A mother  •  A son  •  A journal born from love

I didn’t know
what to do.
So I built
something.

“Everyone talks about coming out.
Nobody talks about after.”

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Ricardo Hartley III — Juilliard ’21

When Ricardo came out, I didn’t handle it the way I wish I had.

It wasn’t a kumbaya moment. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t ashamed. But I was scared. I kept thinking — how do I protect him from something I’ve never been through? What do I even say? I didn’t have the words. I didn’t have anyone to call. I just had this kid I loved more than anything, and a world I wasn’t sure would love him back.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I showed up. Imperfect. Confused. But there.

I started listening. I started asking questions I didn’t know how to ask. I sat in the discomfort of not understanding — and I stayed. Slowly, the fear turned into something else. Not just acceptance. Adoration.

But after the coming out was over — after the conversations and the tears and the deep breaths — I noticed something. There was nothing for what comes next. No guide. No journal. No space that said: okay, you’re out — now here’s how you figure out the rest.

So I asked Ricardo: what if we built it?

Ricardo is a Juilliard graduate. A dancer with Netherlands Dans Theater in The Hague. An artist who sees the world in ways I never could. Together, we made a journal — 52 weeks of prompts, real interviews with queer people who share their actual stories, and affirmations that don’t sound like greeting cards.

We called it Adoration of the Queer Mind. And then something happened we didn’t expect. People started asking: where’s mine?

Single mothers. People with anxiety. Divorced moms starting over. Everybody had a version of the same sentence: “I wish someone made something like this for what I’m going through.”

So now we’re building more. One journal at a time. One community at a time.