Girls. Boys. Everyone in-between. It’s me. Your lesbian big sister.
I’m here to deliver the most important message I’ve ever delivered to you. I mean it. I think. Well, at least in this divine moment, on the last day of August in the shittiest year to ever exist in our lifetime, I mean it.
Here goes: Protect. Your. F*cking. Sparkle.
And what I mean by all garble is this: Stop doing shit that dulls out your glorious, ever-shining light, little sister! For you’re a person that burns brighter than all the lights on the Sunset strip.
You’re a person who glitters more intensely than the disco ball that held court on the notorious dance-floor of Studio 54. You goddamn gleam like the décolletage of a freshly-exfoliated actress on Oscar night.
You’re the shimmery star that lights up the smog-ridden LA sky. You’re the neon McDonald’s sign that reminds us that human civilization does, indeed, exist when we’re driving through the Mojave desert and starting to fear we’re slipping away from the land of the living and spiraling down to the doomed land of the dead. You’re the orange-gold cigarette cherry who’s soft glow warmed up all those cold, lonely, suburban nights when we were displaced teenagers.
You’re the fairy lights the manic-pixie-dream girl lovingly drapes over the canopy of her bed so she can feel like she’s sleeping on a star. You’re the lone flickering candle that makes the generic dorm room feel like home. You’re the sequin scaled dress that reminds the party girl of the magic she possesses right before she’s offered a spirit-killing bump of coke at a vulturous nightclub. You’re that first twinkle in the typically vacant eyes of the clinically depressed when the Prozac (finally) kicks in. You’re the transfixing shine in the hair after a Madison Avenue blow-dry. You’re the glow in her skin when she finally tells her parents who she really is. A Swarovski crystal in the sun. The ethereal moonbeam that reminds us all that shit isn’t so bad, that life goes on, that beauty still exists in the world, that there is so much out there we still have yet to see.
You’re the fire that wildly flaps its flames inside of our hearts when we’re turned on, excited, ready to make it f*cking happen.
The best and the worst thing about being a babe who burns as bright as you is this: People are magnetized to the heat that radiates out of you. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s so hot. It’s so sexy. It makes us feel alive.
But not everyone is worthy of being privy to your precious sparkle, babe. And there are energy vampires dressed up like charismatic angels all over this town. This city. This world. They’ll tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to hear. They’ll validate all your fear. Your gut will tell you something’s off, but your head will quickly assure you that you must be smart. That you must trust them. After all:
“They said they can score you the dream job.”
“They said no one will ever love you like they do.”
“They said they’ll keep you safe from the fire burning inside of you.”
The head is a very convincing woman. She’s sensible. She sports a no-nonsense bob haircut and wears comfortable ballet flats to work. Also. She has a much more expansive vocabulary than that gut of yours. Your gut is so smart, so wise, but she doesn’t have the sophisticated language of your intellect. She’s a physical entity. And you can ignore the physical if you try hard enough. You can numb the gnawing in your heart and the slicing of your soul so long as you pop the right pills and slug back enough of the poison and blur your identity in someone else’s flesh. Bury yourself in a body that isn’t yours.
And when you numb your gut — that’s when your sparkle starts to dim. To listen to your gut is to allow yourself to feel the burn. And you can’t sparkle like the moon without feelings, without emotion. If you keep slapping filters over your emotional truths, pretty soon you’ll be rendered flat and matte. And once you’re flat and matte that who sucked you of your spirit will walk away. Because see, they got what they needed. They got their sparkle fix. They bled you dry. They fed off *your* golden supply.
And now they will leave you lifeless on the floor as they search for the next glitter girl with a heart they can strip of its gold. Because people who don’t have any light inside of them are desperate to have what you have.
But what you have is NOT theirs to take.
Which is why you must protect your f*cking sparkle.
Do the things that add to your sparkle. That pour gasoline over the flame. When you’re sparkling and burning you can always feel it. When you’re light is being snuffed out, you can feel that too.
This is entire month I’m going to be focusing on ways for us all to protect our sparkle.
We’re going to talk about the little things that dim us dull and the big things that rob us of our shimmer-glimmer-gleam-dream. We’re going to talk about the people we should avoid and the people we need to prioritize. We’re going to talk about the pain that helps us grow and the preventable pain that keeps us stuck in place. We’re going to talk about the pills that help us cope and the pills that snatch the souls right out of our skulls. Because the whole reason I created this platform is because I am f*cking tired of seeing the most incredible, majestic, creative, radiant human-beings get shoved into the backseat of the car. I’m sick of watching mediocrity take the wheel. I’m sick of people dumbing down the beauty of the unique. I’m sick of seeing the special people overmedicated, shackled by shame, silenced, locked away in the attic. Locked away in the mental ward. Locked in a job that doesn’t value their mind-blowing talents. Locked in jail. Locked in prison. Locked inside of a life that doesn’t serve them.
We live in a culture that fears anything that is too big to shove into a box. We live in a culture that dismisses nuance. That vehemently fears shades of gray and worships good and bad, right and wrong, ugly and pretty. They fear the glorious in-between because they don’t understand it.
But we don’t have to cater to a world that doesn’t get us. F*ck that. Let’s collectively kick mediocrity out of the car and start driving the car! Can you imagine how magical our final destination could be if we decided to take charge of our destiny?
Can you imagine how much we could light up the world if we truly let ourselves glow? If we owned our sparkle and surrounded ourselves with sparkle and protected our f*cking sparkle?
My debut book GIRL, STOP PASSING OUT IN YOUR MAKEUP: THE BAD GIRL’S GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR SH*T TOGETHER is available NOW on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, and BAM! If you send me a screenshot of your preorder, I’ll send you swag!
