Articles...

…when you’re trying to figure life out.

Everyone has a different modern struggle, and our content is here to relate to, give advice, and show that you aren’t alone in trying to navigate the difficulties of modern life.

Find our latest articles here, covering everything from lifestyle, wellbeing, relationship, and world struggles. 

Love and Sex Ally McLaren Love and Sex Ally McLaren

Y or N?

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.  I have lived my life,

    And so have you.

But I need,

       Something more.  (I need)

Something to love

       —With all of my heart.

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Love and Sex Ally McLaren Love and Sex Ally McLaren

Her

All these lines.

All these words.

All these thoughts, scribbled across paper for a girl I do not see.

(Not know.)

Scribbled in ink, staining the paper.

                                    Staining my soul.

                                    …But she is—

                                    …she is beautiful…

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Love and Sex Ally McLaren Love and Sex Ally McLaren

Boyfriend

The word feels strange on my tongue. Like I might just taste it and spit it out because it tasted wrong.

I might as well bite my tongue and taste blood than say that word out loud, because the word girlfriend has never been reserved for someone like me.

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Letters and Lily's

You turned 5, and I have still partially forgotten the moment you came into the world. 5 years too late to meet the precious woman you were named after. You see, you were given your time to greet the world on the same day that we lost her. Your great grandmother. I can only think she was watching over us that day.

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Lara & Me – An Insight Into Modern Abuse

It often needs a trigger warning, yet it happens every day. Often in homes, behind closed doors, sibling to sibling is the most common method - as heart breaking as that is to hear, it’s completely true. I suffered more than once with being victimised. But not at home, at school. A close school friend of mine, let’s call her Lara - for data protection reasons, abused me.

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Love and Sex, Lifestyle and Personal Ally McLaren Love and Sex, Lifestyle and Personal Ally McLaren

A Month’s Time

Do you know what it was/is to be in love? It was that spot in the woods by the park that is always filled with sunlight. The spot with the fairy garden that I took them to before they asked me to date them, like really date them. It was warmth and soup broth, it was a bath in some ways but not others. It is straining my eyes because I’m trying to peer into a wolf’s den or peering out of a cave and not straining my eyes because it’s night already. It is feeling like I was slapped in the face, and then wishing I had actually been slapped in the face because physical wounds are tangible. It is sobbing so hard I shake in my parked car the day after, before work, alone.

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Artist Aleena Sharif on the power of painting nudes

This Modern Struggle Magazine had the absolute privilege of speaking with artist Aleena Sharif and sharing her inspirational artwork.

She shares her artistic journey, her creative process, and how the power of painting the nude female form helps to promote body confidence and self-love for herself and other women.

Thank you so much to Aleena for creating representative pieces and a safe space to share nude paintings.

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Lifestyle and Personal Ally McLaren Lifestyle and Personal Ally McLaren

5 Things I Learned After Turning 30

When I was in my 20s, I used to dislike the idea of reaching 30. I always associated being 30 with being old (I am sorry to anyone I have hurt by saying this!)

However, now that I am in my 30s, as much as I wish I were in my 20s, I do think there is a lot of power in this new decade of my life. When I was 28-29 years old, I used to have conversations with people who were already in their 30s about how I should approach this new phase of my life.

A few things I was told are that the 30s are the most beautiful years of a woman’s life: she is confident, unapologetic, and daring.

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Holidays on the Spectrum

Holidays, for me, consist of finding excuses.

An example of this is at a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, when I inevitably get restless from sitting at the table with my family, and start offering to take people’s dirty dishes to the kitchen for a reason to move around. This is met with a yes or a no and usually a genuine ‘thank you’, my real motive concealed under the guise of being considerate. A less polite excuse I utilize is going to the bathroom for ten minutes so I have a break from socializing and conversation. While it is tedious to be constantly looking for these ‘outs’, I find that they are the only way to preserve my sanity.

Holidays are, in short, a lot.

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Lifestyle and Personal, Love and Sex Ally McLaren Lifestyle and Personal, Love and Sex Ally McLaren

The struggle is real when you’re learning to co-parent

Never in a million years did I think I would be a single dad.

As my first Christmas co-parenting approaches, I can’t help thinking that this isn’t how I imagined my life to be, how things don’t always turn out the way you expect when you start a family.

We are brought up with the notion that it’s always better for children to be part of the traditional family with both parents than each alone. Because it was imprinted into me that coming from a broken home was so difficult for children growing up, I have personally really struggled with the feeling that I have failed my daughter because her mom and I are no longer together.

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The Tangled Thread of Grief

Sometimes I think of grief like an old woollen jumper. It’s the knitwear you fold at the bottom of your drawer, only getting it out on the coldest of days or in the very midst of winter.  

Sometimes you only wear it on Christmas day, or on a special date that no one else celebrates.

Once it’s enveloped you, you fold it away again, smoothing down the fabric with your fingers in a private ritual, like the most sacred of things. 

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An Interview with Poet Emma-Jane Barlow

Following the successful launch of her third published poetry book, Sins & Sunflowers: Second Edition, we were thrilled to speak with poet and author Emma-Jane Barlow about her poetry inspiration, writing process, advice for up-and-coming poets, and how poetry has helped her express her emotions and speak up to help others with autism.

Exposing her vulnerability as she pens the tempestuous journey of loss and love, Emma-Jane explores the vicissitude of overcoming her first heartbreak, dating, and falling in love with someone new. Through the symbolism of a sunflower with canary wings, she writes about learning to love herself as she navigates new beginnings and finds her voice again. In this second and more visceral edition of Sins & Sunflowers, she digs even deeper into the trauma and tribulations of the healing journey and how believing in your own light can truly set a spirit free.

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Wallflower

“And you’re listening to that song, and that drive with the people who you love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.”

- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I have always loved that one scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. You know, the one with the back of the car, Sam and “Heroes” by David Bowie. Or, if you remember, the one with the back of the car, Charlie and “Heroes” by David Bowie. Actually, I like the second one better, because you know at this point in the movie how much the character has gone through. You know how much he has grown, and that the freedom he feels is hard fought. It’s that one that makes me cry, that gives me hope, that makes me a little sad.

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