I feel free. I want to say that again because honestly, it surprised me. Not finished. Not certain. Not even sure what comes next. Just free. And I got here by taking things apart. Over the last year I have been quietly closing chapters I worked really hard to open. I closed my out-of-state therapy…
The moment you finally decide you’re allowed to want something — you’d think that would feel amazing. It doesn’t. Not at first. If you’ve ever grabbed a permission slip — yours, someone else’s, a printable from the internet — and then done absolutely nothing with it, you are in excellent company. And you’re in exactly…
There is a list you carry in your head. You probably know the one. When the kids are more settled. When work calms down. When I feel more ready. When I know what I actually want. When things stop being so complicated — then I’ll start. I’ve sat with a lot of women over the…
I want you to do something for me. Think back over the last 24 hours and count how many times you said sorry. Not for anything you actually did wrong. The reflexive ones. The automatic ones. The sorry, can I ask a quick question and the sorry, I just want to say and my personal…
She is standing in front of her closet. Not because she has nothing to wear. The closet is full. It has been full for years, a whole life’s worth of choices hanging there in whatever system she set up in a different decade. She is standing there because nothing in it feels quite like her….
There was a moment not long ago when I sat down to work on this and just stopped, wondering if I should keep going. Closed the laptop. Sat there. And genuinely asked myself: does anyone even care about this? And maybe more honestly — do I have anything left to give it? If you have…
I was closing browser tabs on a Sunday evening — you know the ritual, that slightly anxious tidying before the week begins — when I found it. A registration form. Half filled out. My name and email in the first two fields, and then nothing. The rest of it sitting there, patient and expectant. I…
The storybook version of Mother’s Day is very specific. There are flowers. There is brunch. Everyone is smiling and nobody is crying in the parking lot of the greeting card store at 10am on a Sunday because they somehow wandered into the wrong aisle. That version is lovely. It’s just not everyone’s version. If you’re…
When Empty Nest Grief and Relief Show Up Together I walked into my kids’ room after they left, and the bed was made. Actually made. For the first time in what felt like years, the floor was visible. No pile of gear. No half-finished snack. No evidence of the tornado that had apparently been living…
I had no idea that saying I don’t know is a sign of strength. There was a woman I used to know who always had an answer. Every question that floated across a table, she caught it before it landed. Smooth. Certain. Never a flicker of hesitation. I used to watch her and think: that…
