Of every admission I make, I would have to say I am the most raw when describing my interactions with grief.   I dislike, but do not regret, handing power over to grief and leaning in to what I have been feeling, primarily over this last week.   This one was tough.  Up until as recently as we sheltered in place, we were doing well (we still are).  I speak of my tiny family as a collective. No need to get into specifics, but each of us was exactly where we needed to be mentally and physically  on March, 12th, the day my children’s school district called for ..read more

I love words. And quotes. And poetry. And music.  I like figuring out what the words mean.  Connect with it.  The connection just happens; organic. I have spent way too much time this past week trying to determine what the protagonist in Meatloaf's "I Would do Anything For Love"  wouldn't do when he said "...but I won't do that!" following its appearance on my Sunday spin instructor's playlist. It turns out it's not as scandalous as we thought... To balance out the mindless pages I peruse on Instagram (as in nail art I would never have the patience to sit for), I follow a bunch of wordsmiths ..read more

The third grade writing assignment this week is to describe “What Love Means to Me”. Then this became my assignment too, because naturally today, the third-grader felt writing was a “complete waste of time “ and declared she would never use this in the future. Proud teacher mom here!!!!! How do you explain love? Cameron busted into the room where Em and I were sitting on the floor, got behind me and threw his arms around my neck. He said “I love you, Mama", in his nearly 6-year-old voice that is holding on to the intonations of a younger boy.  I’m still holding onto it too! “Emily, t ..read more

You can only take one day at a time, right? Well,yesterday was a day.  And it was hard and messy. Last night I stood in our elementary school's gym for the annual Sweetheart dance and I could swear I felt my heart breaking for Em.  Earlier in the day, someone told her the dance is not, in fact the Sweetheart dance, but really a daddy-daughter dance.   Stab knife into chest.  Twist. Repeat. Then do it to me for good measure. Em was really doing her best not to cry as she shared this information with me.  I declared “fake news” that was backed up by these facts: If it is a daddy-daughter d ..read more

I pulled a Babs and whomever else has said they were leaving the big stage for good.  That's right; I'm back. I was having a conversation with some friends who said they needed me.  How can I turn them down? I am a notorious fixer, after all. And while I have put much of that fixing to rest, this is something feasible.  Know thyself! The last year had some difficult moments; I lost a cousin to cancer and a good friend of mine was handed her own diagnois that thankfully turned out to be a best case scenario. This last month or so had been emotionally tumultuous and filled with more proof t ..read more

It’s time to move on.   I’ll always own the domain name (if I remembered to renew it), so I can always reclaim it, but I’m tired of writing from the perspective of a widow. Isn’t being volunteered for that position what spurred this to begin with? I am shortly approaching my fifth birthday (“It’s Sag season, baby!”) since I became a single mother.  I feel like the measure of 5 is a standard quantity when it comes to taking stock of certain things.  During these last years, I have questioned how I did not run away from home numerous times, how I did not turn to and rely on drugs or alcohol ..read more

Let's take a trip back in time.  It’s 1955. As per the “How To Be a Good Wife” textbook article that tends to go viral every now and again, women were instructed to greet their husbands with freshly applied lipstick, have the Mister’s drink of choice ready, dinner was waiting, the children were freshened up and basically, the rest of the evening was all about the man.   At that time, the nuclear family was the norm, the smallest unit living under one roof. The nuclear family remains prominent and without going into an unnecessary diatribe about how the portrait of the American family has cha ..read more

Today, sometime around 3:58 PM, I was having flashbacks.  The year was 2016.  It was week number two of school.  And Emily had homework.  And Emily had a fit and her mother had to step into another room and shut the door and take some cleansing breaths to figure how the hell she was going to get her daughter, the teacher’s daughter to sit her butt down for 7 minutes to color in an apple and trace numbers while my two year old was dumping out every bin filled with 3000 legos and matchbox cars and those puzzle pieces we never could seem to find all over the floor of the playroom. Because I am ..read more

In June, the last day of work is charged with the excited energy of not having to set the alarm clock for a consistent wake up call in the dark and the lump sum check that makes all of us feel like we’re in the money for a second until we remember it’s meant to stretch us through most of September.  We’re tired from the year and ready to recharge.   In August, the first day back is filled with the a different feel; most of us not having seen the live versions of each other, just the social media ones. It's a transition that is second nature, but nonetheless a transition. Some of us still get ..read more

Figured I would take a page out of the old first day of school writing (filler) activity for the title.  ‘Tis the season… For the first time in 5 years, I was kid free in the afternoon.  I worked at my usual summer school job and was done at 1:30, giving me until anywhere between 4:53 and 5:01 for the camp bus to come and deliver my kids.  Said kids were the only 2 known subjects to arrive home NOT tired from camp, based on a poll conducted by yours truly among friends and me asking them to ask their friends about their children’s level of fatigue following a full day of playing outside in t ..read more