I’ve been thinking a lot about movement lately. Like many kids, I grew up pretty active. I liked playing sports and running around outside all summer and took the natural movement of my life for granted. At some point, I internalized that “exercise” was something different – exercise, or “working out” was about controlling your body, changing its shape, and/or mitigating what you had decided to eat or were planning to eat later. We exercised to “earn our calories!” When I went to college, movement changed dramatically for me (and I think this is true for many kids at this stage, but more on t ..read more

I’ve thought a lot about grief these past few years. I used to be of the mind that grief was a term strictly used to describe how we responded to death. I thought the only valid grief was the physical loss of a person you loved from this earth. And I’ll be the first to tell you, having lost people, that kind of grief is a beast of a burden. It is among the most wrenching of the griefs, to be sure. But it is not the only grief. A few years ago we had a run-in with infertility. Month after month after month of hope dashed by a negative test. It felt a lot like grief, but I hadn’t actually lost a ..read more

I first wrote this thought down in 2011, and I revised it in 2014, both times when I was leaving jobs. This week I am leaving another job, where I’ve been for the better part of the last decade, and while I know it’s the right move for me, I am yet again knocked sideways by this same phenomenon. Though transition is necessary, and I believe change is good, it always comes with some heavy emotions for me. Back in 2011, I complained so much about being unemployed. Genuine, heartfelt, deeply rooted complaint. So as a deeply transitional part of my life wrapped up, as I quit nannying and work ..read more

A few years ago I experienced what I would call my biggest physical trauma to date: childbirth. I had a fairly dramatic delivery, though I’ll spare you the details here on the internet. I quickly realized a rite of passage that was now mine – telling my birth story. It was so satisfying to sit with another [willing] person and share what I experienced. I remember vividly the feeling of shock waving over me after my daughter was born, and thinking to myself later – oh. this is why they call it trauma. Telling the story was a big part of my processing of it and it helped me so much to get to tal ..read more

MG 6/27/22 ..read more

I used to be weird about pictures. It felt like a very real threat to my security and safety that at any given time someone might take my picture and it might not be a picture that I thought was good. Good, of course, meant one where none of my perceived flaws showed. A candid? A definite non starter. A full body group photo where I’m not able to hide behind anyone? Absolutely not. My husband has always taken pictures of me. Sometimes they’re really sweet and you can tell he thought I looked pretty and wanted to capture a moment we shared. Other times I’m asleep with my mouth open, but that’s ..read more

When I was growing up, no surprise, I was a sharer. I told my mom (who had no choice but to be my captive audience) almost everything that happened and every time I came home with a new tale of school woes, her response would be generally the same: They’re probably just insecure. Me, 15, an absolute delight I’m sure she said other things too, but this is what I recall most, and OH it made me mad. It makes me laugh now because of course – she’s right – but at the time I remember rolling my eyes and thinking okay, MOM, everyone is not insecure. That’s ridiculous. I certainly realized that I ..read more

I’d like to tell you a long story. Truly more than ever before, I genuinely hope you’ll take the time. I’ve written, re-written, and edited this thing to death and it’s time to say it out loud (so to speak). It’s both very personal and very much something I want to talk about all the live-long day, so I hope you’ll stick with me as I toe that line. I don’t remember the exact impetus, but somewhere in early adolescence, I recall a very distinct feeling taking hold of my brain: my body isn’t good. To make a long story very short, this paved the way for a slow unraveling of my relationship to bot ..read more

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the weirdest year I’ve ever lived through. As with most things in 2020, it doesn’t look like I wanted it to. You’d think by now we’d be used to it, but alas, it’s a gut punch not to be with our people, celebrating like usual. It’s a weird feeling, to be thankful and sad. To hold both, side by side, and try to make sense of it. Am I really thankful if I’m crying at the drop of a hat (or more accurately, a Coke commercial)? Can I really mean it when I say I’m grateful for our health and safety if I’m simultaneously pouting because I don’t get to celebrate in the manner t ..read more

It is easy, at this moment in time, to feel a certain degree of despair about *the state of things.* I have some general fatigue about, um, everything – and it’s become impossible not to cry often. A frequent fogging of my eyeballs has become a part of me in 2020. Glennon Doyle said once that the reason she cries so often is, “For the same reason I laugh so often – because I’m paying attention.” So then, because everything is hard, sometimes I think… maybe I should just… stop paying attention? Maybe then I’d be less anxious and spend less of my evenings crying off and on? This is very appealin ..read more