As I continue to grapple with the death of a friend and beloved member of my community who died from COVID-19 due to not being vaccinated, I keep thinking about a twist on an Al-Anon phrase: “Give people the dignity of their choices.” As you know, there is nothing more controversial, more hot-button, more [...]
2021
If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard something to the effect of, “It only takes one person to feel grounded and safe in a crowd to change the atmosphere for everyone else.” It’s a nice sentiment, but is it just a bunch of hokey-pokey b.s.? Can little ole me really have that kind of effect [...]
The cool thing about having a blog for so long is that sometimes things I wrote in the past are applicable to my life today. That happened to me this week when I reread a post from almost exactly 12 years ago. My life is significantly different now – I no longer work at an [...]
Have you heard the expression, “Expectations are premeditated resentments?” I wouldn’t say that’s wholly true for me because my expectations aren’t about other people, but they have certainly been premeditated disappointments. For instance, I woke up on the morning of my most recent birthday and cried because I’m not at all where I thought [...]
Something I’ve heard before is that physical health is a privilege. When people said that, I brushed it aside because I thought they meant health is something to be grateful for, a blessing, a gift. But now, as I approach my 37th birthday, I recognize physical health is an attribute to be grateful for yes, [...]
Sometimes I think the expression, “Don’t just do something, sit there,” was made for me. I’m not prone to inertia and people often describe me as “tenacious” and “hard-working.” That’s true, and it means I have trouble with the reverse: giving up. I don’t know when to let go, not only of people and relationships, [...]
My body is still stiff and sore from the car accident I was in recently. I can’t turn my neck all the way and it hurts when something as lightweight as my purse presses against my trapezius. Because all human beings have an inherent negativity bias, it would be easy for me to focus on [...]
Right now I’m participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which means I’m aiming to write 50,000 words in a month. For the uninitiated, that’s a novel the length of The Great Gatsby. It’s approximately 75 pages single spaced in a word processing document. I’m pretty sure this new novel I’m working on is the [...]
I keep seeing suns everywhere — as a ceramic decoration on the side of a house, on cartoons, cards, etc. The sun is “talking” to me, which makes sense because I keep thinking about shining. What does it mean to shine? Where and how do I shine? Where and how do other people shine? [...]
I feel vulnerable right now, sensitive. In part it’s because rain has come to the Bay Area (along with a flood warning) and I have seasonal affective disorder. However, I feel vulnerable and sensitive right now also because I’m in a weird liminal space. An in-between space. The pandemic is raging on, but many people [...]