, type in full caps: GAS PRICES!

Not “I don’t use it anymore.” Not “I’m trying to save money.” Gas. Prices. Deliver it with the gravity of congressional testimony. Speak it as if each word costs you.

For example, you can call and say, “Hi, I’d like to cancel my gym membership.”

Customer Service Rep with a deadpan: “Can I ask why?” You think you don’t care, but you know this game. In your best political voice: “Gas prices. I can’t afford to drive there. I’ll be walking now. My commute is my workout. The sidewalk is my treadmill. God gave me legs, lungs, and allergies to challenge my breathing.”

And if they offer you a discount? You look at that discount dead in its eyes, and you say, “I need a discount at the pump. Can you do that? No? Then we’re done here.”

The brilliance of this approach is that it’s impossible to argue against. No one can claim gas prices are low or that they don’t matter. Gas prices are universally hated, affect everyone, and serve as a neutral, non-personal explanation for cutting costs. By using them as your reason, you’re making a logical and widely relatable argument.

Best of all, this strategy isn’t limited to gym memberships. It scales beautifully.

Canceling a podcast app subscription? “I can’t tell the difference between real humans and AI anymore, and I am not financially supporting the robot takeover.” Done. Cancelled. Goodbye.

Energy bill too high? Call Netflix and tell them you’ll be sitting in the dark meditating on your life choices, and you can do that for free. For free. Netflix cannot compete with free darkness.

Planet Fitness? “I’ll be walking everywhere. Gas is six dollars a gallon. My legs work. We’re done.”

Some of you are out here concocting elaborate lies, fake moves, fake financial hardships, even fake deaths of distant relatives to cancel subscriptions. Meanwhile, a far simpler explanation is right there, loud and obvious, at $5.89 per gallon. Use it! Say it with your chest! “I cannot afford this because everything costs too much, and I am one grocery trip away from an existential crisis!”

That is a complete sentence. That is a legitimate reason. That is, frankly, a political statement.

Because here’s the thing

And I mean this sincerely amid all the chaos: if enough of us start citing gas prices every single time we cancel something, we become more than individuals; we collectively challenge how unaffordable everyday life has become. We become a movement. Imagine the “Rent Is Too Damn High” Party, updated for the 2020s: now it’s about endless subscriptions and the 13 streaming services that never seem to offer anything worth watching on a Friday night.

Americans deserve a functional transit system. The American people deserve affordable energy. We deserve, at minimum, to cancel our gym memberships without a 20-minute guilt trip from a stranger named Derek. So, next time a company asks why you’re leaving, look Derek in the eye and simply say: “Gas prices.” Derek will understand. Derek, too, drives to that underpaying job.

If you would like to donate to my gas tank you can check out this link—> ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

Until Next Time,

Che Michelle

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30 Days of Essays: From Tire Issues to Creative Growth

damaged tire after tire explosion at high speed on highway

Coffee Chronicles: Tire Shop Edition

Side Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago. I have now come to see from the essay published Sept 1, 2026, that I will fail my own personal challenge. I am still going to post as mush as i can for the next month. So enjoy these post.

I am always having Tire issues: flat tires, blowout tires, weird lumps in tires. I will take Tire issues over car accidents every time. Normally, on Sunday my friends and I do a podcast, and then I spend the rest of the afternoon either going to work to catch up for the week or going back to my boyfriend to watch TV and eat dinner.  Today, I said, let me take care of my car, because I want to keep this for at least  15 years.  What typically would happen, I would walk to a nearby coffee shop, order a specialty latte and sandwich, and act like a writer, in one of those 90’s rom coms.  Today, I sat at the National Tire and Battery across from a cemetery, because today was Mother Nature’s Day to rain.  I am not mad about the rain; we need the rain.  Honestly, I don’t need that latte, but it would be nice. Sitting at the NTB as the technicians change my tire, and my oil was overdue. I worked on the first draft of an ok short story. I will not submit it because it’s blah, but with some revision I can see potential.

Anyway, I have been playing with this idea: publishing 30 days of essays. I know, crazy, right? I wanted to post 31 days of short stories in August, and I never made time, but if I take the rest of this month to edit, write, and create the images I want to include, I can do 30 days of posts. Now why, may you ask, 30 days of posts?  Well, I came up with three reasons.

