I'm Olive. Let's start there. I am a historian, I'm currently on my last semester of finishing up a Master's degree in History. Mostly though, I am a writer. I enjoy exploring all sides of a topic and honestly enjoy being wrong or taught something new. I've always been someone with a lot on my mind—thoughts that come in like waves: unexpected, sometimes crashing, sometimes gentle, but always asking to be acknowledged. This space is my way of catching some of them before they

Sitting in the grass at the park with one of my best friends and the person I had recently started seeing, I half jokingly asked the person that's always been there for me what the new person in my life needed to know when it came to me. They paused before simply answering: "Whatever Olive says—just listen to her." I wrinkled my nose, slightly disappointed by the answer to my silly question. I thought to myself, and what exactly is she supposed to do with that? And then, aft

this beautiful piece is A Vivid Imagination (2021) by artist Billie Zangewa. seen at the Hirshhorn Museum in 2023. My siblings and I have this ongoing joke that’s really more trauma bonding than it is coping with what we’re actually dealing with. Anytime we see we have multiple missed calls from each other, it’s never, “what’s up?” It’s always “did someone die?” In other circumstances, if I called one of them over and over again and left several missed calls, once they fina