Unlearning lessons and retraining your mind to hold new beliefs is something I've had to try really hard to do over the past few years. I was lucky enough to start working with a company that is built on creating the right experiences which shape beliefs and impact actions about four months after I chose to stop drinking. Having the clear-mindedness that sobriety brought, along with the recurring messages of pausing and leading with intention and clarity were hugely critical to the way I showed up in my life professionally and personally.
I believe that as a culture, women have been taught from a very young age that we should exist quietly on the sidelines, and not be too loud or cause too much trouble. Growing up with personalities that tended to dominate a room reinforced this belief in me from the earliest time I can remember. I was always the shy, quiet kid in class, silently taking everything in, observing and absorbing. I continued with that approach in my first relationship, and I was working on a Master's degree at the time. So it wasn't that I didn't have access to education and ways of functioning differently, it was that my life lessons had taught me that this was the way I should be.
Fast forward to October 2026 and I'm teaching about the problem that has no name, the happy suburban housewife of the 1950s, and the ways that messaging has shown up for women in American culture since the inception. As I teach others about the history of women in American culture, I want them to understand that the difference between accepting the roles that society hands to us and deciding to do something else is all about choice. If someone chooses to be a happy housewife, I'm thrilled for them. If someone chooses not to have kids or ever get married, I'm thrilled for them too. Because they are choosing it.
As I sit here, about to go into a round of three back-to-back college courses where my name is listed as the professor on the syllabus, I'm so incredibly grateful for everything that brought me to this point. Sure, I don't always love the hour commute. But once I'm here, once I'm living out my purpose in the classroom and in my interactions with people on campus, I know I made the right choice to put myself out there almost two years ago with the hopes that I would one day be able to live out my dream job and teach just one class. Now, here I am with a full plate of classes and fellowships on campus, and finishing a project that stayed in limbo for twenty years.
I shared some of this in an interview recently with the Humanities & Social Sciences department at Cal State Fullerton. I'll be a featured faculty author at PubFest in November, and again, I am pinching myself.
To quote the brilliant Penny Lane..."it's all happening."
Check out the PubFest event here: Pubfest 2026
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