Mass Murder in Texas: Can You Guess Why National Media Have Ignored This?

Posted on | August 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Mass Murder in Texas: Can You Guess Why National Media Have Ignored This?

Jeffrey Jack “Jeff” Gerla was a 47-year-old psychologist who had taught at Kilgore College and more recently worked as a mental health specialist at Rusk State Hospital, which is about 15 miles from where Jeff lived in a trailer behind his mother’s house in New Summerfield:

He was highly creative in everything he did. He loved making Aquariums and getting freshwater fish, he was a devout Christian who cherished his job, and he loved his dogs and horses. Jeff never met a stranger. He was a people person. He was always helping others and everyone that knew him loved him.

Have you noticed the use of past-tense verbs? Because whatever Jeff Gerda was — and I think “devout Christian” may be a bit of stretch — he is no more. Gerla went to his final reward last month, along with three other people. The other victims in this July 20 mass murder were Gerla’s 18-year-old boyfriend, John Clinton, Clinton’s mother Ami Hickey, 39, and Hickey’s lesbian partner, Amanda Bain, 38. And while you puzzle over that, can you imagine the national media headlines?

FBI INVESTIGATES TEXAS HATE CRIME
AFTER FOUR GAY PEOPLE SLAIN

How could the media resist such a story? But the details of the case aren’t conducive to a media crusade against homophobia. To begin with — a 47-year-old man with a teenage boyfriend? Not necessarily ideal from the perspective of public relations for the LGBTQ community, which is always foremost in the minds of journalists reporting on such stories. This has been my main beef on this issue for decades, going back at least as far as the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard, who was portrayed as a saintly martyred victim of homophobia, for which the “Religious Right” was scapegoated, as if his killers were Republicans who had just attended a Pat Robertson rally. In fact, they were a couple of dopehead punks who had hung out with Shepard in a local pub and lured him to his death with promises of supplying him with meth. All that got buried in the posthumous celebration of Saint Matthew, who became the gay-rights poster boy, even though nothing about his life or death could be construed as relevant to such issues. Hanging around dopeheads is dangerous — that was the most obvious lesson of what happened to Matthew Shepard, but the media didn’t want to talk about that.

We can’t expect CNN or the other national news operations to notice this mass murder of four homosexuals in Texas, because not even the most mendacious media liars can ignore the sordid facts. You see, while Jeff Gerla — “a devout Christian,” according to his obituary — was “in a relationship” with 18-year-old John Clinton, it was not an exclusive relationship. Gerla’s teenage boyfriend had matched on the gay dating app Grindr with 20-year-old Jesse Pawlowski, who then joined Clinton and Gerla in a “polyamorous relationship”:

In an interview with detectives, Pawlowski said he met Clinton and Gerla, who police confirmed were in a dating relationship, on a dating app and entered a sexual relationship with them.
During this relationship, Pawlowski visited Gerla’s residence multiple times and noticed several firearms, including a handgun that Clinton wanted to sell for $500, according to the affidavit.
Pawlowski told investigators he introduced [Billy] Phillips to Clinton, and an agreement was made for Phillips to facilitate the purchase of Clinton’s handgun. However, Pawlowski said he never intended to buy the gun. Pawlowski, Phillips and [Dylan] Welch made a plan to steal the gun from Clinton, the affidavit stated.

Two of these characters had criminal records:

In a records request to DPS and TDCJ, KLTV has learned Billy Dean Phillips, 37, was released from state prison in December 2020. He had just served a 15-year sentence for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. The conviction centered around a case involving a female under the age of 13 in Dallas County. Prior to that prison term, TDCJ records show Phillips served a separate 2-year prison sentence in September 2002 on a Controlled Substance charge (cocaine) also out of Dallas County. . . .
Both DPS and Cherokee County court records show in 2019 Pawlowski accepted a plea deal offered by the prosecutor in a case involving two counts of burglary of a habitation. The terms of the plea bargain required Pawlowski to serve 10 years of probation and pay court costs. He was also ordered not to own or possess a firearm as part of the agreement. The Cherokee County District Court confirms Pawlowski was on probation at the time of the killings.

