Thank you for the compliment. It was kind and well received.

I’m glad you stopped following Jessica, if that is what you take from her writing. Please be aware though, that not everyone does, and that just because some do won’t equate to her being elevated to "queen bee" by those who don’t.

She’s a mother who gave birth right before the pandemic hit. She’s a teacher, and as a teacher had been villainized by political interests for years. She’s a woman in a position of small authority who has had to deal with misogyny daily in her life and her career. She’s a daughter to a mentally unwell parent who tried to kill her. She had a rough, isolating upbringing. She still tried her best and tries to do what’s best for everyone, as many people as she can, despite literally having very little reason to.

She’s a woman who has been forged. The world does not like forged people, women in particular. That’s why she has so many critics, so many legit admirers, and also so many stan sycophants. It’s the same with all people who have been forged. It always has been.

As a mother myself, a single mother, who also dealt with societal abandonment and a rough childhood, there’s something in her writing that truly and deeply speaks to me.

I confess, I cannot see, understand, or even envision what you and others have expressed as what I could ever walk away with from reading her articles.

For me it’s like Edmund Dantes' speech at Albert’s birthday anniversary in The Count of Monte Cristo. To paraphrase because I can’t remember it exactly, one minute you’re basking in golden sunlight and the next a storm has dashed you upon the rocks. Will you cry and moan over your condition or will you rise and scream to the heavens "do your worst and I will do mine" so that the fates may know you and know your worth?

Or like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump screaming at the storm from the bird’s nest of a fishing boat lost in a hurricane.

Or Elizabeth, facing down certain destruction with the Spanish Armada.

Or. Or. Or..... So many others across history and fiction.

That’s what I get. I want to stand with her and scream at the storm. I want to do my worst. I want to go down fighting till the bitter end. I want the fates to fear and dread me.

I want to feel and be like a phoenix. Bright. Indestructible. On fire.

That what she inspires for me and many many others.