One: I have so much finished and unfinished work just taking up space on my phone, computer, and in my head. What good are these rants, essays, stories, or poems if I keep them to myself and only share them once in a blue moon with a select group of people? The one time I shared my blog outside my close circle, a comment I got said it touched them and that it was a good blog. I can’t tell you how gassed up I was. I almost posted everything to Substack with the tagline, ” your new favorite writer. I desire to share my thoughts and life experiences with others, to inspire, to challenge, if nothing else to provide a laugh, in the absurdity of this life.

Two: Being scared has not helped anyone. Tell me one person whose being scared has helped. I am not talking about life-and-death scenarios. I mean the person with the great idea who never did it because it was too much work. The person who is afraid of what their family or friends will say, because they went after their passion and failed.  As a society, we give too much power and validation to people who never tried anything in life except breathing. My being afraid to share my work is just Wack.  I know the internet is where people like to bully people, but you know what, I can turn off my comments. How will I get better or expand if I don’t post?  I don’t want to be the person who passes away, her family finds her old notebooks and computers, and they are like, “She wrote the most beautiful stories; why did she never share them?” No, rather share them and be ridiculed, than not and be basic. Also, several astrologers on all socials have said that if you put your work out there, you will see great success. I hedge my bets on those three ladies, because they have been right on quite a few things.

Third: This reason is so juvenile, but I like it. WordPress has these two badges; one is the post 30 days in a row badge, and I am like, why the hell not.  The other is the Vampire badge, and again, I am like, do I have to write a story about vampires?  No, I just wrote After Dark. I can do both and get two badges for coming out of my comfort zone. Create a portfolio I can show a few people when I want to pursue writing opportunities.  I think once I have posted all the finished products on

Fourth, I need to learn how to use WordPress. My WordPress design is trash; I need to learn how to make it look better. Posting 30 days in a row may help me learn how to post on WordPress better.  What do I mean by better? I’ll look at the stats; this is a win-win.  I can take more WordPress classes, update the look, and work on making a presentable website that people would love to visit regularly.  

These are just the thoughts I had while waiting for my car oil change and new tire. I wanted to share them as I go on this journey of 30 posts in 30 days.  This will be interesting, and I hope to accomplish this personal journey.  Below is a link if you want to buy me a latte.

https://ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

Until Next Time,

Che Michelle

Also, I use Grammarly to clean up my writing.

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What My Retail Job Taught Me About Finding Lost Treasures

What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?

Shopper finding a sparkling ring on the floor beneath a clothing rack
A shopper discovers a sparkling ring beneath a clothing rack during a busy sale.

Whenever you ask people what the best thing they’ve ever found on the ground is, they inevitably say money. It’s always money. “Oh, I found a crisp twenty in a puddle once!” Good for you, Jeff Bezos. A long time ago, I worked retail, which means the ground is less a venue for windfall cash and more an archaeological dig site of human despair. Over the years, my broom has swept up stray toy parts, pocket lint, and, on one unforgettable Saturday morning, an actual, literal intrauterine device. An IUD. Just chilling by the impulse cookie section- the irony. Was it a runaway medical anomaly? A dropped OB-GYN demo model? Did someone shed it in a fit of retail rage? Don’t ask me how I recognized it; retail transforms you into a forensic scientist whether you like it or not.

So, my broom pushed me to sweep the floor in the morning. I heard a CLANG against the store’s baseboards on a Saturday morning. Anything is better than that rogue piece of birth control was my baseline expectation. Instead, I found an absurdly demure diamond engagement ring. To understand how this happened, you first have to understand the sacred incompetence of the retail night shift. I was only in the store at 8:30 AM because my coworkers had sent a text saying, “Sorry! It was so slam-packed last night we couldn’t sweep!” Naturally, being a busybody, I checked the register logs. Their last sale was clocked at 8:01 PM. The store closed at nine. They had an entire hour of paid stillness to push a broom, stock the Snack display, and reflect on their life choices. Instead, they stood around people-watching and did the bare minimum, leaving the store looking like an abandoned storefront after Christmas.

So, I’m aggressively sweeping up their dust bunnies when the broom hit the ring, like a hockey play; I swept it into the baseboard—a real, diamond ring. I did what any reasonable, underpaid 25-year-old would do: I ran it down to a jeweler for an appraisal. The jeweler studied it, looked up at me with dead seriousness, and said, “This is exquisite. Maybe God is trying to tell you that you’re about to get married!”

