A Road Trip to Love

Dear Arizona Daily Star, My name is Chris Tompkins and I am a teacher in Los Angeles. I was born and raised in Tucson and my mom is a longtime reader of the Star. In addition to being a teacher, I am a writer and an LGBTQ advocate. One of my forms of advocacy is bringing awareness to language and the messages we use that can continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes of the LGBTQ community. My mom just sent me the Feb. 5 article written by Howard Fischer titled, “New school

What is one thing you can forgive yourself or someone for today? A few weeks ago, someone asked me for a few tips I could give them to help heal from within. For some, healing from within means something health-related. For others, it's a matter of the heart. Healing and personal development are the same. Whether we call it healing or working on developing ourselves personally, we’re taking action to improve our lives. The action we take is a practice we commit to over and ov

When we ask someone a question, we don’t typically get a response that can cause us to wonder how we’re living our life. When I asked my friend Ryan, “Why are you going to Thailand?” He responded simply, “to swim in the ocean and play with monkeys.” I felt like I was trying to solve a confusing riddle. I immediately went home and started to think about my life. I started to think about how easy it was for someone to tell me they were traveling across the world without much of