About Me — Sasha Moods
Life is best lived through a mind state of love. Throughout my stories, one thread remains true — love motivates everything I am and everything I do.
I was born at the end of a long road trip.
My mother, (38) from rural Texas, USA, was moving herself, her giant pregnant belly, her new foreign husband (58), and her four disgruntled teenagers to settle down in a complicated part of an unusual town in the PNW in 1982.
Reader of Medium
It’s possible I’ve been a reader of Medium since its inception, a paid member on and off over the paywall years, but only ever as a reader, not realizing I could contribute as a writer.
Writer for Medium
I write with a pen name. It’s a you’d-do-it-too-if-it-happened-to-you kinda thing and let’s just leave it at that. I love being Sasha. She lets me tell my truth — and there’s so much to tell! So I think you’ll understand and I think you’ll love her too.
I obsessively write and have been doing so informally (and academically) for as long as I can remember, but this is my first time (as an adult) sharing my life stories with others in any capacity further than a short-run newsletter and some social media chat.
Discovering Medium as a writer right now has significant meaning.
I thought Medium was a news source with some cool personal stories and advice columns. When I learned Medium takes wandering writers, I prepared to share a few creative nonfiction stories. When I learned that Medium is more like a social media platform for writers with works spanning a wide variety of topics and no hate and a news source with some cool personal stories and advice columns, I felt like I found a home for my wayward digital soul.
I joined Medium Sep. 23'. I’ve laughed my way to soreness, cried my way to dehydration, found stories I related with or which expanded my understanding, found inspiration to write like wildfire, followed writers I’m inspired by— and even made a friend! Maybe more? What I’m saying is, I hope we’ll be friends too.
My Personality Type:
- According to the Meyers Briggs (MBTI), I’m an INFJ-A.
- According to the Enneagram, I’m equal parts Achiever, Challenger, and Peacemaker.
- According to Gallup’s VIA Character Strengths Assessment, out of 100 character strengths, my number 1 is “Capacity to Love and Be Loved.”
- According to astrology, I’m a sun-Pisces, moon-Sagittarius, and rising-Scorpio.
- According to the 5 Love Languages, I need Physical Touch, Quality Time, Words-of-Affirmation, Acts-of-Service, and Gifts — in that order.
- According to the DSM-5, I suffer from complex-PTSD, which results in a myriad of outward behaviors and conditions, but perhaps painfully great stories to our benefit, here at Medium.
Topics I Write About:
Nonfiction: Reflections, relationships, observations, insights, making mistakes, finding solutions, sex, caregiving/planning for children, caregiving/planning for elderly and dying parents, medical conditions, firsts, crime, humor, multiculturalism, startup, futurism, so many pets, socioeconomics, houselessness, addiction, religion, spirituality, friendship, gardening, sustainability, citizenship, neighbors, design, organization, policies, 90s culture, blunts, raves, trees, sociology, psychology, marriage, heartbreak, neurodivergence, bigotry, atrocities, abuse, antidotes, music, water, volunteering, art, food, love, and poop — ya know, the yoozh.
Status of My Writing Now:
I always wrote nonfiction, until last summer. (I broke my hand and couldn’t use it at all from February — June 2023— a chilling story for another day, probably a ten-years-away-or-more story for another day.)
The house was quiet. It was late. Everyone was asleep. I was horny. But, not regular horny. Different horny. Weird horny. My fingers pulled their way to the keyboard to tell a fiction story. My first!
It was hawt. Like… wowzah-watch-yo-self-at-work hot. And funny? I laughed a lot while writing it. In the morning, I showed it to a friend and they loved it. So I showed it to my oldest daughter and she loved it. But, it was just a silly, short story.
I floated for some time because what a sensation! Stories are like food, water, air. We don’t exist without them. My world rained stories in story-did-you-get-your-story-yet-today-story-land because my mother clung to stories like believers cling to deities. I think it was her vice, an escape from the vast Texas desert of not-enough-stories and a habit of which she never let go.
I pondered. And I pondered. I wandered and pondered. And then one day,— BOOOOM — a story worth telling hit me.
Within six days, I had written the first three chapters of what will be fifty-two chapters, probably around 780,000 words eventually.
My mother was an English teacher. Specifically, she taught English as a Second Language. She also ignored her children in favor of reading stories, except for when she read stories to her children. Don’t get me wrong, she was a good mom in many important ways. She modeled strong morals, kindness, and generosity. She taught us principled manners and always kept us fed in an immaculate home (see story image of art I made titled “Elephants in the Room”). My life was rich with culture.
I find her to be fascinating and though she wasn’t the most… credibly attentive to us as children, she is a quintessentially perfect yet quirky Grandma and a great friend to my adult self. Mothers. Such a touchy topic!
She says, “We’re all just stories.” I find it comforting.
My mother liked to give birth and let live, “Watch the small humans make their way through the unpredictable world!” A collection of toddling stories figuring out how to run.
So me and stories go way back.
I sent the chapters to the woman I know who has read more chapters than anyone else I know — and I know a lot of well-read people. She told me I had better not stop writing this story. She needed to hear the conclusion.
About my story she said she felt like someone had taken her out of her body and placed her into her younger self and she was having tea with a girlfriend while her friend regaled her with a fantastic adventure. I still tear up a little when I think about how she felt reading it — young again — while everyone around her is in their natural process of diminishing.
The next three chapters poured out easily between work, school, mothering, and homemaking through the holidays — and with only a few misspellings here and there! Like barren instead of baron, I’m fortunate to have a proofreader who loves me (and stories) so much.
A handful of reader-reader friends salivated for the release of each chapter too, so I know it isn’t just biased mom talk. It is currently six chapters of 40k adventuresome, extremely well-researched words.
Obviously I need to hurry up and write it, my mom needs the conclusion, and reading it keeps her from diminishing.
I broke my hand in a traumatizing event and grieved the inability to keep writing the story. My hand is healed, mostly. Surely a platform of writers has tips on what to do when there’s a setback during a major writing project? Responses appreciated!
Status of Me Right Now:
I’m one of those people who is always going through something.
When someone asks me how I’m doing, I simply say, “Oh ya know, yin and yang.” Because my life is always a mix of wildly wonderful and achingly awful with weeks so frequently unpredictably adventurous, it plays like an episodic drama series. I like the way yin and yang encapsulate my existence of entertaining resilience.
I smile and say, “If we’re all just stories, at least mine is interesting.”
It feels as though I’ve been welcomed into your home and you’ve generously offered me your attention. Thank you for hosting! I hope you like music because I brought you a 30-minute Spotify playlist —
🎁 Rap, Soul, R&B — no misogyny & mostly underground. I hope you enjoy!
With love from your new friendly Medium writer,
~ Sasha Moods 😇💋
P.S. About Me Stories
Quy Ma made a convincing case for writing and pinning an About Me on one’s Medium profile. Quy Ma created the About Me Stories to allow writers to give their readers context to their writing. Writers have reported their About Me sections as being their most-visited story! So, if you’re a writer, write yours! (Here is the link to submit.) Thank you, Quy Ma — what a generous activity you perform!
