The Bubble
I grew up in the prettiest bubble of a city you could ever grow up in. I was aware of the bubble, and I prayed it would never pop. I loved that I could trust everyone I met—I loved the hazy, warm feeling. That I never had to look behind me, to question the shadows at the edges of the alleyways.
The Bubble Pops
The first time the bubble shuddered was when my health tanked. I was an avid consumer of pop tarts, bagels slathered in butter, chicken nuggets of any and every quality. My brother and I would race to see who could eat the most pizza. None of these decisions came to light until 2018, when my gut declared war on me and I gained over 15 pounds. It was like my body was shutting down (or holding on for dear life).
The Bubble Is Laced With Chemicals
I found strange articles telling me something I’d never even considered—I couldn’t trust the grocery store. I remember the idea was so radical. They told me to shop on the perimeter: to stick to the produce (I hated vegetables vehemently) and the whole wheat options hidden away on end caps. These articles jabbed a finger in my face, daring me to read the laundry list of ingredients. Why would I ever read the ingredients?
But I was shocked at what I found. Words that sounded like chemicals; ingredients so long, I gave up reading halfway through. And names for things that sounded innocent enough, but these names were only a mask for fake sugars and fillers. I was stunned, but it made me realize for the first time in my sheltered life: I couldn’t trust all the powers that be.
Outside the Bubble, You Must Have an Opinion
I would’ve made an amazing cult follower. My own thoughts and feelings never held much weight; I figured everyone else in the world was smarter than me, more learned. If something seemed wrong, if my gut hurt, if the tug of injustice or, dare I say it, even anger, pulled at me, I repented and immediately submitted.
But this was when the floodgates opened. If I couldn’t trust the grocery stores to not give me cancer, or dementia, or some hellish combination of both—if I was only a dollar in their pocket, a guinea pig to toss away when bloated and ill—who else was lying to me?
Well, I figured, these companies don’t know me. They don’t care about me. Surely, the people who surround me—they could never lie like this.
Outside the Bubble, You Must Watch Your Back
But that’s when I saw someone I love become a villain. They looked me right in the face, claimed they believed what I believed, loved what I loved.
Lying was so easy—a way to manipulate. A way to sew our hearts together. And I fell for it, even though some sentences brushed up against each other like fighting tigers. But surely, I wasn’t hearing things clearly. Surely, I’d misheard.
I gaslit myself—I didn’t even need any help.
Outside of the Bubble—You Grow So Much More
As painful as this experience was, it took my pursuit of the truth one level deeper. Because, afterwards, I was left reeling. What even is truth? I wondered. How do you learn to trust people? How can you spot a lie?
This is why all the recent book ideas I’ve had, ever since 2018, are innately about the nature of truth. Because it’s something I’ve been fascinated why before I even began to ask the hard questions.
My books isolate people and investigate who will unravel things that are taught them as “Gospel truth.” Because I drank all the punch I was given, for so long.
And now, I write books about people who ask what’s in the punch before they take the ladle. And I love them for that.
I’m still learning what the truth is. The nature of a lie. My only hope is the prayers I cast into the sky, to the God I know who cares. Who maybe made truth hard to find so we will have no choice but to depend on Him.
And each sentence I write, each book idea I draft, every main character that makes it out alive and conquers the villain—it heals me. It gets me closer to The Truth.
John 10:3–4 (ESV): “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out… the sheep follow him, for they know his voice“.
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