Ditching my toxic relationship with dieting and finding myself on the other side

If I take my boyfriend to my hometown, what will be left for him to see?

I will take every chance I can to discover more of this endlessly evolving city

How cicadas reflect my queer experience

What my first relationship taught me about concerts and vulnerability 

An evening of tributes leads one mother to wonder, what would my son say about me? 

When it’s winter in New Hampshire, there’s very little to do but pine

Step 1: Lower your standards

Nashville’s murals are proof that my daughters are surrounded by greatness — and proof of North Nashville’s resilience

As an older mother, age is a number that matters 

A morning in my ever-changing Nashville neighborhood

On the wonder and musicality of womanhood 

What one small appliance taught me about self-acceptance 

I know I’m getting old because I’ve started to love the music that plays at Kroger

My father’s finest skill is simply opening the car door and letting his children run

Given one guest to the chocolate factory, who would choose me? 

I am Zambian, a woman and Black. That is my superpower.

On one’s family’s evolving holiday traditions

I am a queer, progressive, female minister, which makes dating … tricky

Through letter writing, my grandmother offered a soft place for my thoughts to land

On trying to embrace aging without the negative self-talk that has plagued me for most of my life

On a half-century of abortion rights 

I responded to trauma by jumping out of a plane 

Shedding gendered labels has given me peace in experimentation and uncertainty

On the joy of Lizzo’s reality show Watch Out for the Big Grrrls

Getting to know my birth mother, and finding there’s always enough love to go around   

A North Nashvillian reflects on the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated — and on the cost of freedom

My husband has Alzheimer’s, and I’m keeping our memories alive for both of us 

An open letter to Old Nashville NIMBYs 

If we critically examine the lasting damage our mothers cause, are we bad daughters? 

How a relationship detox helped me face the unbearable lightness of being alone

Goodbye to mixing the personal and the professional

On seeing myself for the first time in a long time 

The last time I compassionately killed a plant, it was in conjunction with a breakup

This is a story of ‘boy meets girl’ — but it’s not that kind of love story

On planning my big, fat, Indian wedding — and reckoning with my mother’s hopes and dreams 

On surviving depression with my cat by my side 

How tweeting about Metro government happenings has helped me manage my social anxiety

Breakups can really haunt you, but revenge is its own kind of magic

A reluctant expert on why the person who hurts you most can also be the most difficult to leave

People survive losing two kids. I think about those parents often. And then I think about my son.

Why I quit my job during the pandemic — and why I went back 

Quarantine revealed a lot about my relationship, including my husband’s abuse

On holding fast to memories in an ever-changing city

On the pleasures of trusting my instincts in the kitchen

Why I stopped trying to lose weight, analyzed my internal fatphobia and let go of the pressure to lose it all for ‘hot girl summer’ 

If women want to gather here in Nashville and be messy together, I say welcome

Or how Courtney Love helped me return to writing after I became a mother

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories enc…

Before the pandemic, I defined myself by the amount of pain I could tolerate — I’m choosing not to do that anymore