Ronna Russell
Writer. Truth-teller. Feminist.
The Uncomfortable Confessions
of a Preacher’s Kid
The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid is the story of a childhood controlled by the brutal hand of a narcissistic, closeted homosexual. I believed I could leave my upbringing behind and walk away unscathed. I married a closeted homosexual man, in hopes he could keep me safe. As our sex life and bank account dwindled to nothing, fear kept me silent. In the meantime, my father died of AIDS. The pain of his death fractured my biological family, and I clung to my husband and children, creating a cocoon that became a prison. Eventually, I was forced to see my husband’s homosexuality and refusal to work, realizations that brought me to the breaking point. I found the courage to be alone, to take care of my children no matter the cost, and the joy of my own sexual freedom. In the process, I fell in love with my own life.
Latest posts
Blog posts appear in reverse chronologically, so start with
“Loose Demons” to get the whole picture.
Room
I lived with my family in a one hundred-year-old barn of a house. The old place was solid as a rock, made of old-growth fir, double walls in some places, which was lucky because there was no insulation...
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
I had an hour to or so to kill before class. I dawdled over lunch, Tuscan white beans in tomato sauce and tomato, onion, and oregano salad with a short pour of cold white wine. The lingering flavors were mine alone, no one to share them with, no one to share the empty...
Arriving in Florence
Journey to Italy The pandemic is over, so they say. Or so we are all behaving, traveling around the globe naked-faced. Despite getting Covid again two weeks before leaving for Florence. Cramped into a series of airplane seats listening to snippets of conversation that...
About Ronna
I was raised the daughter of a preacher in the cult of the United Pentecostal Church. It was an oppressed and repressed environment that never felt right. The experience shaped my formative years leaving me ill-equipped for life in the real world, but life in the real world happened anyway. Like everyone, I have had some successes and some failures. The stories I share here are my own, for no purpose other than to make sense of it all in the end.