This year-long hunker-down reset my rhythms to a slower, less eventful pace. The pandemic gave me an excuse to do what I would rather do anyway. I am loath to give up sleeping until I feel ready to get out of bed. I don’t want to go back to traffic jams and parking tickets or obligatory events. Though I suppose that’s not entirely new. I am happy in sweatpants. I don’t miss zippers. Or shoes. […]
What do a Pentecostal minister, a hobbling chicken, and a German immigrant have in common? Me! The minister was my maternal grandfather, the chicken was a family pet, and Mr. Wagner was my flute teacher. Another shared aspect was their ability to sometimes completely baffle me […]
Books have been some of the best friends I’ve ever had. They’ve kept me company when I was lonely, taken me on great adventures, helped me explore other cultures and worlds, and given me deep insight into myself and the Universe. But one of the most precious gifts I have received through reading books is healing – spiritual and emotional healing.
A meme started going around this year that hit close to home. It goes like this: “Men will literally ___ instead of going to therapy.” There are many of them, and a lot are hilarious. They poke fun at deserving men (“Men will literally run for president instead of going to therapy,” “Men will literally invent Facebook instead of going to therapy”) and the toxic behaviors of literary characters (“Men will literally hide a portrait of themselves that ages while their physical form stays young and beautiful instead of going to therapy”).
I feel I haven’t even made it to adulthood, let alone nearing menopause. My outer woman struggles to have a purpose, but inside I have never felt more capable. I’m panicked. I feel trapped in my body.
Like any young teenager, I was passionate about the things I loved and the things I hated. What I loved were my pets, which came in all varieties (dogs, cats, ducks, guinea pigs, birds), my funny storybooks that featured dorky kids like me (too tall, clumsy, self-conscious), and my writing, especially the comical stories I composed with my best friend Izzi (which we crammed full of wordplay) […]
I have never felt like I belonged to a group of people. As a kid, I spent half my time with the white kids and the other half with the Asian kids. And through it all, I never felt like I truly fit. […]
What I came to see was that all my prayers are answered. Every time. I don’t always hear it, and I’m not always willing to do what I feel directed to, but that Love is always present…
Last week I was scrolling through Instagram and saw an image of a boxy apartment building on the corner of Greenwich and Laguna in San Francisco describing it as having a “pop-up book feel” and I felt instantly drawn to it. It led me to the account Hood Century – a page devoted to images of mid-century design from the “hood” in cities all over America.
What I experience goes beyond merely seeking excellence and having high standards. I compare myself to others and become easily discouraged when I can’t match their success. Individual events and conversations haunt me for days, and I ruminate on what was said, playing out alternate scenarios until I’m so upset my heart races and my cheeks flush…I am a perfectionist.
Two blue lines. “Are you sure?” I asked my husband, Tom. One line on the white, plastic stick looked kind of faded. I peed on another stick. Same result: Two blue lines, this time, more defined.[…]
When I have children, I don’t want to let them down. I also don’t want to let myself down. I’ve got a lot of career goals and life ambitions, outside of having kids. Life is a constant game of juggling, but will I manage to keep all of the balls in the air without dropping one? Can I manage to be an attentive, loving parent as well as a dedicated writer and journalist?
As someone with decades of professional divorce-related experience, a child of a “broken home,” and a thrice divorced person myself, I have come to some conclusions about divorce. Mainly this: Divorce is good.
I’m sitting in a stiff blue chair, reclined as if I should be relaxing. I’m scrolling through my phone to pass the time. There’s a TV in here, playing daytime television I didn’t consent to watch. Everything around me is metal.[…]
My mom gave me my first record player when I was in college. I had been eyeing it for some time: a gray and navy Crosley suitcase player, one of the many that became popular at Urban Outfitters at the beginning of the new vinyl boom. I lived at home, commuting to the university I attended in Fort Worth, and I mainly listened to music through my iPod and headphones or in my car. I had never heard music on a record player, so I had no way of knowing if it sounded better, despite what vinyl purists might say.
I hadn’t made it far when I heard a train-sized roar coming from the ocean behind me. I hung from my arms and glanced over my shoulder. A wave hit me, and I slammed into the rock and cut my chest on the mussels. I recovered, but the next hump of water was so tall, it would strike above my head. I had to jump.
Do you remember when I called you late one night? I needed someone to confide in and you offered to listen. A scary event had happened to me a few days prior. I was having a hard time processing it because I couldn’t believe something like this actually happened to me.
I admit I’m a worrywart. That’s what my mom always said, “We’re a family of worrywarts.” In reality, we’re a family riddled with anxiety of varying degrees, from mild uneasiness to extreme panic attacks.
When I was a little girl, I climbed into my mother’s bed in the early mornings and snuggled up against her back. I remember feeling such a desperate love for her and also how that love was tinged with fear and sadness, as if she were somehow an evanescent, non-renewable resource.
I could feel the rubbery, nimble necks of the dead pheasants underneath my fingertips as I carried them to the sink to be plucked and gutted. My grip on their bodies was loose, making it easy to drop them quickly. I wanted to drop them, but I resisted.
In my first year of teaching, an entire family came to meet me at our school’s first parent night: mother, father, daughter, and son. They were strikingly tall, both mom and dad my height, and the daughter swiftly approaching. The Samsons (names changed) dressed as if they might be headed to church, or coming from […]
Many years ago, when cops rarely arrested teenagers for trespassing in vacant buildings, I went ghost hunting with my forever friends, Marney and Janine. Our target was a building in an abandoned arsenal not far out of town. It was a moonless, windy night, perfect for a bit of misbehavior and mischief.
The government is researching what your fave ‘spiritual guru’ on instagram has been trying to sell you? And the CIA studied this in the eighties?!
A few years ago, I worked with a girl who said she ate ramen noodles in college so she didn’t have to ask her parents for money. “I struggled too,” she said, and I wanted to scream at her because what she failed to realize was that her parents had money to lend her.
I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. Not from a macabre fascination, but more because we’ve been confronted with it on a daily basis thanks to the COVID pandemic.
Thanks for posting me. At least you know someone (probably) read the headline. Maybe they even read the first few lines of text that appear beneath the thumbnail image, or the pull quotes. […]
Perhaps nothing provides as much fulfillment in life as finding and sustaining a successful love relationship and pursuing what you believe you were meant to do. For me this happened simultaneously; it all began with re-finding myself, or what I call becoming real.
My husband called my name. He usually calls me “Honey” or “Baby” or “Hey, You,” but this time, he used my given name. I felt an unexpected wave of anger wash over me, and I stomped into the living room to confront him. “Don’t call me Karen!”
Maybe, it’s human instinct to look for someone or something to blame instead of accepting sometimes bad things just happen. It’s not easy to just accept that sometimes things just happen; humans almost always have a reason behind their actions, why not the world. Even if we are creatures of science now we can only find where the virus came from but not the cause but religion and superstitions can.
Dear White Moderate, I grew up well below the poverty line; I was homeless, for a time, in high school; I’m not a Christian; I’m pansexual; I’m a woman; I’m a feminist. These parts of my identity mean that my rights in the U.S. are theoretically in danger. However, I didn’t vote in the 2016 […]
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