ALGEBRA
7 / 15 / 2026
Every woman is familiar with the fake laugh.
You know the kind — where you have to keep your real face frozen before it leaks through. Your forehead gets kind of tight and all of a sudden you’re making this sound from the bottom of your throat while slightly shaking your upper body with it. Your eyes gloss over and check out to another universe where you can finally take off the workout leggings that are the 2020s equivalent of an 1870s corset, your shoulders drop, and you can breathe without trying. Because you can only force yourself to see straight through an interaction that isn’t real for so long.
It’s like every joint in your body starts squeaking.
And you’ll probably need to hit the oil shop to recover afterward.
Every woman also knows her real laugh.
The kind where she snorts and tears start rolling down her face.
While she crosses her legs and hopes she doesn’t pee.
And whoever can bring that out of us?
Well, we’re probably in love with them, best friends with them, or related to them.
I would’ve kept using my fake laugh, but it was making me sick.
I was cornered over and over again by my own biology —
"Stop doing what you 'should.' Be you instead."
So over and over again I tried.
"But what does that mean!? I am me!"
Frustrated, I had to keep learning.
And give it up, again and again.
God really is a genius.
I never miss my fake laugh. Like, ever.
Although—admittedly, there are a few special occasions when I still use it because it feels too scary to be me.
I did however, give up uncomfortable workout leggings long ago.
Talk about the ultimate marketing gaslighting.
We all want to feel safe in our own skin...
But how can we feel safe when we are abandoning ourselves over and over?
The math isn’t adding up.
Not that my math ever added up anyway. Except algebra. For some reason, that’s the only type of math that ever clicked for me.
And my laughs in algebra class were always real, since I shouldn’t have been laughing.
Recently, life asked me to show up in important ways.
I was with a group of people and realized I didn’t resonate with the way someone was being talked about. It felt hurtful, and I didn’t want to participate, but not saying anything at all still felt like participating.
So instead, I spoke up.
It came from my center, and even though everyone may have felt awkward or silly after I spoke, I only felt my own body relax and remembered what it feels like to trust that it’s safe to be myself.
Along with a hope that the person being talked about knew I loved them and that they were safe with me, even if they never heard about any of it.
I also lost it on someone I love a lot.
And when I say lost it, I don’t mean myself.
I mean I stopped trying to contain how I actually felt and lit a match to the fire inside of me waiting to burn any disease left of being “digestible” in its path.
Underneath the "you’re being an asshole" was,
"I’m hurt. I miss you. I want to matter to you. And I’m tired of pretending that doesn’t affect me."
Both times I could’ve laughed it off and “let it go” because “love and light” and “it’s not that deep,” right?
No.
Absolutely wrong.
Love and light is the courage to be REAL.
To be the same consistent person in all rooms.
And everything is deep.
We’re living a human life.
Love doesn’t demand that the other person meets us there, but it leaves the door open in case they want to.
Which, in both of these recent experiences, happened in their own ways.
Even if the second one took a week.
If I were writing to the person who gets “it” (meaning me), this is what I would know:
I would know my intentions are as pure as day, so I wouldn’t second-guess every word.
They would feel me speak louder than the words I’m saying anyway.
I would know that it was safe to be entirely myself because even if it looked really ugly to the world, that person wouldn’t see it that way.
I would know they see my heart more than anything.
And because of that, I would know it’s safe to disagree because our hearts already agreed.
If I were writing this to the person who gets “it”...
My shoulders would probably relax.
My lips would smile.
And I would just share from my heart instead.
A beautiful practice, every time.
I hope we all walk through the world “getting” ourselves first, so we can give others the chance to meet us there too.
And the chance to love them even more truly.
As for me, I'm deeply thankful that life keeps offering another moment.
Another chance to be a little more myself.
Another chance to love a little more honestly.
Another chance to stop becoming who I think I should be and instead become a little more who I already am.