Author: Alexandra Sladky

If you had told me thirteen years ago that I would someday go back to Georgia, I would have politely told you that you were mistaken, I would never go back. Once gone, I would stay away forever, the way that I avoid drinking vodka because it tastes like my first hangover.

The point of learning Latin is not necessarily to become an expert in the field, it is not to never forget the meanings of vocabulary, but to remember the stories, to not let them die.

And then, all of a sudden, I felt like I became someone who sat down to produce new words and create new stories instead of someone sitting in front of the computer eating potato chips.

At some point in high school, my Latin teacher said that if I wanted to be a writer, I should study Classics. Of course. To study Classics meant that I would study THE Classics, read them in their original language and learn where stories came from. Something about that made sense to me. Love of language combined with a desire to write. It stuck.

Women have been chased, ravished, raped, and changed for centuries. Women have been disbelieved for centuries. Misogyny began centuries ago. Not yesterday.

The first time I remember it happening, was a Saturday morning. My wife and I were at Lowes, where a little girl in the bathroom, informed my wife that she (my wife) was in the women’s restroom. The girl was notifying my wife that she, my gym-clothes-clad, backwards-cap-wearing wife was in the wrong bathroom. The little girl’s mother, who was present for this exchange, said nothing.

July means summer. And summer means reading. Since I have been more purposeful in my writing and finding time to write, I’ve been thinking more about the writers who have been most influential and inspirational to me.

The arts teach you creativity, they teach you perseverance, persistence, passion, they teach you to never give up, they teach you to work with others, to foster relationships, how to see the world in a new light and how to share your unique view of the world with everyone else. They teach you to articulate your desires, your ideas. They teach you self expression.

Part of being out and being who I am and looking the way that I look challenges me to embrace the awkward moments. Here’s how - the more I share my story, the story of my engagement to my wife, the more powerful I feel, the more in control of every situation.