It used to be that it was always around, a tangible presence like a heavy suitcase tethered to my back, making a small but discernible thud with every step I took.

These smallest acts of kindness are exactly what changes hearts and minds, and help us all win the battle against isolation and loneliness.

Solace is a lovely word for comfort, consolation, relief from sorrow or sadness.

It is enough.

I am enough.

I have enough.

Lately I’ve learned to be cautious when I get excited about an idea, especially when it comes on the heels of listening to music. I love the passion and dopamine hit that comes with the imagined outcome of said idea, but I’ve learned to question if it’s something more than just sentimentality.  

My decision to write in a book was born out of a difficult time. I thought writing a few words every day might be good for me.  To make it less of a chore, and more likely to happen, I decided on these parameters: 

When depression is a liar, and time feels like a thief. 

I am prepared. I might not be in control of how or when the end comes, or how embarrassing it might be. I might not have decided to wash my hair that day, or made good choices about my under garments,  but my home will not be a crime scene. It will be a love story.

And when standing up for this was nothing but challenge and controversy, he continued to act in accordance with the very values he was asking from all of us.

“What you think of me depends on what you think of yourself. Perhaps you create your idea of me out of material that you would like to eliminate from your own idea of yourself”

What do we do when we need answers, but the person who holds them, isn’t telling?

Has that ever happened to you? One minute you’re happily lathering along, and the next you wish you had a dry erase board in there with you to write down the epiphany you just had, or finally remembered that one item from your shopping list you keep forgetting.

I saw you

In the living of life, we start to gain a certain amount of wisdom. It accumulates rapidly in the seasons we hate the most, when we are forced to examine our worldviews, and recommit to the things we value the most. Wisdom shapes how we live in the present.

What Christmas means for me

If you are struggling to find a therapist who is a good fit, please don’t rule out teletherapy. You might find the ‘distance’ is not as off putting as you think it is.

Any time I lived through a difficult or painful situation and came out okay on the other side, I can tell myself that it can happen again. I can use the history of times I survived the bad thing, or when a situation turned around for the better, as proof that it can happen again.

I honor your journey as you experience these posts, knowing how much courage it takes to pause, reflect, and acknowledge the ways loss has touched your life.

Closure, if ever a real thing, is elusive in a situation that is capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways, or when a situation is difficult to discern or categorize.

Compound grief is the accumulation of losses in a short period of time; when you do not have a chance to grieve one loss before another one shows up. It is a form of trauma that I think is not recognized enough.