In yesterday’s “Violence Against Women Update” we discussed what can happen when people get involved with convicted felons. But when you’re a 47-year-old man with an 18-year-old boyfriend, and your boyfriend offers to add a 20-year-old to your “relationship,” probably you wouldn’t bother to do a criminal background check on your new partner.

Does anyone else see how this relates to the media’s dishonest role in acting as publicity agents for the LGBTQ community? See, if you actually know gay people — and I majored in drama in college, OK? — the distance between reality and media-generated image is remarkable. We are expected to believe that gay people are all suffering from bigotry and discrimination. The media thus avoids reporting anything that might reflect negatively on the LGBTQ community, in the belief that such information would incite homophobia. However, media bias in favor of a particular group results in coverage that is neither fair nor accurate.

We may suppose that it never occurred to Jeff Gerla that his teenage boyfriend’s trolling on Grindr represented a deadly risk. Why would anyone suspect that gay men might be capable of violent crime? The news media go out of their way to pretend this is impossible, that membership in the LGBTQ community is synonymous with secular sainthood. So the fact that Jesse Pawlowski was on probation for burglary — and that this might be indicative of a general criminal tendency — was never even a blip on Gerla’s radar. Everybody on Grindr is awesome! Everything is always sunshine and happiness beneath the rainbow flag!

Jeff Gerla “was a people person . . . always helping others and everyone that knew him loved him,” except maybe the dude who murdered him:

Pawlowski said he went to Gerla’s home late Monday when Gerla, Clinton, Bain and Hickey were present. He texted Phillips to come to the residence to pick him up so they could steal the handgun.
Phillips and Welch arrived at the home, and Pawlowski and Clinton walked to the end of the driveway to meet Phillips and Welch. Phillips took the gun from Clinton and then shot Clinton “in the back of the head,” Pawlowski told police, according to the affidavit.
Pawlowski said he, Phillips and Welch then entered the residence. Phillips then shot Gerla, Bain and Hickey. The three men stole two shotguns from the residence, and Pawlowski said he removed the key fob for Gerla’s car from Clinton’s pocket, the affidavit stated.
Pawlowski said he drove the car from the residence and left it near a metal building in Jacksonville to try to sell it later.

No, the national media won’t report this. Wouldn’t be good for the LGBTQ community image. Too much of an “East Texas white trash” vibe, what with the teenage boyfriend, living in a trailer in mom’s backyard, the “polyamorous relationship” with a convicted burglar, and all that.

Four gay people killed in a Texas mass murder, but you won’t see this story on CNN or MSNBC, because “equality” or something.

Category: Crime, Gays, Media Bias, Texas

FMJRA 2.0: Will You Stay Down On Your Knees?

Posted on | August 8, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Will You Stay Down On Your Knees?

— compiled by Wombat-socho

SOTD
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Oh, you meant the other bikini picture? Oops.

Rule 5 Sunday: Jodie Comer
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

PUT CRIMINALS IN PRISON!
Bacon Time
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

The Big Yellow Button Returns
Dark Brightness
A View From The Beach
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: I’d Rather Die Than Give You Control
A View From The Beach
EBL

Sopranos Kill Count
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 08.02.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

CUOMO: GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!
Gregor Mendel Blog
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 08.03.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous
First Street Journal
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 08.04.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 08.05.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

The Dangerous Clichés of ‘Empowerment’
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL
357 Magnum

Execution-Style Murder in Brooklyn
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 08.06.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending August 6:

EBL (14)
357 Magnum (11)
A View From The Beach (10)
Proof Positive (7)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: FMJRA Award

Violence Against Women Update

Posted on | August 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Violence Against Women Update

In the comments on Friday morning’s post (“The Dangerous Clichés of ‘Empowerment’”), someone mentioned the phrase “rationalization hamster” as a description of the way women justify bad decisions such as getting a tattoo on your cleavage or dating a convicted felon.

