Posts
For When You’re Ready to Rediscover Yourself
Whether or not you’ve experienced loss, you can imagine the pain of grief. You can understand the sadness and disorienting feeling of someone you love being gone. And if you’ve watched someone have to let go of hopes for their life or letting a dream die, you know the feelings that come with grief are…
For When Grief Hits From Out Of Nowhere
My dad died 10 years ago, now. A decade is too long of a time to not have one of your greatest cheerleaders or get one of his hugs. But 10 years out and my grief has changed. I don’t feel quite so hollowed out by it now. I don’t mistakenly call or text him….
For When You’re Afraid of Leaving Them Behind
I get so mad when people use the phrase “moving on” when it comes to healing from grief. You don’t move on from your person (as if you could). They played a role in your life and you’ll carry them with you forever. Besides…a loss of any kind, whether a person, a job, a home,…
For When You Start to Dream Again
I woke up January 1, 2016 – almost exactly one year after my husband died – thinking about the word ‘hope.’ What did it mean to hope when everything about life had already gone topsy turvy? I had already seen how hopes could get smashed, ground to a pulp, and dumped off a cliff –…
For When You Bring Your Grief Into The New Year
In 2014, my husband was admitted to the hospital on New Year’s Eve. He’d recently been diagnosed with an untreatable, incurable type of cancer, but we thought we would have more than a couple months left. Initially, they just wanted to keep him for observation for a day or two, but he died on January…
20 of my Favorite Books on Grief
I wish I could have a cozy little library with big comfy chairs, a crackling fire place, and all the hot cocoa, tea, and coffee a person could want. The library would be filled with books on grief: books to learn about grief and stories that help you feel less alone. Since that’s not reality,…
You Can’t Be Awesome at Everything
For most of my life, I would’ve proudly called myself a perfectionist. Doing things well and with precision is important to me. But over the years I’ve realized that the ‘perfectionist’ label is one of the most unhealthy stories I’ve told myself. You know what really bugs me? When people *brag* about being perfectionists. If…
It’s Just Data
It was my junior or senior year of college and I remember the teary, frustrated call to my mom, “why are people so difficult? Why can’t they be predictable like equations?” Fun fact: if you didn’t know, I was a physics major in college. I laugh now, but I also have some of the same…
Vulnerability Hangover
Sometimes when we share the innermost parts of ourselves we leave the encounter feeling like we’ve been stripped bare, sometimes even flayed on the altar of vulnerability. It can even feel like a hangover – like you can’t face the world and your whole self is now too tender to even try. Brené Brown –…
On loneliness and belonging
When I was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression I was in my mid-20s and I didn’t know anyone else who experienced mental health issues. I felt misunderstood and incredibly alone. A year or so later a friend had a few panic attacks and – while I hated that she was going through this –…