Now, 25-year-old me had an immediate existential crisis over the fact that my boyfriend at the time was completely wrong for me, meaning God’s retail delivery system had severe targeting issues. Also, not that anyone asked if it slipped onto my ring finger like it had been molded in a laboratory specifically for my hand. Common sense returned and slapped me back to reality. I quickly took it off, placed it in a tiny paper envelope labeled “Customer’s Ring Found on Floor,” handed it to management, and watched it disappear into our bolted-down steel floor safe.

And there it stayed.

For five entire years!

We checked local lost-and-founds. I stalked early Craigslist boards. Silence. The ring sat in the dark behind a combination keypad, totally forgotten, until our store hired a new manager who possessed the specific, greasy energy of someone who views inventory sheets as creative writing. One day, the safe opened, the safe closed, and the diamond was… evaporated into thin air. A few weeks later, half the staff got fired over a cocktail of phantom discounts, register shorting, and the grand theft of a Diamond Ring rock (not quite; it was really people shorting the register that got them fired). The ring was gone, the statute of limitations was ticking, and we all moved on.

Until the ghost of retail past walked through the front doors. Five years after that fateful morning sweep, a woman strolled into the store. She was glowing, thriving, and happily reminiscing about our discontinued caramel nut mixes while visiting from out of state. Then she dropped the bomb: “You know, I actually lost something here right before I moved away years ago.” My broom’s hand twitched. “What did you lose?” “My engagement ring,” she sighed. “It never fit my finger right. I came in on a Thursday night to get snacks for my drive…”

A Thursday. Thursday. My brilliant, hardworking colleagues hadn’t just blown off Friday night’s cleaning duties; they hadn’t touched a broom for forty-eight straight hours. That diamond had been kicking around the carpet through two full business days of foot traffic, surviving purely because our staff was allergic to physical labor. She told me she had retraced her steps on Friday, found nothing, and realized the universe had handed her an exit ramp. Two weeks prior, her boyfriend had proposed, and she’d been harboring immediate, sickening regret from saying yes. When she confessed she lost the ring that weekend, the man utterly detonated, screaming, cursing, and revealing every toxic red flag he owned in one explosive tirade.

The dropped ring was her ticket out. She didn’t want to marry the man; she knew it wasn’t right. After that nasty argument that weekend, she decided to flee the state and start a glorious single life in Ohio. “Ohio,” my brain thought, but I let it go because she looked amazing.  She smiled and asked, “Did anyone ever end up finding it?”

I paused, looking at this radiant, completely unburdened woman who had successfully escaped a terrible engagement because of the wrong ring size.

“Oh yeah,” I told her casually. “I found it that Saturday morning. It sat in our safe for five years until a shady manager stole it and got sacked by corporate. Her face was pure, unadulterated relief. The ring had ruined a thief, dodged a toxic marriage, survived two days of retail neglect, and paid for nobody’s wedding. Sometimes the best things you find on the floor aren’t meant to be kept; they’re just dropped so someone else can finally run.

This was a dramatic retelling of me finding a ring on the floor at work. A lot of factors changed, times changed, and memories aren’t always accurate.

I am always going to ask: if you would like to help me get a right-hand diamond ringà Ko-fi.com/chemichelletales

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Lessons in Writing: Embracing Failure to Succeed

Young person leaving an alley beside fantasy doorway; graffiti reads “AWAKE” and “LIFE.”
A young traveler steps from a shadowy alley into a vivid world of fantasy and possibility.

I failed before I even started, as someone with grand ideas and plans. I lack discipline and follow-through—my life story is a failure to start in every aspect.  I know why people don’t really offer me many opportunities; I am a true failure to finish. Why am I writing these words…. well.  I had this grand plan, after almost 3 years of writer’s block, two sentences written to a document, and that is all I could produce. Around the blue moon of Sagittarius on May 31, 2026.  My creativity just bloomed, and all these ideas rushed to my head. I wanted to return to writing poems and short stories.  I took this as a sign that whatever was blocking me was being removed by all the planetary movement.  I wrote; every chance I got, I wrote. If I couldn’t write, I recorded the voice note, using the transcription feature. I cleaned it up as best I could.  By mid-July, I thought I had a slew of rants, essays, attempts at satire written.  If you only knew how happy I would be. I got cocky!