These two examples of bad decisions are not chosen entirely at random, but we’ll get to that part in a few minutes. First, I want to digress to explain my habitual tendency to follow research down weird paths, bringing me to surprising destinations. When I started Googling the phrase “rationalization hamster,” one of the links was to male feminist David Futrelle’s site. So I then spent some time Googling about Futrelle, who once up a time was actually a journalist, a staff writer for Money magazine, but then became obsessed with the “manosphere” and now spends all his time writing about anonymous incels on Reddit. This in turn led me to Futrelle’s review of a book by Laura Bates called The Men Who Hate Women. So then I found an interview with Laura Bates, in which she was asked, “Why as an issue is misogynistic extremism still not being taken seriously?”

I think that there’s a number of reasons. The first is that it’s a relatively emerging threat in terms of mass killings, so people are failing to join the dots and make the connections between them. But I think a big part of it is that misogyny is so normalised in our society that we really struggle to recognise this as something extreme. We are so used to women being murdered by men. One woman is killed on average every three days by a male current or former partner in the UK — that is literally the backdrop to our daily life. So I think we struggle to see these as atrocities and it is a huge blind spot. It’s also because of who often commits these offences — educated white men and so the criminal justice system finds excuses for them. Look at the recent Georgia shooter for example. The police officer giving a press conference explained, ‘He was having a bad day’, after he had massacred eight people including six asian women. The way in which we collectively excuse, condone, normalise and ignore these white men when they commit mass shootings and terror atrocities really hampers us as a society in tackling the problem.

Some of these assertions bothered me. Are we really “so used to women being murdered by men” that we have a “blind spot” toward such crimes? And what about this “every three days” statistic about women in the UK being killed by male partners? The population of the United Kingdom is about 67 million, so if there are about 34 million women in the UK, and if there are about 120 women killed by male partners annually, how many zeroes after the decimal point are needed to express that as a statistical probability of risk? Do the math, see, and you realize that men murdering women isn’t a crime so common as to be “normalized,” rather that such murders are relatively rare. Contrary to Ms. Bates’s claim, we are not “so used to women being murdered by men.” Even in places where murder is astonishingly common (e.g., Chicago), we find that males are disproportionately the victims. Of the 2,660 people shot in Chicago so far this year, 2,158 (81%) were male. Of the 459 who died from gunshot wounds in Chicago, 398 (85%) were male, so that the male-female ratio of victims is nearly 6-to-1. And 83% of the victims were black.

This is another problem with Laura Bates’s claims. Is it really true that these crimes are “often” committed by “educated white men”? I’m pretty sure university graduates aren’t doing most of the drive-by shootings in Chicago, and I don’t believe “educated white men” are disproportionately overrepresented in domestic-violence incidents. Perhaps some sociology student can dig up the actual data on this, but what Laura Bates is doing (and what David Futrelle praises her for doing) is a familiar trick of propaganda: Find a scary-sounding statistic — every three days a woman in the UK is killed by her male partner — and then assert that this represents a social problem (misogyny) which is illustrated by atypical examples, e.g., “incel” Elliot Rodger on a shooting rampage. This tendentious method is then used to argue that we must suppress “hate speech,” because misogyny is causing the mass murder of women.

It should not be necessary to explain why this argument is invalid, but because logic is no longer taught in our schools, I’ll do it anyway. Most obvious is the fact that among the thousands of guys spewing “misogyny” on the Internet — the Reddit creeps with whom David Futrelle is obsessed — certainly more than 90% of them will never commit an act of criminal violence against a woman. Most people who spout offensive nonsense on the Internet are not violent criminals, and the obverse is also true: Most violent criminals don’t spout offensive nonsense on the Internet. That is to say, of the total number of men who commit violence against women in any given year, only the tiniest fraction of a single percentage point of them have ever visited any of the “manosphere” forums that David Futrelle writes about. If you could illustrate this with a Venn diagram, set A representing “Guys Who Hang Out on Manosphere Sites” and set B representing “Men Who Perpetrate Violence Against Women,” the set AB would be so small as to be statistically insignificant.

