“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”
~ Geoffrey Chaucer

When teenage angst and mental boredom read
his poetry in high school British Lit,
my brain went on a bender, seeking highs
that only Tales of Canterbury matched
and line by line, my feminism fanned,
I felt those words expand and amplify
long-stifled power, natural and strong—
a calling practicality outweighed.

Deflated, I allowed society
to mold me in their patriarchal views
though, deep down, I upheld this Chaucer quote,
endeavored to be moral, to defend
all souls without a voice who fate made small—
but nothing dims a triple-threat’s first love.

Dear World,

It started when I was in the psych hospital in August 2020 for a severe mixed manic-depressive episode.

I was sitting at the table, coloring pictures with the friends I had made at the hospital.

I looked up and saw the psychiatrist who was seeing me during my two-week stay. Except this time, I was looking at him… differently. He stood across the day room at the nurses’ station, his back to me.

I actually checked him out.

Checked. Him. Out.

“This is crazy!” I thought.

“What’s crazy?” my friend to my right said.

“Did I say that out loud?” I asked.

“You sure did.”

“I think I’m… in love with my psychiatrist.”

There was pandemonium at the table. My friends asked me so many questions. Nobody had ever talked about having romantic feelings for their psychiatrist. The interest was high.

The problem was that I had no idea how to answer any of their questions. This concept was new to me, too.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I spent months battling my romantic interest in my psychiatrist. I felt confused. Ashamed.

I was seeing my psychiatrist in intensive outpatient therapy as well. I never once mentioned my love for him. I was afraid that if I told him, he would reassign me to another psychiatrist, and I would never see him again.

One day in January 2021, five months after I… you know, I was curious and typed “I’m in love with my psychiatrist” into the Google search bar.

The results were amazing. I was not alone. There were articles about people falling in love with their therapists. Psychiatrists were less common.

I was experiencing a phenomenon called transference. Simply put, it happens when a client transfers feelings about an attachment figure in their lives, usually their parent or guardian, onto their therapist or psychiatrist.

Usually, those feelings of transference are familial, but sometimes those feelings are romantic. So while I am not a common occurrence, I am certainly not alone in my romantic feelings.

I digested this information on my own for two weeks. Then, I summoned the courage to tell my psychiatrist that I had been having romantic feelings toward him for the past five months.

My psychiatrist was compassionate. He said that while he will never pressure me to reveal anything else, the invitation to discuss my love for him will always be there.

I poured out my feelings to him slowly over the next four months as I kept switching between inpatient and intensive outpatient treatment. However, I still felt anxious to tell him yet more.

I had told very few people about being in love with my psychiatrist. I still felt uncomfortable sharing my feelings about him with others.

One day, I finally told my therapy group at intensive outpatient treatment that I have feelings of love for my psychiatrist. Then, I told them a little about transference.

I was not completely alone. Two other clients in the group said they had loving feelings toward their therapists, but it was parental for them, not romantic.

The group therapist said that transference is “the goal” in therapy – that if a client wants to make any progress in resolving their attachment issues, then they need to experience those feelings with someone compassionate – a therapist or psychiatrist – who will help them process and heal their attachment trauma.

I don’t think I’m a typical case of transference. I don’t see my psychiatrist regularly, only when I am in crisis at the psych hospital.

I have a therapist I see weekly, with whom I process my feelings toward my psychiatrist. I wish I could see my psychiatrist at least twice a month, but that, unfortunately, isn’t possible.

It has been four years since I fell in love with my psychiatrist. I have not resolved those feelings yet. I have processed so much, yet something feels stuck. However, I still believe it is possible to heal, so I am honest and open during every session with my therapist.

Here’s my message for you: If you develop strong feelings for your therapist or psychiatrist, whether your feelings for them are familial or romantic, you are not experiencing a setback.

You are making incredible progress.

Keep going. Explore your feelings for your therapist or psychiatrist. Talk to them about how you feel. A good one will be receptive, warm, and friendly.

You will peel back many layers of emotional pain and trauma, and you will eventually heal. I believe in you.

