mental-health
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chronicles with cannabis I’ve been doing well lately keeping my distance from nature’s finest plant. I admire it from afar. I still think about lighting up anytime I feel sad, or angry, or confused, or I’m a little tired, or a little bored, or the weather is nice, or the weather is crappy, or I’m…
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Reality has had a rough go recently, hasn’t it? A lot of people are treating reality like it’s up for debate, like they might be able to convince us that there is some other version of reality with their words alone. I think we’ve been over this—reality is more than words. It’s also more than…
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After the Thanksgiving holiday my sister-in-law came by to spend time with her brother and our kids. I asked her what she and her family did to celebrate the day. We chatted for a while and she mentioned she’d noticed that their holiday traditions seemed to change every five to ten years. She was resigned…
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Next week I’ll celebrate my forty-second birthday. I’ve never been much of a birthday person, but this one seems especially mid. It’s not youthful and relevant, or old and wise, it falls into the unexceptional middle. I’ll probably order takeout. I think I feel loneliness more intensely than the other emotions. I can feel much,…
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And I won’t shut up about it Remember when the maze on the back of the cereal box was difficult? I bought my kids a box of Froot Loops, and I ate a few fistfuls the other day when I got the munchies (which happens more often than I care to admit). I spent some…
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Recently, I picked up a copy of Little Altars Everywhere at my local thrift store. I passed it up for a few weeks, but it kept catching my eye. I brought it home to add to my collection, I so love the title. It’s how I kept sight of myself through this crumbling, or how…
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Staying through the raw There is construction directly across the street from the apartment my husband and I share. We’re never in it at the same time. It’s a bizarre way to live with someone. We are separating our lives after 25 years together, and we were in need of a new living situation. I…
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One of my favorite mom duties is making costumes for my kids. When they were younger, I made it a month long event, spreading materials out over every work surface in the house, using any free moment to glue on another plastic leaf. When my oldest was too young to decide on his own costume,…
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The complexity of zoning permits I am not able to trust. I know I am supposed to be careful with my words and never say that I can’t do something I want to do so that the possibility remains open in my mind, but on this one I need to be honest with myself. I…
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When the only option is digging deep. I was naive when I started therapy. I was sure I could be fixed. I believed I was the problem in each of my relationships. I expected too much. And I had some anger issues I had to work on. I was livid with absolutely everyone. I walked…
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What is free speech? I lost a friend last week. I’m trying not to spiral about it and I’m doing an okay job, I think. She sent a final text that said I had been sharp and dismissive of her and she hoped I understood. I do not understand. It was the first time she…
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this one’s for me I have a propensity for cynicism. I think it’s because I see things for what they are. It’s hard to open yourself to the troubles of the world and not start the calculations. I do fight it. I need to. Cynicism keeps me from my real life. The one I blew…
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Aspirations in waste management Our next door neighbor grows a beautiful flower garden every summer. Around this time of year she usually gifts our family a bright bouquet of all kinds of colorful blooms. My favorite are her sunflowers, that fully saturated yellow makes it difficult to feel depressed. Some of them grow so tall…
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Tomorrow I will embark on another RV vacation with my kids. This time I’ll be the only adult in attendance and to my recollection (which admittedly isn’t very good) it will be the first overnight adventure I have done on my own with all three of them. The RV enables my hyper-independence. It provides the…
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Death alone is certain I think there’s an expression that goes: nothing is certain except death and taxes. That’s a bit f*cked if you ask me, but no one is (asking me, I mean; no one is asking me). The death part makes sense though, it comes for us all. When I first started writing…
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Is it still a thing? My algorithm is full of advice on how to manage my own emotions regarding the behavior of other people in my life. I do tend to get caught in an empathy trap. I try to get inside the heads of other people to understand why they act a certain way…
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An ode to walking around The apartment I rent is directly across the street from an elementary school. Most days I’m here, I sit out on the balcony and entertain myself with the clusterf*ck that is end of day pick-up. There are a few rules for picking up your kid. There’s an established order. There…
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Looks aren’t everything I was a game to them. One of those little egg-shaped key chains with the creature you care for by beeping its buttons in the right order. You learn to feed it after each playtime to get it to nap. You can’t go too long between baths. After awhile the attention afforded…
Life with ink 