Picked Out
Picked Out

In fifth grade, our lunch periods were at different times. My best friend Samantha—Sam—ate while I had Social Studies. One day, I slipped out of class on a bathroom pass and into the cafeteria, where sound and color collided. I scanned the crowded room until the blur resolved into Sam—her thick black braid ending in a baby-pink scrunchie at the small of her back, a whole head shorter than everyone else at the long table. She squealed when she saw me, as if it had been years, not hours, since we’d last been together. Sam nudged the girl beside her, who slid over without question. I squeezed in, the other kids at the table shielding me from the lunchroom monitor as Sam and I whispered, knees pressed together. Having different lunch periods once felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

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InfluenceKristina Buschcoming of age, familiy, friendship Comments
Putting My Gym Teacher's Head Between My Thighs
Putting My Gym Teacher's Head Between My Thighs

Appreciators of Sex and the City deep cuts might recognize Suffern, New York, as the fictional setting for Aidan’s country house, where bonafide city-girl Carrie Bradshaw sees a squirrel and declares she is “suffering in Suffern.” Why Carrie—written to originally be from Connecticut—was so distraught over a squirrel, I’m not sure. But the sentiment of Suffering in Suffern was one I understood immediately.

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InfluenceKristina Buschcoming of age, Sexual assult, Mental Health Comments
Daddy's Going To Buy You A Diamond Ring
Daddy's Going To Buy You A Diamond Ring

I am sixteen. He is thirty-four, tall and thin, a dynamic instructor who has been known to jump on his desk when acting out the murder of Polonius in Hamlet, a man whose narrow ties against his starched white shirts look like stained-glass windows. A man who just this year returned from teaching English in Orleans (which, until he says it, I don’t know is pronounced without the s), France and Frankfurt, Germany. A man who drives a two-seater with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. My high school English teacher.

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InfluenceKristina BuschSexual assult, coming of age, Marriage Comments
Woman, Mother, Protector
Woman, Mother, Protector

A few months after my mom’s cancer diagnosis, I was having trouble inserting a tampon. I had never really used them, since I was still pretty young and unfamiliar with exploring that area of my body. I had gotten my period earlier than most in my grade, around the age of nine. An avid pad user at fourteen, I figured the real way to become a woman was to use a tampon. Unfortunately, when I finally mustered up the courage to try, I couldn’t figure out how to insert it in a way that wasn’t painful. I talked to my mom about it through the bathroom door, as she laid in bed after her most recent chemotherapy. The stairs had become difficult for her, and she rarely left her room. Days when I came home from school and found her on the living room couch were good days.

Yet my mom’s soft voice floated under the door: I want to help. She was crying.

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InfluenceKristina Buschfamily, mother and daughter, coming of age, cancerComment
At Last
At Last

I used to believe risk would announce itself with fanfare—a cliff edge, a trembling ultimatum, something you could point to as the hinge on which your life turned.

In childhood I imagined risk as a sort of mythic test: a figure standing in the threshold, asking if I was brave enough to continue. I thought it would feel loud. Definite. Something that glowed red at the edges and warned me, Pay attention—this is important.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumlove, self love, coming of age Comment
The Risk of Change
The Risk of Change

Being a mother is difficult. I have always believed with enough unconditional love everything would turn out great for my own kids. So, when Lou, my youngest child, called and told us about their upcoming surgery, I felt honoured when they asked me to come and help them through their recovery. The long drive to Vancouver from Canmore gave me time alone to consider what was about to happen to my beloved child. That’s when the negative thoughts began to creep in about the risks of major surgery. I pushed them back, reminding myself this is Lou’s decision and I loved them enough to help them through no matter what.

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RiskJulia NusbaumLGBTQIA, transgender, familyComment
Proof of Life
Proof of Life

It took seven years of therapy for me to recognize that the gaping wound in my heart is not the child of grief or exhaustion, but of a life un-lived. I have made no great mistakes or spoken the silent, shamed words of “I should not have done that.” I have not done anything. My emotional destruction has been predicated on loss, trauma, and frustration. I wish it was the result of having my heart broken by someone I was in love with, or being stuck in a cycle of taking drugs that will damage my brain by thirty, or spending money under the false notion that I have a six-figure salary. At least I would have proof I could endure risk and confront it with confident uncertainty.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumaging, identity, self love Comment
Trying
Trying

I thought I’d finished coming out. I will be forty this year, and I spent my young adulthood struggling with my queer sexuality. There were the days of hiding and hoping no one would notice the desires that sometimes felt unnatural and unwanted, and the days of reveling in queer culture. There was the era in which I identified as bisexual, then lesbian, then bisexual again, until I eventually adopted “queer” a broad, fluid term applicable to anyone who isn’t straight. Coming out is a continuous process, but for the most part I felt like I was finished with slapping a label on my identity and presenting it to the world.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumtransgender, LGBTQIA, body image Comment
The Trap of Service
The Trap of Service

I was seven years old when I fell in love with the blonde-haired, hardworking heroine who was unceasingly kind to everyone, regardless of whether they deserved it. The girl with birds and mice tripping over themselves to help her. My mom had taken my sister and me to the small movie theatre in town where we’d shared a bag of penny candy, leaned back in our plush red velvet seats and watched the Disney special. 

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AloneJulia NusbaumComment