Dear World
If I’ve learned nothing from my days on this earth thus far, it is that I control very little in my life. Whether you believe in God or some other higher power, it is evident that someone else is in control.
I believe that God has our lives planned out for us before we gasp our first breath after leaving the womb. And to take it a step further, I believe that his original plan for us is one that is much easier than the path that we actually take.
Often times I have heard people say, “Why would God let this happen?” My response is always the same, “Why not?” Why wouldn’t He challenge us?
I’ll give you an example. My first marriage was a challenge. From the start, there were signs that it never should have happened. But, as a young girl with starry eyes and visions of a Cinderella story in my head, I ignored the signs (most likely hints from God that it wasn’t what he wanted for me) and walked down the aisle. Even my father questioned my decision right before he took my arm.
I spent the next twenty years trying to make my fantasy become a reality. The man I married was not a man of faith, which made things even harder. And there were signs along the way, opportunities for me to deviate from the path I had chosen, but I didn’t. I believed that if I broke the vows I had committed to that I would fall from grace.
Once again, instead of listening to Him, I continued to keep my marriage glued together in whatever way I could. I do that a lot. I’ve done it with my family for years. But if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that God is far stronger than I am and I need to step out of the way.
When my marriage was ending, I continued to glue it together, thinking there was no way I could survive without it. My children would suffer, I would suffer, and it would be a mess. But the truth is, once I let go and let it happen, things got easier. That’s not to say that divorcing someone after 20 years of marriage and two children is easy, it’s not. But I can tell you that with time, things got easier. I got stronger and happier. But it wasn’t on my own; God was beside me every step of the way.
There have been many other challenges in my life. I have learned not to be afraid of what life deals me. I have learned that there is lesson in everything that happens, even if I don’t know the reason.
I have also learned to cherish the quiet times. Those times when life seems easier, and more peaceful. Those are the times when I contemplate the moments that weren’t so quiet and what there is to learn from them.
Philippians 4:12-13 “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

I’ve learned to not walk in your shoes
The ones where you took them off in the club
The ones where you didn’t get your feet rubbed by a lover

The ones where you ran away from all that loved you
The ones where you stepped on glass and didn’t understand you were protected

I’ve learned to not walk in shoes
That didn’t belong to me anyway
I learned to not walk in shoes because they didn’t get me closer to you

I learned that your shoes held memories
I never wanted to have
But needed.

I learned from your shoes how much you love yourself
How much you punish yourself for loving others
I learned how much you’re willing to give and give
Until you’re depleted

I have learned from your shoes
With love:that this world has mistreated your heart
Held it in their hands and called you
“BABY. You know nothing.”

And yet you’ve walked in so many hoe’s
And yet I’ve walked in yours
And I still see that I love you

I love your scars
I love your sadness
I love your happiness
I love how you love
Even when the love hasn’t been returned to you

So, my love.
I want you to know that I would walk in your shoes again
And again
And again

Until we meet at a crossroads
Between time and space
And I would trade shoes with you

Just so we can be close again
I love you
And I want to rub your feet
The ones that are tired of running from the love you give

So. You too can feel like love
Because you always have been
Running from yourself.

Rest your heart, your mind.
Your Soul
Your shoes

Your spirit

With me.

Allow me to be with you
You beautiful soul
With feet made to fit the palms of my hands

I will always walk in your shoes.
Til the end of time.

My love.

what is life? life that’s heavily filled with mistakes and blessings but most of all intelligible lessons

you choose a certain route that you believe is the right way to go but deep, intensely down inside you know there’s a dead zone

approaching really and mighty slow you still take your time to believe to do what’s right but what’s right when two wrongs can’t make a right, up there look! at the left light you finally realized there was a yellow light all of this time but you still decided to speed on up right?

through and bright like the red light see this is why we have to accept things we cannot change the stop sign is only there for it’s own specific gain

which is for you to abide by and not potentially meant to be changed but change we expect to always fluctuate but are you ready?

to build up and mouton because you expect for things to always go your way but when human beings aren’t meant for you trust me you won’t have to over think double checking if you’re actually coherent in your own brain

the brain that allows for you to grow and change within all the impossible says and impossible many ways

another thing this isn’t a Marco Polo game stop choosing what chooses you listen don’t get offended

I’m talking about the venomous snake that’s in the grass that you live in, that you walked in with your own two feet without looking down to find yourself nothing to see

see the tricks that many sour candies can cause that you eat which is always sour than sweet but this life is created for everyone including you and me

but i can only talk not preach
this is your lesson, your mistakes, your testimony, your personal journey made just for you to experience and even see

Picture this. An 18 year old, high school senior being tasked to come up with a senior quote before they graduate. Seems pretty easy, right? Well, imagine you are an 18 year old senior in high school whose mind never stops creating stories, poems, and letters. My senior quote literally popped into my head on the way to school one morning. And I live by it every single day.