Yes cocky!  I decided this was the year I’d publish my essay.  First, I was going to start a hip-hop and astrology blog. So much material was circulating: Cardi B and Latto falling out. Jay-Z returned to the stage at the Roots Picnic on May 30th—Megan and Klay relationship implosion. I thought about them and wanted to discuss them in detail.  I had an essay dealing with the grief of losing loved ones, losing friends, and even losing myself. WordPress had these prompts that called to me, and I wrote several pieces. I took this as a sign from the universe. It was time to stop hiding and publish my work. I ran with it, started researching WordPress and Substack. At this time, I had research from seminars, conversations with writers, and current trends.  I let my ego drive me to think I could use what I’d learned to further my own ambitions.

I kept writing and decided to do my own challenge: I would publish at least one rant every day for September. I started planning and overplanning. I found out there is a badge on WordPress to publish 30 days in a row. They have a Vampire badge for posting after a certain time at night.  I wanted them, so I set up a plan.

  1. Publish all my finished work that was suitable (some rants and essays are not appropriate for this blog)
  2. Have published after midnight.
  3. Focus on the content.
  4. Updating the website makes it mediocre.

Anyway, on August 30th, I realized my plan would fail because of my hubris and my miscounting of finished essays.  I have 10 essays ready to go; of the 10, only 4 have been edited. I got so caught up in the idea of publishing 30 essays that I stopped writing. Some of the essays are pure trash, like not coherent thoughts or premises. My writing may be helping me clear junk from my brain.  I do have some mitigating circumstances. I found out that I will be moving to a new job in September. I have to close out all my projects, so in July and August, my attention and time have been split. I realized this magnificent plan in my head will not work.

Where I have to take responsibility, I didn’t properly label my essays, so some are lost to untitled documents. I didn’t edit the essays when I finished them. If I had taken an hour a day to edit, I would have had more ready to go. I got excited about writing again and didn’t pay attention to how many I’d written.  Short version: my lack of discipline prevented what could have been a great challenge to get me published not just on my blog, but also in magazines and contests.  I am glad this challenge, through failure, exposed an issue within myself. I get ahead of myself and don’t think through the logistics.  I don’t make time for the details, leaving it up to chance, which led to only 10 essays written when I planned to post 30 days straight.  I am still going through with the challenge, but know it will not be 30 essays.  I am glad this exposed the holes in my logic, planning, and discipline. Now I have to figure out how to fix these issues.  That may be another blog for another day. I am stealing time from another project that I wanted to work on today, probably because I’d rather be writing.

Until Next Time,

Che Michelle

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If I Figured Out Time Travel, This Is What I’d Send Back to my 20-year-old-self

Daily writing prompt
What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
View all responses

Note: Two days in a row I am doing the Daily Writing Prompt….

Love Letters & Hard Lessons An Essay by Che Michelle

If I Figured Out Time Travel, This Is What I’d Send Back

Things I wish I could tell my 20-year-old self — about the plan, the light, the Ford Focus, and the Midol.

By Che Michelle ·   Thriving, and Still Going

Dear You — yes, you, reading this in what I can only assume is mild confusion — I mean you just found this letter while your 20, young and going to school.

If you are reading this, it means I figured out time travel. I cannot change what happens, the timeline doesn’t work like that, but I can emotionally prepare you for what’s coming so you can navigate it better, smarter, and with significantly fewer financial failures. What you do with this information is up to you. If you think it’s nonsense, throw it away. If something in your gut says pay attention and it will, because your gut has always been smarter than your logic, then use it. Use every word.

And if I suddenly get new memories? I’ll know you changed something. Let’s hope it worked.

On Your Family and Your Friends

Your family is right about some of your friends. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I know it feels like interference, like they don’t understand, like they’re being over-protective to the point of suffocation. But here’s the truth that it took me longer than it should have to accept they have simply lived longer than you, and they can read signs you haven’t learned to recognize yet.

They’re not jealous. They’re not trying to isolate you. They want you to have friends, real ones. The kind that builds you up instead of quietly chipping away at your confidence while smiling at your face. And honestly? For a family that could have been much harsher about it, they were incredibly gentle with you. Gentler than you realize and with more patience than you ever offered back. Listen to them when the advice is not in an authoritative tone, but a softer, loving tone. It’ll save you from an existential crisis that, otherwise, is going to land right on schedule at 39 and feel entirely like your fault. Some of it will be your fault. I can’t help you with that part (Bonus advice, take accountability and change your bad behavior). Just listen to the family about your friends, they have your best interest at heart especially when those friends show their true feelings in front of them.

