Pilot Light

My latest essay, out now in Witness Magazine!!

My essay, “Pilot Light,” is out now in Witness Magazine!

This essay reflects on the first significant relationship I had after getting divorced at twenty-seven. It explores the secrets we keep from ourselves in relationships and the identities that women are willing to craft, or destroy, to win the approval of men.

After I got divorced, I swore to myself I would never sacrifice my identity and values for a man again. I promised that I would not wrap myself in the steel wool of another relationship with mismatched values. But then I spent the next three years doing just that with someone new.

Over those years, I became so convinced that this new relationship was meant to be, that I overlooked many of the signs suggesting that it was just as unviable as my marriage had been. Of course, I felt those niggling doubts, but the fantasy of us was a lifeline that I couldn’t let go of, even as it turned to a blade in my hand.

A few months after the relationship ended, Roe v. Wade was overturned, an event that felt inextricably linked to my ex because of his politics. These overlapping blows forced me to grapple with the fact that someone I had been in love had helped strip me of my rights. Hindsight became an unflinching witness to just how much of myself I was still willing to sacrifice for love.

Me and the essay’s namesake stove! Photo by Kim Ilinon Photography.

When I found out this essay was being published, I was excited. But I was also distressed. As a writer, I sometimes have to pursue the goal of being published doggedly, without thinking about what it will actually mean to have my work published. I felt a shiver of shock at the idea of this story being out in the world for anyone (anyone???) to read. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to admit that, in love, I became like a dog begging for scraps.

The embarrassment of my own karmic cycles aside, as the publication date loomed, I realized that I felt unmoored by just how much of my worldview I reveal through this story.

I grew up in a religious environment that taught me to conceal any deviation from “traditional” Christian values. Values like being pro-life, abstaining from sex until you are married, and advocating against LGBTQ relationships. I don’t believe in those values or live in that world anymore, but I didn’t just leave it all behind when I walked away. I still carry that need for secrecy and self-preservation with me.

In publishing this essay, I have loosed the unvarnished truth of who I am and what I believe out into the world, where I will have no control over how it is received or what people will think of me when they read it.

My friends have, of course, been telling me to shout this achievement from the rooftops. To celebrate, and pose, and read it aloud! I’m a stereotypical Libra, so on some level, I adore these accolades, preening in the light of their awed gaze.

But I have felt myself curling away from the limelight when I think about telling the world about this story. I am tempted to just let it be published quietly, to let strangers consume it and applaud the unknown author from the quiet of the living rooms.

What I’m describing, is the dull ache of a vulnerability hangover. A harrowing internal conflict that does not respond to Advil and Pedialyte.

I told this story, not because I revel in the slow peeling back of my own layers, but because I can’t help myself. As much as I want to hide, I also want to be witnessed. I want to let all the rage I held back throughout my time in the Church and throughout most of my relationships with men spill over and scald the stove, I want to show the marks those years left on me.

Maybe in doing so, this story can act as a kind of mirror for anyone else who has ingested the mythology of the patriarchy their whole lives. For anyone who has become so infected with the voice of someone else that they don’t recognize their own, begging them to pay attention, to accept the painful thing in front of them that they want to ignore.

So, I am very excited (and a little scared) to share that you can purchase the Spring 2025 edition of Witness with my essay here!

I hope this story will be both a balm and a rallying cry for anyone who feels like they are being crushed beneath the hatred of the patriarchy right now.

If this essay is proof of anything, may it be proof that we will have the final word.