My first grade year was a hard one. My parents’ divorce and the move from our home to a small duplex in the town over caused a lot of change and upset. Mrs. D made that year gentler and she was sweet sweet sweet. I remember her taking me on her lap when I was

For a long time, Sundays were very hard–filled with anxiety of the upcoming week. Stress dreams and nightmares about what could go wrong, what was already going wrong playing out in my sleep, or maybe a long night of restlessness. While this moment in time is not yet anxiety-free (I am barely employed, after all),

I remember one summer making grilled cheese after grilled cheese, experimenting with butter v. margarine (spoiler alert–mayonnaise is the surprise winner), temperature, timing. I’d make them again and again. My ravenous (and not very picky) teenage brother and I would eat them all. He would give (brutally) honest feedback, but my favorite was when he

I put the garden to sleep in the fall. The next day, we woke up to a thick frost, the sound and smell of the heat running, and that very distinct cold and wintry feeling. It was the last season I will spend with that garden (which had grown to be my favorite place on

Monitoring others’ emotions and actions isn’t my responsibility anymore. As a child, hypervigilance kept me safe. [Thank you, hypervigilance, for keeping me safe when I needed it.] Now I let go of my need to monitor the subtleties on other people’s actions, words, and facial expressions. I no longer depend on others for my safety

When I stare at the treetops, I see lungs and veins and capillaries–whatever those are. I see channels of life and air and breath and nutrients. I see varicose veins and I see wrinkles in skin, around eyes and the back of a hand. An affirmation of mine has been “I am in harmony with