From someone who’s learned to live with it. — I haven’t published anything in a while. In part, that’s because I’ve started a new job and have had a lot of complicated things going on in my life, as any thirty-something does. But also, the grieving process, like anything else, waxes and wanes. While in 2019 I had a…

And there are pieces of me lost in all of its streets. — I’m driving through the quiet streets of my small hometown, listening to a horror fiction podcast through my car stereo. There are thick clouds blanketing the sky like a fog, and though it’s not supposed to rain, I wonder if a storm might settle in during the evening hours. As…

And how we can learn to better embrace ambiguity. — At its essence, the fear of uncertainty is feeling uncomfortable with the unknown. And yet, anyone with any life experience knows that uncertainty is part of the package. …

The Art of Self-Righteous Anger — Last year around this time, I was ready to rip the paint off my walls. Which walls? All of them. Why paint? Because wallpaper was (and still is, at least as far as I’m aware) out of style. In any case, I was furious. If you’re familiar with the Fantastic…

As they say — you first have to kiss a few frogs. — If you’re anything like me, you didn’t marry your high school sweetheart. You dated around and tried on different types of people until you found someone to settle down with. …

All the things I’d tell him if he were still here. — Dad, I wish I could get the last image of you out of my head. It was a sacred and devastating thing, to see you right after you’d died. But it was almost as heartbreaking as watching you for weeks in a coma, fighting to stay alive. I walked into…

Reasons why we settle when we should just move on. — First, I’ll admit I was the queen of finding men that weren’t right for me, and subsequently honing in on the few tiny reasons that justified sticking around. …

And how we often confuse this with love. — My high school boyfriend was… complicated. I was fifteen, quiet, and studious; he was seventeen, popular, and barely passing his classes. I was smitten from the moment I met him, but he barely noticed me. I spent half a year trying to get him to come around, which at that…

Sometimes you’re drowning, other times you’re swept away. — The first time I experienced gut-wrenching grief was after suddenly losing my dad in 2018. His death was much worse than I ever could’ve imagined. It hollowed me out. Somehow I survived it — which is the one thing I never thought I’d be able to do. …