In a nation of 325 million people, however, statistically rare incidents may happen on a monthly basis. I have previously illustrated this by compiling “The Year in Dog Sex” — at least 11 people were prosecuted for having sex with dogs in 2016. And this explains how easy it is to exaggerate the danger of “incel” murders. No matter how statistically rare these incidents may be, there are certain to be at least a handful of cases that fit within that definition every year, and if these cases get enough publicity from the national media, it can be made to seem as if “incels” represent a dangerous terrorist threat, but the media could do the same thing with bestiality, if it suited their purposes.

So, having made that 1,000-word digression, we now return to the main topic, Joana Peca of St. Petersburg, Florida.

The tattoo on her (remarkably abundant) cleavage could be cited as evidence of Joana Peca’s defective judgment. The “rationalization hamster” must have run itself silly attempting to justify such a choice. And I’m sure that David Futrelle and Laura Bates would accuse me of misogyny merely for calling attention to this, because any criticism of any woman for any reason is always misogyny, according to feminist logic. “Equality” seems to require that women go through life without ever encountering negative feedback, no matter how foolish or harmful their actions may be, so the effect of feminism in public discourse is to make women off-limits to criticism (unless they vote Republican).

The problem with this, you see, is that without feedback — including the kind of feedback that might persuade a woman not to get tattoos on her breasts — all sorts of foolish behavior are likely to proliferate because, without critical feedback, bad judgment tends to become generalized.

Say hello to Benjamin Robert “Bambi” Williams, age 38:

Williams has a Pinellas County arrest record that spans about 20 years. He has been arrested in cases ranging from grand theft auto, possession of drugs with intent to sell, robbery and fleeing police. He was most recently arrested on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm in January 2020. The state attorney’s office did not seek a prosecution.
In 2007, Williams was arrested on charges of principle to attempted murder and strong-arm robbery, but those charges were dismissed, court records show.

Now, if you had a daughter, wouldn’t you advise her to avoid associating with anyone who had such an extensive criminal record? Yes, but then again, if she’s got already tattoos on her cleavage . . .

Detectives have identified Benjamin Robert Williams aka “Bambi” (DOB 12/31/1982) as the suspect in Saturday’s (July 31, 2021) shooting death of Joana Peca.
Williams and Peca were involved in a romantic relationship and had a baby together. Peca was holding the infant when Williams shot her multiple times in the face. Her older child was sitting in the backseat during the shooting.
A warrant has been issued for William’s arrest and SPPD is actively searching for him. Crime Stoppers is offering up to $5000 for information that leads to an arrest.
Benjamin Williams is deemed to be armed and dangerous.
He is linked to several open homicide investigations.

More detail about the death of Joana Peca:

Peca was found dead in the car, and the children did not suffer any physical injuries, which took place just outside Woodlawn Cemetery.
At the time of the shooting, Peca’s [infant] who she shared with Williams was sitting on her lap while her older child, a 4 year old from another relationship, was in the back seat. The woman was shot multiple times in the face before Williams fled the scene police said in a Facebook release.
‘The children were unharmed but terrified at what had just happened,’ said Sandra Bentil, a spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg Police Department, according to WTVT. . . .
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway told ABC Action News that Williams lured Peca to the cemetery.
‘He called her and asked her to meet him at that location cause she was bringing the children to him to see,’ Holloway said. ‘Once they got to that location that’s when he decided to gun her down.’

“Meet me at the cemetery,” says the career criminal, and what kind of fool would accept this invitation? Alas, a dead fool, one whose “rationalization hamster” was running an endless marathon.

The fugitive killer Benjamin Robert “Bambi” Williams wasn’t spewing misogynistic nonsense on the “manosphere” sites that David Futrelle writes about. He wasn’t an “incel” or one of those “educated white males” that Laura Bates warns about. No, he was merely a regular criminal, “linked to several open homicide investigations,” and maybe he should have been locked up in prison a long time ago, but this is just more violence against women feminists won’t notice, for some reason.

