“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.” ~Squire Bill Widener For years, I had a private deal with myself: I would really change when life became manageable. When work slowed down. When the family was okay. When I had more energy. When there was less stress. When I could finally focus. The problem was that…
“You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.” ~Unknown Tomorrow, a court will grant me a divorce after eleven years of marriage. I’ve spent the last several months rereading a decade of my own life like evidence in a case, trying to understand how I got here. What I found surprised me: not one…
“Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is.” ~Sharon Salzberg A few months ago, my father informed me that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although he seemed optimistic about the treatment, I knew that hearing such news…
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers There is a part of me that really, really loves vitamins. Like…a lot. I have always been endlessly fascinated by health, which means I can spend a wildly unreasonable amount of time talking about inflammation, mitochondria, blood sugar, nervous systems,…
“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz I used to walk into a room and check everyone else’s emotional temperature before I noticed my own. A tightened jaw meant I should get quieter. A distracted answer meant I’d done something wrong. If my partner sighed while unloading the dishwasher, I’d go back…
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou In June 2011, I got a Facebook friend request from a guy I vaguely knew from college. We’d never dated, never even been close, but I knew him by reputation. Charming. Vain. The kind of guy who always had someone. He’d just been hired to…
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~George Santayana I was gone about two hours. I’d gone to see my stepbrother, who lived nearby. My girlfriend didn’t want to come, so I told her to rest, and I’d be back soon. When I got back to my father’s property, where we lived in the camper we’d…
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” ~Brené Brown It happened on a regular Tuesday night over the smallest thing. I was cooking dinner after a really long, exhausting day at my job. I spent the whole day fixing problems for everyone…
“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos I refreshed the analytics page even though I had checked it only a few minutes earlier. The number had not changed, so I opened the project, reread the opening line, tested a button, and returned to the dashboard….
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung I was twenty-eight years old, standing in front of a mirror, reaching for my lipstick. I couldn’t put it on. I was engaged. A wedding was ahead of me. The invitations, expectations, and imagined future were already gathering momentum. Nothing was visibly wrong. That was…
