#theXOdiary – Saturday, June 21, 2025
Today, I’m sitting with memory.
Not just mine, but the kind that lives in the bones—the kind that whispers through the quiet when the world thinks I’ve moved on. I remembered a moment in a tent when my brother said, “That’s my sister,” and how those four words wrapped around me like armor. That one sentence meant more than he’ll ever know. He may have forgotten, but I never will. He protected something sacred in me when others had tried to take it.
I also remembered the magazines in the field. The ones kids shouldn’t have found, but did. The ones that rewired my understanding of touch, desire, and self long before I had the words to process it. I was four years old—reading pictures meant for broken men. Not because I wanted to, but because it was put in my path. That was never mine to carry.
And still, I did.
Now I look at the world with different eyes. When I see a girl acting out her questions through her body, I don’t judge her. I recognize her. I see the fire behind her eyes and wonder, “Who exposed her to the flame before she knew how to hold it?” Because I know what it feels like to burn young.
But I also know what it means to rise from that fire.
Today, I’m not afraid of the past. I’m not ashamed of what I survived. I’m grateful—for the clarity, for the memory, and for the strength to speak when others stay silent. My story doesn’t define me, but it informs me. And it helps me protect others.
If no one else is watching, I am. And telling too.
—Shimmer