I’ve learned to realize that everything eventually comes full circle. The awkward moments seem to right themselves over time, and, in my case, within two days. For the awkward half of the story, the fact is that my second or third day in Senegal, I was peed on. I had gone outside to look at […]

I love my name. But it took a long way to get here. Years of people singing “Eleanor Rigby” and telling me their grandma’s name was “Eleanor” fueled a hatred in me for my name so strong, I forced my friends and family to call me Ellie. Well, at least for a while. But over […]