Parchment-toned hero image for the Library of From the Lees showing the lees dictionary definition.

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  • I don’t understand surrender

    My whole life keeps bringing me the same message. Surrender. It comes through my body, through loss, through circumstances I can’t control no matter how hard I grip. I understand the concept. I even feel the pull of it sometimes. But surrender feels like releasing the only thing standing between me and chaos. I’m not trying to refuse it, but I just don’t know how to let go.

  • I inherited the worship; I never knew what it cost

    I’ve been chasing money my whole life.  Safety, freedom, the resources to handle whatever comes. I thought that was just who I was. But my grandparents fled China during the communist takeover. They survived because they had something to exchange and a network that came through when it was needed. I didn’t inherit greed. I inherited the memory of what happens when you’re forced to flee and start over with very little.

  • Not every belief you carry belongs to you

    Something surfaced during bodywork – no one cares, it doesn’t matter, it can all be taken away. I sat with it. It felt old. Older than me. The beliefs weren’t developed. They were inherited. They just feel like mine because I’ve been carrying them so long.

  • The body speaks in beliefs, not just sensations

    The tension in my left hip kept travelling – down to my knee, my foot. I found myself asking what belief lives there. The answer came quietly: that it doesn’t matter. That it can all be taken away. Are you willing to listen?

  • The first time I lost myself

    I did gymnastics from the time I was four until I was thirteen. Nine years of becoming someone specific – someone who was going to be the best, who was going to make it. Then the fear got bigger than the will to push through it, and I stopped. No one told me that quitting a sport at thirteen could mean losing yourself. That the work of rebuilding an identity is enormous at any age – but at thirteen you don’t even know that’s what you’re doing. All the activities, all the people, your whole life as you knew it – gone. And you are the only one left figuring out how to fill that void.

  • Some stands only you know your making

    I refused to buy water at the fair on principle. R was thirsty. We suffered. The system didn’t notice. There’s a difference between friction for the greater good and suffering just to suffer. One changes something. The other is just pride with nowhere to go.

  • I give in to him so he doesn’t feel what I felt

    I give in to R more than I probably should. I know that. But I know why too – I don’t want him to feel the lack I felt. The longing for things just out of reach. The sense that wanting is wrong. I’m not spoiling him. I’m trying to rewrite something but I’m writing it from inside the same wound and I’m probably still programing him with lack.

  • I’ve always been wanty and impatient

    I stole a quarter from a church coffee basket to buy a mouse pin. I was maybe seven. I wanted it. My parents weren’t around, and I couldn’t wait. They’d have probably said no if I had asked. I’ve spent a lot of years being ashamed of that wanting. But the wanting was never the problem. Learning early that desire leads to rejection – that’s where the shame came from. I didn’t steal because I was bad. I stole because I already knew the answer was no.

  • I frankly wish I wasn’t this way

    I can see the pattern clearly. I name it. I write about it. I publish it. And then I do it again. Awareness doesn’t always change behavior and sometimes that’s just the truth. I frankly wish I wasn’t this way. But wishing hasn’t changed it either.

  • The shame was never mine to begin with

    I spend money on things that are beautiful. It makes me feel good. But I do it quietly – because a responsible person doesn’t spend money on beauty. The shame around money was handed to me by people whose approval I spent years trying to earn. I still feel judged when they see my things. I still hide my purchases from them. The hardest part isn’t that they handed it to me. It’s that I’m still the one carrying it.