“Live Your Dreams and Never Give Up.”

Well in the last few years I have learned to Never give up, it all started when my father passed away and then within a few months a tree that I grew up with was in danger of being cut down and THANK YOU JESUS, the tree is STILL STANDING, I have watched this year as my mom has been diagnosed with Acute Leukemia.She is beating it , QUITTING isn’t a Option NEVER GIVE UP

My message to the world would be simple. We as humankind must understand that we are not control of anything. Life happens we are on our own individual assignments. And what happens along our journey is predestined there are events that are out of control, the death of someone close , why are some able to stay and others leave this world much too soon Who we love and nurture we don’t get to choose our families, we become apart of them and they apart of us. We can’t control a person’s thoughts. And how they feel about you as much as we want them to love us , they choose not to. When can only take our thoughts captive. The journey of life is tedious and captivating . That’s not to say that are robotic we feel emotions , we strive for better in our individual ways. But at the end of everyday the fact remains we are just micro fragments in scheme of life. And we control nothing.

In the backdrop of the Wasatch mountains, a little askew from where life zooms by at 80 miles per hour, I stood with my friend on a trail, panting and staring up at a starkly blue sky. I was trying to find peace while he was droning on about the dramas of his dating life—of this twenty-two-year-old girl he was in love with and her inability to choose him. I think there was something about a forty-one-year-old preying on her, that she was letting it happen, and my own thoughts about youthfulness—about how she wasn’t at an age to know what it was she wanted. I kicked a rock and thought about how long we had been hiking, about how long he had been talking.

But did I know what it was that I wanted? After all, I had come to the mountains to breathe in the slowness, and I had selected terrible company for that goal. I’m twenty-eight but there’s not much difference between twenty-two and me, when my grandparents of eighty-three are smashing cake into each other’s mouths to celebrate sixty years of companionship. Even in their experience, they still don’t always know what it is they want for dinner that night.

My grandparents have experienced a treasure chest full of life, but life expands farther than their sheltered, walled in realm of Utah. Their treasure chest is their microcosm, their eighty years. A good microcosm, but not quite enough to have life “figured out.”

That was how my friend put it when he was relenting to my questions about this young girl he wanted to love. She thinks, at twenty-two, that she has life figured out. That she knows what this forty-one-year-old wants when he says he could see himself marrying her. I told my friend that he didn’t have life figured out either. No one did—not even ninety-year-old men who had seen everything under the sun. If they had seen war and read hundreds of books and maneuvered great political events in history, if they had lived to one-hundred-and-ten—

They still wouldn’t have life figured out. Because life is bigger than them.

The hiking trail I stood on with my dog and my friend and my backpack full of water was a microcosm in itself. It was a sliver of the greater planet that had eons of history embedded in it. It was a fleeting conversation between friends on the matter of life and love, truly young minds trying to grasp something abstract about living that they’ll never be able to grasp. Not a single person on this Earth has life figured out, and probably won’t until death.

From where I started to where I am now, helped me realize how quickly we can arrive at our destinations.
Soon after, these destinations become pit stops on the journey to our next location.
We rarely stop to take in all that we accomplished, and rush to do or be more.

I often remind myself to ‘lighten up,’ as I know I am walking in the right direction.
Sometimes I feel as though time is just passing me by while I stand in place.
Then I look back and realize I’m in a spot I once longed for.

Be sure to stop and acknowledge all you have accomplished so far, and use that as motivation to further yourself.

