Jillian Aurora

The Labor We Expect, Not Acknowledge Every holiday table rests on quiet labor. Before the gathering, before the candles are lit, before anyone says grace or lifts a glass, hands are already working. They plan. They shop. They chop, knead, stir, lift, taste, and clean. They carry the weight of the meal for days before it becomes an event. Yet this labor is rarely named. Food is treated as if it magically appears and as though abundance is a natural condition rather than the result of time,...

This year, I walked through more grief than I thought I could handle. There were many moments when I was sure I would break. Sometimes I still feel like I might. This was not a year of gentle transition or peaceful endings. It was a year that felt cruel. I willingly left an ecosystem I loved more dearly than I had ever loved anything. I left a life that had grown thick with meaning and texture. I miss my dog and my old cat Hector with an ache that doesn’t leave. I miss feeding the birds and...

I refuse to organize my life around the narrative of self-development. I say that as someone who was not just a consumer of it. I was a vehicle. I was a coach. I spoke the language fluently. I helped move others along the same conveyor belt I was standing on myself. I believed in growth. I still do. But what that industry quietly demanded was not growth with an end point. It demanded perpetual motion. Self-development was always about more . More insight. More healing. More regulation. More...