A living study in learning, love, and the human condition—an exploration of what remains when survival is no longer the goal. A space where truth replaces performance, reflection becomes freedom, and healing begins when we stop pretending we’re fine. Reflections from the unmasked mind, still learning what it means to live, to love, and to be human.

"My brain is a conglomeration of aggressive versatility." -Mary Maclane

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” -Walt Whitman

"I don't have to tell you that the world is a complicated place, full of both beauty and horror. You know this as well as I do." -Maggie Smith

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” -Carl Jung

"Now this looks like a job for me, so, everybody just follow me, cause we need a little controversy, cause it feels so empty without me." -Eminem

"I'm like a head trip to listen to, cause I'm only givin you things you joke about with your friends inside your livin' room, the only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all, and I don't gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all." -Eminem

Choosing Truth: My Story & The Purpose

Short Stories

Essays

Journal: Unmasked Reflections

Podcast: Let's Talk—Unmasked!

Where Learning Begins

Where Learning Expands

There's No Way Around It

Works Of Others

Yvonne Rodriguez, M.Ed.

(Photo credit: AJ)

Choosing Truth: My Story & The Purpose

When I first began building this site, I thought about doing it under a pseudonym—to protect myself. Like many who work within mainstream systems, I’ve felt the quiet fear of speaking up: the fear of being fired, labeled difficult, or punished for telling the truth or being myself. In a world where compliance is rewarded and questioning is discouraged, I’ve watched how silence becomes survival.

But when I asked myself why I was creating this space, the answer was clear. I’m here to speak up—for myself, for the children, and for those who can’t or don’t yet feel safe to. I can’t see something incorrect or inappropriate and say nothing. I can’t watch harm become normalized and call it “the way things are.”

I grew up in East L.A., in a family where survival often replaced warmth. My childhood taught me resilience, curiosity, and hard work—but not in the ways children should have to learn them. My home lacked warmth, humor, gentleness, and emotional safety. There was love, but it felt conditional—something earned through performance and perfection rather than received freely. Those early experiences shaped the lens through which I now view learning, behavior, and humanity itself.

My Master’s in Education didn’t just deepen my understanding of teaching—it helped me understand myself: my learning style, my strengths and blind spots, and the biases and beliefs I unknowingly carried. It also opened doors to the study of neurodiversity, a topic that reshaped how I see both children and adults. Beyond academia, I credit much of my emotional and intellectual growth to the person I spent 13 years with. Through his unique, radiant beauty, I learned to see beauty inside the horror of life. He introduced me to philosophy, poetry, and literature. He taught me the power of reflection and showed me it was possible to be authentic and genuine—to live without the masks and performance I was raised to rely on. He’s the one who gave me a love for learning, who led me toward discovering myself—he saw me long before I ever knew how to see myself.

This site is an extension of that lifelong learning—a space to reflect, to question, and to grow. It’s where I explore the complexities of the human experience: loss, love, education, trauma, identity, and everything in between. My goal isn’t to teach, but to share honestly, to connect authentically, and to create space for others who feel unseen or unheard.

So, I’ve made the choice—boldly or maybe foolishly—to put myself fully out there. I’ve faced retaliation before for raising concerns about students’ rights and unsafe practices, but I will not stay quiet for a paycheck. This space exists to tell the truth, to reflect, to question, and to not only imagine something better but to work towards that better.

Because when “inappropriate” becomes acceptable, silence becomes complicity. And I refuse to be complicit.

There is freedom in learning to listen to your truths—and in living them out with integrity, even when others may not understand. Freedom isn’t defiance; it’s alignment. It’s the quiet act of choosing what’s right, not what’s easy, and of continuing to live honestly, respectfully, and fully, despite fear, expectation, or doubt.

"My Portrayal in its analysis and egotism and bitterness will surely be of interest to some. Whether to that one alone who may understand it; or to some who have themselves been left alone; or to those three whom I, on three dreary days, asked for bread and who gave me a stone...it may be all of these...But none of them, nor any one can know the feeling made of relief and pain and despair that come over me at the thought of sending all this to the wise wide world. It is bits of my wooden heart broken off and given away...strings of amber beads taken from out of my mind's red leather purse. It is my little old life-tragedy." —Mary Maclane