Category: Florida, Violence Against Women

In The Mailbox: 08.06.21

Posted on | August 7, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.06.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Real and spectacular.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Jab Judo
357 Magnum: The Gun-Hating Left Will Tell You We Need More Gun Laws
EBL: Blondie – Atomic
Twitchy: “Let’s Talk About The Constitution, B-Cup”
Louder With Crowder: Ron DeSantis Fires Back At Biden’s “Governor Who?” Slam – “What Else Has He Forgotten?”
Vox Popoli: The Great Retreat Begins
According To Hoyt: Unschool Yourself, also, Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off
Gab News: Advertising On Gab – The Answer To AdSense & Google Ads

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Oh Noes, Vaccinate Now Or Risk Death By Delta!
American Conservative: A Note From Hungary – We Are Not A Colony
American Greatness: Over 800 Illegal Minors Stopped At Border In One Day
American Thinker: Putting Communism In The Dock
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Dirty Rotten Bidens Friday
Babalu Blog: Dictatorship Can Only Gather A Handful Of Cubans For Rally Supporting Regime, also, In Havana’s Trillo Park, An Official Act Can’t Compete With A Line To Buy Potatoes
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For August 7
Behind The Black: Having An Off Day, also, The Trials & Tribulations Of Blue Origin’s BE-4 Engine
Cafe Hayek: Quotation Of The Day
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: I Can’t Think Of Something That Put Me In A Better Mood Lately, also, Our Continued Compliance Will Result In Never-Ending Lockdowns & Mandates
Don Surber: DeSantis Takes On Biden, also, I Want Cuomo To Stay
First Street Journal: A Doomsday Corona-Chan Might Be Coming Or Something, also, COVID Today
The Geller Report: 9/11 Families Tell Biden – Don’t Come To Our Memorial Events, also, Lawyer Says Capitol Cop Who Shot Ashli Babbitt Ambushed Her
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Math Is Hard, Logic Is Harder, & Facts Are Stubborn
Hollywood In Toto: Free Guy Does The Impossible, also, Cronenberg’s Dead Zone Stands Tall Next To Misery & The Shining
The Lid: In the Middle Of A Crisis, Biden Wants To Cut Border Security Funding 96%
Legal Insurrection: New Poll Shows LA DA Gascon Underwater In Recall Vote, also, Clark County NV Lowers Grading Standards In The Name Of Equity
Nebraska Energy Observer: Free Speech, Free Soil, Free Men
Outkick: U. Wisconsin Removes “Racist” Rock Over 1925 Newspaper Headline, also, New ESPN Employee RG3 Lists His Virginia House For Almost $3.3 Million
Power Line: Biden Displays His Math Skills, also, From The Saborit File – The Murder Charge
Shark Tank: NRCC Trashes Stephanie Murphy In Campaign Ad
Shot In The Dark: Storytellers, also, Nothing To See Here
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – Is There Any Soviet Justice?
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, NK Defector Called Racist For Calling Police On Blacks That Mugged Her
Transterrestrial Musings: “I Just Screwed The Washington Post”, also, The Newsom Recall
Victory Girls: Suck It Up, Peasants, Rep. Cori Bush Needs A Security Detail
Volokh Conspiracy: Third Amendment Lawyers Association Opposes Eviction Moratorium
Weasel Zippers: Billionaire Google Co-Founder Flees U.S. For NZ, also, YouTube Twitter Promotes Insane “Non-Binary Activist”
The Federalist: Biden’s ATF Nominee Talked Guns On Red Chinese Propaganda Network, Forgot To Tell The Senate, also, America’s Generals Lied, Lost Wars, & Looted The People They Swore To Serve
Mark Steyn: The West Moves East, also, We Have Met The Enemy, Part XV

