Midwest Mimi

  • He Sounded Like Home, Even When Home Was Chaos

    When people say they love Jelly Roll, I know what they mean. But when I say it, I mean something different. I mean his music found me when I was still in the middle of my hustle years, back when survival felt like adrenaline and invincibility. This is not just about fandom. It is about…

  • Still Walking

    A reflection on faith, covenant, and queerness from inside the tension. I still pray. I still believe. I still love my wife. I do not have every theological answer, but I am still walking.

  • Grief That Grows

    Healing did not mean letting my mother go. It meant learning how to keep loving her in a way that did not cost me my own life—and allowing grief to change shape into something quieter, steadier, and still full of love.

  • Grief That Grows

    After my mother died, my family did not grieve in the same way. My dad withdrew, my brother went quiet, and I had to learn that different expressions of grief do not mean abandonment—but they do change how we love each other.

  • Grief That Grows

    After eight years of anticipatory grief and the loss of my mother to early onset Alzheimer’s, I learned that grief doesn’t just take who you love—it takes the shape of the world you built around them.

  • The Life I Wanted Didn’t Die. It Changed Shape.

    I thought I knew what my life would look like. A degree. A career. Stability. Security. A future I could count on. Then I got sick. What followed wasn’t just the loss of health, but the slow grief of watching the life I planned slip out of reach. Almost dying forced a reckoning. I couldn’t…