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Getting Back on the Horse
Truth be told, I did not ride a horse for the first time until I was fifty-three (if the feeble Barney even counts as a horse). All worst-case scenarios scared me too much. How embarrassed would I be if I couldn’t keep the horse on its designated trail? What if the horse got spooked and
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A Teachable Moment
I’ve been having trouble writing lately. My spidey senses warned me that October was going to be a brutal month, but my inability started long before the world as I knew it blew up. After a challenging year, I had lost my sense of self. The words that I connected to were no longer flowing freely. I
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“Blindsided” Sneak Peak
Thank you for wanting to read an excerpt from my novel, Blindsided. Here’s what you need to know: Heather Hunter is a second grade teacher who has returned from Winter Break with a problem. One of her families has emerged from the Christmas holiday in crisis after the seemingly perfect Rena Michaels walked out on
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Finding Enlightenment Instead of Blame When an Adult Child Goes to Therapy
We all know the stereotype — starting therapy puts a person straight on the path toward blaming their mother. So, when my 20-somethings decided to explore their lives through a psychological microscope, I braced for the impact of mother wounds starting to come my way. Hindsight had gifted me with a dose of unpleasant self-awareness, meaning I
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Summer Through the Ages and Stages of Life
The mere thought of summer creates a feeling and imagery that stands alone. While each season can be linked to specific weather and activities, I feel the anticipation of summer is a one-of-kind annual experience. Everyone can find something to enjoy in the summer — the benefits of daylight savings time, the freedom of shorts
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School Refusal: One Mom’s Battle With The Irrational Mind
Everything I did with my first two kids never failed to deviate with my third — new play gyms, preschool teachers, and an overall sense of life in general. My first two kids were Type A, but my youngest child seemed to be Type Z. The two older kids went full steam ahead, while my
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Threading The Needle Through Five Generations
When I decided to sit down and write an article for Mother’s Day, I wanted to concentrate on the four amazing generations of women in my family. One of my greatest blessings was to have my grandmother Ruth in my life for thirty-eight years. She was there for my wedding and for the birth of
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This Epic College Prank Isn’t Possible Today
Once upon a time, we lived in a world without cellphones and instant gratification. Friendships were based on face-to-face encounters and bonding with people who knew how to have fun. That was definitely my experience back in my college days when I surrounded myself with pranksters — we made every day feel like April Fools’
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Walking Away From Mean Girl Energy at Any Age
For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around the mentality of a mean girl. Having been a spectator to the many ways a person can be affected by this form of bullying, I have learned the hard way how even the smallest things can trigger repressed
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Finding – And Sharing – My Sixth Sense
Intuition: When you don’t know how you know… but you know you know… and you know you knew, and that’s all you needed to know. Spoiler Alert: This is one heck of a crazy story that not everyone is going to believe, which is totally okay because sometimes I don’t believe it either. For as
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Getting (And Losing) A Taste of COVID
“You can’t have COVID, Mom. Your drenching night sweat must have been a hot flash.” Those were my daughter’s words, spoken simultaneously as my in-home antigen test instantly turned positive. COVID-19, after we thought we had dodged a bullet when my husband tested positive a week and a half before. COVID-19, restarting the captivity clock after
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How My Grandmother’s Legacy Lives On In Her Chicken Soup
August 13, 2005. The night of my 39th birthday. Instead of a happy celebration, that day became consumed with fear that my birthday would forever be known as the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. At 88 she had been in failing health, with many a scare that her last breath was fast approaching. On that
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Strengthening Kindness Through Mourning
Sometimes it takes the worst tragedies imaginable to shake people outside of themselves. Our world can seem so divided until something happens to flip an ingrained behavior or narrative on its head. We’ve all lived through 9/11 and the ups and downs of the coronavirus, but in my experience, one of the worst things someone
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How to Help a Friend
Throughout my teenage years, I started to notice something new and different emerging within my closest friendships. I seemed to be spending a lot of time engaging with friends who were coming to me for some kind of help. Whether they needed me for a rescue mission, as a partner in crime, or simply for a listening
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A Special Mask
Before we can fully move forward into a life outside of our pandemic-related boundaries, I feel like it’s going to be important for us to take stock in the people who have helped us get through the past year. In my personal experience, as my world grew smaller, I found myself getting closer to a
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From ‘Fake Nurse’ to Hero
“Are you sure she’s a real nurse?” It was hard not to notice that my neighbor Christy, the operating-room nurse who saw many of the worst traumas imaginable, often seemed challenged by the simplest every-day medical predicaments. Tylenol or Advil? Does this wound need stitches? Do you have a Band-Aid? We would soon discover that our
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Empty Nest: Party of Two
Empty nest. Two words have never terrified me more in my life. In my alternate reality, it wasn’t something I ever needed to worry about. I had three kids who consistently stuck to me like glue. Playdates were usually at my house, sleepovers were incredibly rare, and the suggestion of overnight camp was met with
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Coping with the Death of a Friend
I’ll never forget that dreary fall day. Gray faces mirrored the dark sky as the news made its way around our tight-knit neighborhood. One of my closest friends had breast cancer. How could that be? Robin was as devoted to her faith as she was to her three young girls. We had only begun to share
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Fear of the Unknown
Everyone lives with fear. When will the day come when we have to face one of our biggest fears? For me, the day came at age 47, when I went in for a routine mammogram and emerged with devastating news. “We found a cyst cluster. You need to come back for a stereotactic biopsy.” Those words
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