Let’s have a little fireside chat, shall we? Grab your tea, your wine, or your tequila—whatever gets you through the nonsense—because we need to talk about the absolute liberation of letting people be wrong about you.
I saw a quote today that hit my soul like a double shot of espresso on a Monday morning. It said: “I no longer care how the story gets told. F*ck you & them.”
And honestly? I think I need to cross-stitch that onto a pillow. I want to tattoo it on my forehead. I want to hire a plane to skywrite it over the city.
For the longest time, I was the CEO of “Let Me Clear That Up” Enterprises. If someone spun a narrative about me, I was right there with receipts, screenshots, and a three-point PowerPoint presentation explaining why I was actually the nice guy. I was exhausted. I was running PR for my own life like I was a scandal-ridden celebrity, except my “paparazzi” were just nosy neighbors, toxic exes, and people who peaked in high school.
But something shifted recently. Maybe it’s that fierce energy finally taking the wheel (because let’s be real, we don’t have time for peasants), or maybe I’m just tired. But I realized something profound: You cannot control the version of you that lives in someone else’s head.
If someone wants to paint me as the villain to make themselves feel like the victim? Hand me the black cape, baby. I’ll wear it.
Here is the truth about the “story” people tell about you: It usually has nothing to do with you. It has to do with their guilt, their inadequacies, and their need to be the hero of their own messy little novel.
You know the type. The ex who tells everyone you were “crazy” but leaves out the part where they gaslit you for six months straight. The “friend” who says you changed and “think you’re better than everyone,” when in reality, you just started setting boundaries and stopped answering their 2 AM drama calls.
I used to lose sleep over this. I used to type out long text messages (that I would delete and rewrite ten times) trying to explain my side. I wanted to be understood. I wanted to be liked.
But here is the funny thing about explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you: It’s like trying to teach a cat algebra. It’s annoying for you, and the cat is just looking at you like, “I’m going to knock this glass of water off the table anyway.”
So, I’m retiring. I am officially retiring from the Department of Explanations.
If “them” (whoever your “them” is) wants to tell the world I’m the bad guy? Go for it. Tell them I’m a witch. Tell them I’m difficult. Tell them I’m selfish. Tell them I put empty milk cartons back in the fridge. I don’t care.
Because while they are busy painting that mural using the darkest shades of black and grey they can find, I’ll be over here, living my life in full, vibrant color, unbothered and booked.
And that brings me to the real me. Not the polished marketing speech version, or the “distant brand voice” version. I’m Tina.
And yes, this blog is me talking to you directly. It’s the messy, sometimes ridiculous, almost-always-human version of me that you get when I’ve spilled coffee on my keyboard for the third time this week and decided the universe is clearly telling me to write.
While the gossip mill might be churning out stories about how “calculated” or “cold” I am, the reality is usually that I’m just trying to find two matching socks.
If you’ve ever woken up to the wrong side of the bed—perhaps the bed itself is offended by gravity, or your cat has decided that your alarm is a threat to national security—then you know my mornings. My coffee machine and I have a complicated relationship: I press the button, it sighs, and a tiny amount of life-giving brown liquid grudgingly makes its way into the mug. Some days, the coffee gives up halfway through and I’m left with a lukewarm apology of a drink. I pretend I’m okay with it, but I’m not. I’m not okay at all.
People always ask: What do you write about, Tina?
My answer is simple: Life. The tiny, ridiculous, tender life kept in a drawer of ordinary moments and occasionally slammed shut by a clumsy elbow.
I write about the times I burned toast and pretended it was “artisan charcoal.” I write about the moments I remembered to water the plant but forgot to water myself. I write about the laugh-until-you-cry days and the days when crying was the more efficient way to release tension.
This is why I stopped caring about the “Villain Edit.” Because I’m too busy living these moments—the ones that actually matter. The ones that might sound like you, too:
• The Great Email-or-Not-to-Email Dilemma: You draft, delete, draft again, then send something that sounds like a friendly robot. And somehow the recipient replies with human warmth, reminding you that even emails need feelings to survive.
• The Decorative Gym Membership: It spends more time in a drawer than your favorite sweater. Yet somehow you feel proud when you tie your sneakers and walk toward the door—then immediately turn around to grab a snack.
• The Weather App Betrayal: It tells you it’s sunny, you put on sunglasses, and then the thunderstorm crashes into your afternoon like a dramatic plot twist no one asked for.
If you’re nodding along, you’re not alone. We’re all living parallel mini-sagas where the plot twist is usually a delayed bus, a spill, or an unexpected compliment from a stranger that somehow changes your whole day.
This is where the humor comes in. For me, humor isn’t just about being funny—it’s a survival tool. It’s the little shield I carry when the world throws a banana peel in my path and calls it a “new exercise.”
My humor is sometimes dry as toast, sometimes sticky like the leftover syrup from breakfast, and always a little bit stubborn. It’s the voice that says, “Yes, this is absurd. Yes, we’re going to navigate it anyway. Yes, I will write about it later so you remember you survived.”
The best kind of funny is the kind that makes you feel seen without making you feel small. It’s the shared sigh you release when your pants zipper refuses to cooperate on a busy day, or the inside joke you share with the barista who learns your order by heart.
So, here is the specific kind of peace that comes when you stop auditioning for the role of “Good Person” in someone else’s play: You get your time back.
Do you know how much time I wasted worrying about “how it looks”? Hours. Days. Years! Now, I use that energy for better things. Like skincare. And napping. And raising my kids to be functional humans who don’t need to lie to make themselves feel interesting.
The story gets told however it gets told. But I’m the one living the reality. And let me tell you, the reality is pretty damn good now that I’ve stopped caring about the reviews.
I write because stories are lousy with possibilities. They’re sanity checks. I write for the moments you’ll recognize, the scenes that echo your own life back at you with a gentle grin.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably human. You’re probably juggling something—work, kids, a side hustle, a stubborn plant that refuses to die, a dream you keep revisiting with the determination of a cat chasing a laser pointer. You’re here because somewhere, in the messy middle of it all, you want to feel less alone. And I want to offer a tiny, imperfect beacon: me, doing my imperfect best to be real about it.
So, to anyone currently holding a paintbrush and trying to paint me in a bad light: Paint away. Make it a mural.
And to everyone else: Welcome to the blog. May your coffee be hot, your socks be matched (or at least apologetically mismatched with flair), and your stories be enough to get you through until the next page.