january 31, 2025 one day i’m going to sit down and delve deep into why i insist on avoiding the thing i feel called to do, but today i’m just going to leave this here like i didn’t just miss posting last week. enjoy. i’ve been here a month. (?!?!) happy one month anniversary minnesota, we’re so cute together. a latte here is $7 and i don’t know why. in true midwestern fashion, if you pass someone on the street they will smile and wave at you. i like to imagine that everyone s

december 27, 2024 i have a confession, i love that it gets dark early. i saw someone say “how much daylight are they trying to save?!” and i laughed so hard. i’ll admit every year it takes a little getting used to, the yawns that start at three pm and the way our bodies want to shut down by five. while i was still teaching i would dread this time. the sun would be down when i went to work and would be down again as i was leaving. everyday i’d return home from teaching being t

december 14, 2024 don’t mind me, i’m just re-releasing this podcast episode because my beginners mind figure out how to fix it!! have a wonderful weekend everyone! m. i discussed last week on my substack publication and small plug, if you were not already aware i have a writing companion to this podcast on substack also titled refined ink and i post there weekly. but last week I released an essay about monetizing my work. i talked about being scared to do so but in a way i’m

december 13, 2024 cover photo by tasiaMS on twitter “unlimited, my future is unlimited…” it has taken some effort to gather my feelings and words since watching wicked two weeks ago. i haven’t felt so connected to a body of work in quite some time and i forgot how overwhelming it can be. watching wicked helped me feel seen and helped me see myself. i related to elphaba’s feelings of “other,” i related to her feelings of hope and this innate urge and consistent nudge to follow

november 26, 2024 i just enabled the paid subscriber option on my publication a month ago. and in true “scared and afraid” makhela fashion, i said nothing about it. “anyone new signing up will see it and they can decide,” i convinced myself. going paid was more about participating in a different narrative than anything else really, at least at the time. my conditioning, ego and fear were all gathered in the background of my mind telling me it wasn’t a good idea and that once

november 25, 2024 receiving the love that you could feel in your bones, in my childhood home didn’t happen and when i asked for it i was told i was asking for too much. i didn’t realize until much much later that there is a massive hole in my heart where the love of my parents should have been all along. and my whole life i have been on a journey to fill it…one day i will, one day i won’t notice it anymore. this sweater belonged to my father this sweater is my father’s it is

november 18, 2024 august there’s still sand in my car from when i went to the beach this summer. i look at it and feel like a “bad” adult. september i’m trying to be more honest, more authentic. i learned very young how to tailor and adjust my words to please whoever was listening, and it takes a fair amount of effort to just write and speak without any other filters. i started posting consistently in august and started to see the “my target audience” posts from other people.

november 15, 2024 in an effort to respect the ebb and flow of not just my journey but also all the feelings that come with it, i’m posting this. not all of this journey is neat and pretty and easy to romanticize. some of it is dreary, and even the dreariness deserves to be seen, felt, and held with tenderness. i am changing, not the same person i was three months ago. i look up to see the seasons changing, the leaves curling up to die and fall off their trees. and this slow h

november 10, 2024 i know i’m tired with a weariness that weighs in my bones and in my blood. i know i’m done arguing and debating. there are some things that i believe to be an absolute, a right to every human being, no exceptions. and i’m done letting it continue to be a topic of debate and negotiation. there’s this concept of leaving people where they’re at. for a while i thought it was my job to inform people of how wrong they were, because that’s what was modeled for me a

october 30, 2024 “hide it under a bushel no, i’m gonna let it shine…” i’ve been hiding. even when i’ve been here, or on another platform, i’ve been hiding. it hasn’t been easy to allow myself to be seen. my early moments of being seen resulted in judgment and skepticism and a lot of “are you sure you want to do that? what about…?” and since those early moments, i’ve avoided it and the vulnerability that comes with it. there have been few who have seen me, truly. and fewer sti

october 21, 2024 a promise kept to myself a broken promise i hurt myself thinking about showing up vs. actually showing up nudging myself out of the door i take a small step i feel good i wait another 2 months to take another small step can i take more small steps closertogetherlikethis nudging myself out of the door nudging myself out of bed nudging myself to eat nudging myself to live nudging myself to breathe nudging myself to laugh nudging myself to feel like myself again

october 11, 2024 i’m so incredibly proud of this piece. i’ve been experiencing a lot of ‘life’ lately and season after season i come back to the page and i realize that i have to find my voice again. so many drafts, so many unfinished pieces…but this one, is so honest, so vulnerable and it feels like me. thank you for being here, -m. i am the characters i read about. the ones i get frustrated with because they go left instead of going right. because they convince themselves t

september 30, 2024 a few weeks ago i was binge watching a few athlete docu series on netflix. watching them back to back, i was captivated not just by their skill, which was so very obvious and amazing to watch, but also by how much we had in common. first i watched america’s sweethearts: the dallas cowboy cheerleaders. my inner child was very excited because, well, i’m a millennial and i grew up watching the bring it on movies. so to sit and watch real life cheerleaders? my

september 11, 2024 i’ve been known to have a little seasonal depression. except instead of feeling the seasonal blues in the wintertime, i feel it in the heat of the summer. but i was determined for this summer to be different. this summer i said goodbye to a lot of things and chose to walk into new mindsets and be intentional about the feelings i was reaching for. this summer i decided to be intentional about my happiness, for she felt close enough to simply reach for and ho

august 26, 2024 my feelings like to play camouflage on the walls of my mind. they used to walk through the door, settle into their favorite chair and light a candle. the scent of that candle would carry through the room, the halls and home of my mind and i would know, that they had arrived. sometimes the scent would sneak up on me in the middle of teaching my first graders or vacuuming my house in the middle of a sunday reset. but now, my feelings, my fear. she sneaks in when

august 02, 2024 hi. i’ve been so scared to introduce myself here, to explain what i’m doing here, to give a narrative to it. i’ve been scared to start and to fulfill an expectation that i’ve had of myself but have been ignoring. i love to write, and like many others here, i’ve been doing it all my life. but the truth is, that starting this substack and opening up this space, means something. it feels like accepting the person i’ve always known myself to be. and it feels like

july 11, 2024 three dads building castles in the sand and throwing their children’s toys in the ocean i see a teenage girl walking along the beach listening to her ipod. i imagine she’s listening to hilary duff “so yesterday, so yesterday…haven’t you heard that i’m going to be okay…” there are women in baseball hats to keep the sun out of their faces and men who should be wearing baseball hats to keep the red out of their faces there are husbands taking pictures of their wive

june 27, 2024 i can smell honeysuckle on my walks the walks around my childhood neighborhood the flavor of my childhood memories i can hear my friend giggling as i bring the stem of one to my lips eyebrows raised in surprise i hear the bees buzzing and us squealing as we run through the soccer fields i can smell the honeysuckle on my walks the walks i made myself go on seeking healing and security in repetition the walks i take to beckon and coax myself from hiding wherever i

june 17, 2024 i’m in a rush. it was three years ago and i was driving home from work. the teaching day had been long and hard and on my way i was on the phone with a friend describing the life i have now. “i want to sleep until i can’t sleep anymore. and i want to play video games, and write omg i just wanna sit down and hear my own thoughts.” and now i’m here three years later and i hear all of my thoughts, are consumed by my thoughts, am being held back by my thoughts. duri