Michaela Mitchell

I admit it. I have a resting bitch face. Yes, I've been told I'm intimidating. And yes, I've heard “What's wrong?” when I'm randomly existing somewhere. I'm used to people misinterpreting my facial expression and moods.

My journey to acknowledging my guilt and privilege while embracing my feminist view on the world has been a slow, winding trip — with no end in sight.

If someone you care about is suffering through the pain of first holidays without someone they love, there are things you can do.

I make no secret that I prefer older men. The way they handle themselves in a relationship is important, but there are things older men do better in bed!

God forbid a single group, like fast-food workers, attempt to unite and fight for a better living wage. The moment they do, stories about more deserving groups who don't complain about their income are thrown about.

I don't know if it's because I've lived in the deep South my entire life or if it's a generational thing. I do know that I was raised to “act like a lady” — always. Good girls didn't say certain things or look a certain way. We didn't raise our voices or argue with authority figures, and we apologized – a lot.

Several months ago I read a piece from a mother who was so over people comparing raising kids to taking care of their “furbabies.” The annoyance and eye rolls practically leapt off the page.

In my family, it's not a matter of if cancer will affect one of us, but when. Right now, breast cancer has center stage in our lives.

Somewhere between the birth of my first child and the first time my youngest hurt himself and I told him to “walk it off,” I lost much of my mom guilt. It helps that a very good friend of mine, who'd already raised her children years before, shared some of her own hard-earned wisdom with me.