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There You Are

Posted on April 2, 2019

Here comes a kind of post that I don’t usually do. I’m not big on birthdays and anniversaries and even less focused on lavish, public, I-love-my-spouse posts. Today is different. Sean is 43 today, nothing very remarkable about the birthday. Except that at our age, it now is remarkable to have a birthday. People get sick, men have heart attacks, breast cancer strikes moms. I woke this morning on day three of a nasty bug, he continued picking up the things I do, things I thought only I could do. Nope. He’s got them, the girls too. Life goes on, even when we fall out of our routine. I apologized for being sick, and he asked incredulously, “Why would you apologize?” I didn’t have…

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The Thing Only You Can Say

Posted on February 27, 2019

It is very easy to not say what you need. In fact, it is so easy that it becomes second nature, a decision you don’t consciously make, rather a silence that you fall into comfortably to keep things simple. Days go by with to-do lists, then weeks and months, all the things that didn’t get said vibrate in the past with wasted potential. A check-up you didn’t book. A massage you didn’t think you deserved. An invitation you didn’t accept because of time, cost, fear. The things that I am alluding to are the things you need. I don’t mean life or death, I mean life. It’s going to be different for all of us, but we all need things and I am here to tell you…

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Stop Trying to Outrun Yourself

Posted on February 24, 2019

I can trace back to as early as eleven, things about myself that I remember running away from. I had a penchant for cussing, picked up from sitting along the periphery of my dad’s poker games. The vocabulary would escape with enthusiasm on the playground. “You’re a bad influence. We don’t want you around because you bring trouble. Just because you’re parents are splitting up doesn’t mean you can act like an animal.” Her name was Lisa, we were at Amazon Park in Eugene, and I can still see the way the weeping willow limbs cast shadows on her face. She had a hint of a smile as she said it, the other kids gathering around her. I was poison. Too strong, too loud,…

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What Did You Want to Be?

Posted on February 7, 2019

Finley and I were walking across the Target parking lot the other night. The pavement was slick, and we weren’t in a hurry. We strolled, holding hands, and talking. “Mom, what did you want to be when you were my age?” I thought for a minute, “A writer.” She squeezed my hand and smiled, “You kind of do that now, right?” “Yes.” She looked up at me, “Do you ever wish you were a book writer and that you didn’t do all the other stuff you do?” “I’m not sure, maybe? I mean, I like what I do,” I said honestly. “Would you still have met Dad if you were a writer?” “That’s pretty doubtful. A lot of things have to happen, decisions and…

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Incidental Joy, or saying yes to little things

Posted on January 10, 2019

Today I am casting out a small raft of hope in the sea of resolutions, words of intention, cleanses, and tidying interventions. Not your typical, “Ten easy ways to be happier” kind of essays, more of a “This kind of surprised me, thought I’d share.” The other day I was having a teeth-clenching kind of day on both a personal and professional level. As I started my car to go from a meeting in one town to a meeting in another I looked at the rearview mirror and said to myself, “You have to stop.” A recurring theme for me is delaying using the bathroom. It’s wrapped up in my belief that I can multitask. I wedge two more to-dos, dashing off an email…

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