On the Plan You Had for Your Life

I know about the plan. You get married at 28, first kid at 30, second at 32. Tidy. Organized. It’s you, planning your life down to the date. I need to tell you, with all the love I have in my heart: That plan got blown up to absolute smithereens, and it is the best thing that ever happened to us.

You were not emotionally ready to be anybody’s wife at 28. You did not have the resources to be anyone’s mother at 30. And the life you actually get to live in the space where that plan used to be? It’s going to make you smile in ways you cannot currently imagine. You still end up with love. You still end up with the things you want. Just not when you think. And the version of you who gets there will be so much more prepared to actually receive it and reciprocate it to person who deserves it.

“You may have dreamed about being a wife. But you’re going to live a life so much bigger than that dream. Let the dream go so the best version of your life can find you.”

Do Not Buy That Ford Focus

I am completely serious. The blue one. You brought it either in 2015 or 2016, I don’t remember when, but don’t buy it! You’ll know when your then boyfriend suggested for you to get that car and not the Two-door Honda Accord, that you like. He will make it sound like an it’s good idea, has great value. It is not a good idea. That car is a money pit on wheels, and it is going to cost you in ways that will make you say words you didn’t know you knew. Find someone you trust, go to a different dealership, and buy something else. Better yet, don’t take that man with your car shopping! Anything else will be a million times better than that of the Blue Devil. This is the most logistical piece of advice I can offer you and I need you to take it personally. No BLUE FORD FOCUS!

On People Who Try to Dim Your Light

They’re coming. I want you to be ready. People are going to try to dim your light, and they’ll do it for one of three reasons. The first is jealousy, pure and simple, from people who have never learned to believe in themselves. The second is desire: they want what you have, and because they can’t figure out how to build it for themselves, they’ll try to dim your light by making you doubt your light, your intelligence. The third is the strangest one, they’ll try to dim your light to protect you from other people who want access to it. Fear dressed up as concern. They will tell you about doing events, cause it is not the norm. These people will use logic, and concern to convince you not to try, or not to put yourself out there for people to know who you are. It looks like love. It isn’t, its fear and it will confuse you. Stand strong in your belief and do it!

Here’s how you handle all three: practice your affirmations. Write your dreams down in blue ink in a notebook. Make a plan and execute the plan. The life you’re building will not be out of someone else’s paranoia, but out of your wisdom, your intuition and your vision for your life. You don’t owe everyone a front row seat to your becoming. Let people who try to imitate you do it. They’re too unoriginal to sustain it. Walk away and let them figure that out without your help and energy.

Also, I mean this does not let anyone talk you out of your intuition. Your intuition has kept you alive, when your survival skills were lacking. Your Spidey sense has kept you out of rooms you had no business being in. When you get goosebumps along your arm, it is usually a no, and you need to act accordingly.  Trust your gut every time.

On Dreams Changing (and That Being Good, Actually)

You are a jack of all trades, and people are going to say it like it’s an insult. It is not. The full quote which people conveniently cut short is “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one”. When people cut the quote short, they want to diminish someone to only be good at one thing. You contain multitudes and should explore all of your different layers. Each of those layers will, lead you to a new dream, a better dream. Your dreams are going to shift from your 20s to your 30s to your 40s, and every single shift means you’re growing; you’re seeing more of what’s possible, you’re becoming someone bigger and better than the person who made the original plan. Don’t let anyone shame you for evolving. That’s the whole point of life is to evolve.

On Your Health — Please Listen to This Part

Keep working out. I’m going to say it again because I need you to hear it: keep working out. Protect your body now so it can carry you to places you haven’t dreamed of yet. Your health is your wealth in a way that isn’t a cliché, it is a literal, practical, logistical fact. The other side of not protecting it is not somewhere you want to visit. Stay active. Watch what you eat. Still enjoy your life. Those things are not mutually exclusive, I promise. Also, take care of your damn teeth, we like you have a beautiful smile so you need healthy teeth to smile. ( I bet you started sing Shanice-“I love your Smile”, if so good.

And take the Midol. I’m going to give this its own section because it matters more than it sounds.

