The new year is upon us. A time for reflection and, for many of us, resolution. This is the time for getting to work on being our “best selves.”

“It was exhilarating for Iden that first day that I stepped out into the sun. At last, my suffering was over. At last, my pain was behind me. Or so I thought.”

“I have many stories. Every paramedic does. “War stories,” we call them. Some we tell over and over to anyone who hasn’t heard them, and anyone who has.”

“Before he was an artist, before he was a husband, before he was a father or a grandfather, he was a Blues Man.”

“Humans are strange. Is there a creature that craves novelty more than a human? Or one more fearful of change? Is there another animal as fundamentally paradoxical as a human?”

“This month will be my second time celebrating Pride as an out transgender person and this time I want to see more than just a momentary gathering of little rainbows.”

“I didn’t know what it would be like to raise my children as a transgender woman, but I was pretty sure it would be awful.”

“So what’s the answer? How do you remove a stigma that is as deeply rooted as the one against mental illness? My advice is the same advice I always give. Start with yourself.”