Amanda Doulos is a digital editor for Love What Matters based in New York City. She will graduate from Binghamton University with a Bachelor of English Literature and Spanish in Spring 2023. She loves staying involved as vice president of the mock trial team and secretary of Spanish Honor Society. In her free time, she loves reading, traveling, and spending time with friends.
“‘Initially I found a babysitter for you, but I realized you needed stability, so I brought you home – and filed for adoption,’ he said. He was my first love, my first teacher, my first protector. He encouraged me to believe in myself.”
“A close friend asked, ‘Can you be a bridesmaid at my wedding?’ I realized I couldn’t do it with my usual head coverings. The whole time at the wig shop, I cried. With each one I tried on, I felt like I was giving up, forced to resign, like I was surrendering to a new life with no hope.”
“I received a text, ‘Just wanted to say I LOVE YOU!!! And I’m SO incredibly proud of you and who you are.’ She came home when I fulfilled my promise to accomplish my dreams.”
“I imagined Cinderella trading out her glass slippers for a glass arm. What a sight she would have been at the ball, turning something that others saw as a negative feature into a beautiful work of art.”
“When they brought him to me for the first time, I looked at him and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ I felt like I could finally breathe again, like my life was complete and my heart was whole. I look at him every single day in awe.”
“After a few months my periods stopped completely, I gained 30 pounds, and was constantly bloated. If you don’t make time to take care of your health, you will be forced to take time off for your illness.”
“Everything was going great until 7th grade in 2014.”
“Life completely flip-flopped on me. I was so depressed and mad at my body, I began to self-harm out of frustration. It took me a while to see value in myself again.”
“I wanted some me time. Scratch that, I NEEDED some me time. Still, I couldn’t turn him away. You see, this lockdown and remote learning isn’t boding well with him. He needed to know I was there, needed to know he could count on me.”
“I was 12 when my mom died. My youngest sibling was a baby, just learning how to walk. It was Easter and she was taken by a brain aneurysm. Gone. At 35. No explanation. I successfully blocked it out of my mind for 20+ years. Attempting to protect my heart. It worked…until it didn’t.”
