In the Middle of Nowhere, Everywhere

Episode Notes: In the Middle of Nowhere, EverywhereIn this episode of Don’t Call Me, I take you back to a McDonald’s parking lot in southern Illinois—a moment frozen in time where I felt the full weight of the gap between how people live and how people survive.At the time, I was living in a women’s shelter, far from my home state of New York and even further from the life I thought I’d built. I was angry—angry at my circumstances, at the indifference of the world around me, and at the people who seemed to live their lives completely untouched by the kind of pain I was carrying.But this episode isn’t just about that anger. It’s about the truth I learned that day: that the gap between comfort and survival exists, and it’s a gap we all have a responsibility to see.Through stories of resilience, connection, and the unrelenting weight of invisibility, I reflect on how that moment changed the way I see the world—and how it might just change the way you see it too.What You’ll Hear:• Life inside a women’s shelter: the people, the struggles, and the quiet acts of humanity that kept us going.• The McDonald’s parking lot: where anger, grief, and isolation collided.• The buck in the clearing: a haunting metaphor for the spaces we occupy when we feel unseen.• A reflection on the gap between privilege and survival—and the choices we all have to make.This is a story about pain, resilience, and the power of noticing what others might overlook.