Take the Midol (No, Really)

There is a friendship in your life, one of the truest, most generous, most genuinely loving friendships you will experience. There is going to be a moment when you are in real physical pain, the kind that makes you pass out after your shift, and you are going to say something to your friend, while in that pain that you cannot take back. And that person is not going to want to hear that it was the pain talking or that your sorry. It will be too late, and they will walk away from this friendship.

 I am telling you now, Take the Midol. Eat something before going to work that day. Listen, don’t speak as they talk to you. If you can save that friendship, save it. It is worth more than whatever you’re about to say in that moment. And if you lose it anyway it was always meant to be a season of friendship in your life and not a lifetime friendship. I want you to know that it was still real, it still counted, and you will carry the best parts of that relationship with you longer than you know. But try to watch your mouth. Take the Midol and listen with no response.

On Death, and the Things People Say Near It

You are going to lose people. Some of those losses will come quietly and you’ll be okay. Others are going to tear something open in you that makes you rethink everything and somehow, in that rethinking, you’re going to find a clarity about your own life that you couldn’t have gotten any other way.

Here is what I need you to know about people who are close to leaving this mortal realm will do, they sometimes say things near the end that sound like rejection of you, erasure of a friendship, erasure of your meaning to them. They will rewrite the entire relationship either as more positive than it was, or that you were just strangers in the night who only said hi once a day. Don’t hold onto those words. I think something happens when a soul is getting ready to leave the mortal realm, like they’re trying to serve as many ties as possible so they can leave more freely. I am telling you to hold onto the dinners, the conversation with nuggets of wisdom. The times they fed you knowledge, praised your skills, and gave you the game of life. Let the last words go, if they sound unlike them. They were not the truth of what you meant to each other.

“Their life was never in vain. And neither was your love for them. Hold onto that and let the rest dissolve.”

The Rules (In Order)

Rule 01 Don’t let anyone take your shine. Not negotiable, not situational, not up for discussion. Your light is yours. Guard it accordingly.

Rule 02 Stop looking for love and start loving yourself. The love you’re searching for outside of you is being built inside of you right now whether you feel it or not. Trust the process.

Rule 03 Take the trip. Go to Japan. Go wherever you’ve been telling yourself you’ll go when things calm down, when you have more money, when it makes more sense. It will never be the perfect time. Save the money quietly, tell no one, and go. You will not regret a single stamp in that passport.

Rule 04 Get the accountant. Do not tell your family. Do not tell your friends. Just find one, pay the fee, and let them help you build the financial life you deserve. This is one of the best decisions you will ever make, and it’s going to feel so adult and so right the moment you do it.

Rule 05 Protect yourself always! Protect yourself enthusiastically, without apology. Your body, your energy, your peace, your destiny. All of it. Energy transfers are real, and some people come into your life specifically to take what’s yours. You are not obligated to make it easy for them.

What I Most Want You to Know

You are not living the life you dreamed. You are living the life you desired, and those are two very different things. You dreamed of being a wife. You became someone who poured love into people who needed it, on your own terms, in your own time. You dreamed of being a mother you have mentored and loved and invested in more children and teenagers more than you can count, and they carried pieces of you whether they know it or not. When it’s time for the rest, it will come.

The people who show up for you the real ones, the ones who love you exactly as you are going to amaze you. You don’t have to beg for their love and acceptance. You don’t have to change yourself for it. You don’t have to wonder if you’re worth it. You are. Full stop. The friendships you have to chase were never yours to begin with, and the ones that stay without being chased are going to be some of the best things in your life.

You have held down two jobs for twenty years simultaneously. You have built something real, quietly, without anyone handing you anything. You are funny, brilliant and more creative than the people who tried to convince you otherwise.

I love you at 20. I will love you in your 30s, and I love you now as we head into the mid-40s. I love every version of you that happened in between, including the ones who made the mistakes that this letter is trying, gently, to help you avoid or at least prepare your for. You are an adventure worth living. Stay healthy so we can keep going.

With everything I’ve got —

Your future self
(Who is doing great, by the way. You’re going to be so proud.)

PS No I didn’t give you lottery numbers. No stock tips. We were never meant to win that way, and honestly? What we built ourselves is better. You’ll see.

P.P.S. — The Ford Focus. I cannot stress this enough. Do not buy that car if you do trade it in as soon as your credit is better.

★ Che Michelle is a writer, cultural commentator, and person who writes her dreams in blue ink and on real paper if you know, you know.

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