In case you thought I was joking.
Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Execution-Style Murder in Brooklyn

Posted on | August 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Execution-Style Murder in Brooklyn

The original surveillance video of this incident that was posted online got edited, out of respect for the victim, but I saw it before it was edited and, wow, this was frightening: A 42-year-old woman was talking to friends outside an apartment building in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn when another woman drives up, parks her car, turns on the flashers, gets out of the car, walks up and shoots her in the back of the head, then turns around, gets back in the car and drives away:

Delia Johnson, 42, was chatting with a group of people by a stoop on Franklin Ave. at Prospect Place in Crown Heights at about 9:40 p.m. Wednesday, a few blocks from her home, when her attacker ambushed her.
Family members believe the shooter followed Johnson from a funeral in the neighborhood earlier in the day.
“She was at a funeral earlier in the evening for an old neighborhood friend to pay her respects, and then this happened,” said her brother, Mathis Johnson, 47. “It was horrible. That lady executed my sister.”

Such was the first report, but then an enhanced image from the video was shown to Johnson’s family by the New York Post:

Kin of the Brooklyn woman killed by a female shooter in a brazen caught-on-video crime say the victim was lured to her death with a phone call — and that her murderer was a “family friend” they recognized from the footage.
“She was on the block with us, she got a phone call, and when she got the phone call, she said, ‘I’ll be right back,’ ” longtime pal Shawn Johnson, 43, recalled Friday, referring to victim Delia Johnson, 42.
“Twenty minutes later, somebody called me and told me she got shot,” he said of Delia. “I told him he was lying. I was just standing here with her.”
Police released two zoomed-in photos of the suspected killer Friday — and family members said they recognize her from the snapshot showing the woman’s face.
“I know her!” exclaimed Delia’s mother, Delia Barry. “Oh my God, oh my God, she used to stay with us. She slept in my bed, ate my food.”
One of the victim’s younger sisters, Hadijah Pendley, called the suspect “a family friend who came to our family events, celebrations, holidays — whatever you want to call it, she came.”
Cops declined comment. The motive is still unclear.
Another sister, Khadyah Barry, said, “I know in my heart that somebody called her and knew what it was and set my sister up.
“Nobody can tell me otherwise,” she said.

Revenge of some kind? Whatever it was, the brazen nature of this shooting has captured widespread attention. Like, maybe this whole business about “defunding the police” was a bad idea or something.

Category: Crime, New York

The Dangerous Clichés of ‘Empowerment’

Posted on | August 6, 2021 | Comments Off on The Dangerous Clichés of ‘Empowerment’

One of the problems I encountered when writing about feminism — radical feminism, the real thing — is that so many people have been confused by the use of “feminism” as a marketing slogan and a pop-culture theme that has very little to do with what feminism actually is.

One species of pop-culture feminism is the sort of “empowerment” rhetoric that borrows heavily from self-help psychology, with a bit of watered-down Buddhism and “positive thinking” added into the mix. If you think Norman Vincent Peale was a feminist pioneer, or that a combination of (a) things you’d hear in a rehab center and (b) Hallmark greeting-card platitudes constitute an ideology, then you might be fool enough to believe that this ersatz treacle is actually “feminism.”

However, a lot of women consider anything that helps them cope with their personal problems to be “feminist,” because they’re women, see, and dealing with their problems is empowering, right?

This means that if Hillary Clinton drinks chardonnay to cope with her frustration over losing the 2016 election, chardonnay is feminist. If a guy starts drinking at lunch and keeps going until he’s passed out by sundown, he’s an alcoholic. If Hillary does it, she’s “empowered.”

So, let’s look at a few phrases:

“… what made you who you are today.”
“It was a part of my journey.”
“… internalized trauma …”
“Life is too short to live with regrets.”
“You trusted a woman’s intuition …”
“It helped me get in touch with who I am.”
“… exactly what you needed at that moment.”
“I just needed to focus on me.”
“You can’t live your life for the approval of others.”
“In life there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.”
“I need to trust the process.”