...on the B.L. - RaeAnna + A Nerdy Lifestyle

Happy 35th Birthday: A Life Update

May 23, 2026May 22, 2026 RaeAnna

I turn 35 today. The last three years have felt like being in a dryer with a rock and a winning lottery ticket. I've been constantly and simultaneously with the highest highs and the lowest lows and I never knew which way is up.

Experiences, In My Own Words, Lifestyle, So Gay, Travel

How I Met My Favorite Person

August 30, 2025August 30, 2025 RaeAnna

Today is our two year anniversary. I wouldn't change a damn thing. I’m still in awe that I woke up this morning next to her. I dreamed of doing that for so long, and now, I get to. Dating on opposite sides of the world is different. So worth it.

A close up photo of the cover of the book Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab taken from above and surrounded by roses and other flowers.

Books, Fiction

Navigating Mental Health and Queer Identity in Alana Saab’s Please Stop Trying to Leave Me

August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 RaeAnna

Alana Saab's debut novel, Please Stop Trying to Leave Me, explores a 27-year-old Norma's journey through her diagnosis of major depressive disorder, anxiety, and derealisation/depersonalization disorder along with navigating being a lesbian, being in love, being 27. Blending intense darkness with definitions, humor, a story within a story, academia, and astrology, Saab immerses the reader in a resonating narrative that is affecting and relatable in equal measure.

A woman exploring a temple in Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Experiences, In My Own Words, Lifestyle, Travel

Two Years Later: How Travel Changed My Life

August 19, 2025August 20, 2025 RaeAnna

On August 19, 2023, I landed in Sydney, Australia. A trip that would take me to two new countries on two new continents to check of two huge bucket list items. I knew—I needed—it to be a life changing trip. It was. In every way I could have never imagined.

I was a writer once. I don't think I can call myself much of one anymore. It no longer makes up the majority of my income. Although, I never called myself a writer because it paid my bills. It’s the thing I do to breathe. Currently, I’m not convinced I'm actually breathing. Writing has been a near constant in my life from the time I could hold a pen. I always turn to words. Creating or consuming. As a little girl, I would hide in the tree house my grandpa built with a notebook and a pen. Carefully writing pretty, made-up stories with no ending because I didn’t know what happy endings felt like, and my mother only allowed happy endings. She always found my stories, so I stopped writing them. At eight, I used birthday money to buy a purse, bringing a book to the store to make sure it fit the one I bought. I was never an invisible child. People stopped to tell my mother I was beautiful or exceptionally well-behaved. I, not so figuratively, hid behind the books I took everywhere in my purse. Creating a literal barrier between me and everyone. A voracious little reader. From neuroscience to Elizabethan history to Chaucer to seals, I engulfed everything my brain chose to fixate on until the library had no books left on the topic. If I'm being honest, I was a bit of an uppity asshole as a kid—there are those who would say that hasn't changed. A different “a” word comes to mind now. I read to learn, wanting to be taken seriously with how much I knew. Not being a silly, pretty, little girl. Looking back, I was fighting a societal box and my mother's in the only way that made sense. Even if the world only ever allowed me to be a pretty woman on a man's arm, I would never be bored in my own brain. College: I flourished. I was in a relationship that saw me. At a school that valued my brain. With professors who found me remarkable. In a job that challenged and broke me. With the freedom of having my own home. Without a mother to censor me. I started writing. Actually writing. With depth and clarity. Stories with real endings or no endings and plots that felt real because they were rather than another’s false dream reality. I didn’t know it then but with the clarity of hindsight: I embraced the naïvetée and wisdom of being 20. It was one of the darkest, hardest eras of my life. Artistically, it was one of the most productive. When I wasn't in class, actively working, or studying, I was reading and writing. I came into myself. Finding the walls I was ready to break down and walking away from ones I'd visit later. Becoming a for-realsies writer was a fate I actively did not pursue until I was 23. A life of poverty was not something I aspired to. I tried corporate America; I didn’t aspire to that either. So, I started calling myself the writer I had been for a few years. It was the thing I am most naturally talented at and adjacent to the fancy piece of paper I worked so fucking hard for. I have had a blog in some format since I was 20. I began freelance writing and not starving. I was a real writer with real things to say. Sometimes, people listened. Words, whether I wanted it to be true or not, have always been my moniker. For so many, my writing has been the only avenue of truly knowing me. My fiancée is likely the only exception. To this day, I don't actually know if I love doing it, but it has always been the thing I do to breathe. Stringing pretty words together was not only my career, it was my identity. The only home my worth found. The only meaning I had in life outside of my dogs. The world is changing. So am I. Stories and words no longer pour out of me. Work has slowed significantly as chatGPT and AI creep further and further into our lives. Road trips and car rides are no longer inspirational but draining. I don't pull all-nighters writing the stories I can't shake. I only pull all-nighters when anxiety keeps my brain too busy to rest. My website was nonfunctional for eight months. I didn't even notice. What once had a minimum of three posts a week has faded into the periphery of a life I previously lived. I realized it was gone, had been gone, when I paid the annual bill to keep it going. I'm not a writer anymore. Not really. Sometimes, I wonder if I ever will be again. More often, I wonder if I even want to. What good does it even do anyway? This past year and a half has been the hardest, most stressful, exhausting era in my life. Which is not something I say lightly. The good has outweighed the hard in my heart. But the hard has defeated my soul. I am broken and worn. I have no words for the stories I once thought were so important to tell. This past year has felt like the dying gasps of a life I’d avoided but seemed fated for. A life, I eventually embraced and loved. Being a tortured artist is romanticized. It was a fun role to play. The reality is coping with how utterly isolated and depressed I've been for 33 years. This is the first piece I've written in over ten months. I have started a few. But to write. I can't. I don't have breath in my lungs.

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Am Not A Writer Anymore

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 RaeAnna

Words have been my calling card my entire life. As a writer, a reader, a thinker. The last year and a half, that has shifted. Maybe not in the world... but in my life.

Houston, In My Own Words, Lifestyle, On the Town

Musings in a Storm; Hurricane Beryl

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 RaeAnna

In honor of a week since Hurricane Beryl swept over Houston, Texas, I am sharing some musings I wrote while I was without A/C, power, and cell signal. I also took pretty pictures... At least, pretty to me.

…on the B.L.

Two Years Later: How Travel Changed My Life

Four Years Later; Unpublished, Open Letter to My Dad

Welcome to the Family

Welcome to …on the B.L.

Happy 35th Birthday: A Life Update

How I Met My Favorite Person

Navigating Mental Health and Queer Identity in Alana Saab’s Please Stop Trying to Leave Me

Two Years Later: How Travel Changed My Life

I Am Not A Writer Anymore

Musings in a Storm; Hurricane Beryl