We are forever evolving and there is no time frame for growth. Embrace your journey with a whole heart and at your own pace.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
Things just stay the same
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
New players same old game
If things don’t get better
Then things won’t grow
Trust me when I tell you this
For this is a lesson I know
New beginnings
Scary starts
The fear of not knowing
The breaking of hearts
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
New day same old me
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
The person I could grow to be
If I could let go
If I could give in
I’d be beaming with pride
Not dripping with sin
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
The power we have to see
That giving in
That starting over
The ability to forsee
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
You are getting in your way
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
Alas, a brand new day
Embrace it
Welcome it
My hope is you will see
That “Nothing changes if nothing changes”
You hold the key to being free

Have you gone stagnant with life
And lost your sense of control
Pick yourself up no matter the strife
Learn to love your soul

Open your heart for all to see
Don’t let anything hold you back
Allowing someone to control thee
You’re life will always crack

Your journey is a learning one
It’s truly for you to feel
If you can read you’re not done
It’s a time to live and heal

Sometimes when you don’t understand
Where the roads seem to go
Someone will come take your hand
And love you from head to toe

If you’re feeling unloved in anyway
Send prayers up above
Open your mind everyday
And God will send his love

We are living on borrowed time
Temporary here to stay
Don’t waste every dime
And never go out of your way

Let life take you to a magical place
In every step that you take
Laughter and joy on every face
With every breath you make

Life will come and go
Faster than you can see
Allow it to to truly flow
And never give up on thee

Sometimes you won’t understand
The battles you will endure
Your end of life is the promise land
So embrace it and make it pure

Be the voice we need to hear
And do your best on earth
Gods love is always near
As it’s sent from up above.

“You’re the song my soul sings in silence every time the world gets too hard to handle.” Tales of Ipsita

my soul sings in silence
By: Jim Kellogg
(The Queer Poet)
7-4-24

my soul sings in silence
it may be heard in the hush –
my lullaby –
on the breath of the wind
it intones joy and gratefulness
like a hummingbird in flight
quick, vibrant bursts of happiness
as a tower of bliss
standing lofty and strong
i find happiness in small beginnings
i find gratitude and purpose in minute moments
my soul sings in silence

Dear Unsealed,
My mottos are from my favorite lady Maya Angelou
“IF you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”
“You nay not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them”
La vita è bella
I want to share
To the world
The big ball of Earth
Spinning in the sky
My looking forward poem that so relates to my favorite lady poet, Maya Angelou as it similar to my motto of moving forward through the storms.
I found this poem I wrote in 1967 or 1968. I suppose I was beyond my years at that time of my life’s journey. I found out one must ‘carry on’ through the storms that our universe sends us or that we casually ‘bump’ into along the roads we choose throughout our lifetime.
Despite the nays and the ‘you can’t do that’ or ‘you are not college material’ suggestions from a friend of yesteryear. I was already in college, so I tossed her suggestion away into yesterday’s trash bin. Because she knew not how or when or where or what she was talking about.
There are different roads to choose as we reach each decade of our life’s journey in time. I chose the road of different avenues and boulevards along the straight path cause’ I was curious. I don’t regret studying nursing and healthcare. I don’t regret studying union management. I don’t regret studying journalism, art, and film. Now I have so many stories to tell. I have so many songs to write. The avenues and boulevards I strolled down off the beaten straight path taught me lessons to remember in my next lifetime of creation and light.
So, I will share my poem from my back pages of 57 years ago in another time period before computers, cell phones, and AI. Each decade presented a new chapter in my life of fun, work and strife. I don’t look back and say how bad I was for different relationships or different guys in my life each decade. We all meet people along the way. Some people will stay. Some people will go. That’s life in a ‘nutshell’ with detours; the good, the bad, the ugly and the absolutely beautiful scenarios that happened that make me laugh, cry and ‘jump for joy’ in time and space of our universe to live, love and spread light.
“LOOK FORWARD”
Written by Vicki Lawana Trusselli 1967
It’s been a long life,
Had a whole lot of learning.
Had a good time,
But there’s still that yearning.

There’s been bad times
When the way looked dim
I prayed and hoped for better.
Yes, I prayed to her or him. (“God is omnipotent of all genders.”)

Tears have come and gone.
Heartaches I’ve had great,
But each new tomorrow
Opens a new gate.

This gate is bright and shiny.
This gate opened my heart
When I’ve gone wrong
To help me make a new start.

The dark clouds appear,
To which there seems no end
But pray and hope things will change,
That they want be like they’ve always been.

Look forward with a smile
When the end seems near
Don’t give up hope
Just dry that tear,

For your life will change
When you hope and pray
And try and try more each day,
Just over the rainbow there’s a brand-new day.
La vita è bella