Who am I? It seems like a strange question to still be asking at 48 years old, but here I am. If a stranger asked me who I am, my first response would probably be: "I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a volunteer, a caregiver." While all of those things are true, they're also things I do. They aren't necessarily who I am. So who am I? The longer I sit with that question, the harder it becomes to answer. When I think about myself, the first things that come to mind are rarely p

Group therapy was eye-opening. In my late 30s/early 40s, I attended a three-month daily intensive group therapy program at a local hospital. The program was filled with people like myself who needed help processing trauma, and it focused heavily on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. My group was probably 98% female. What surprised me — and comforted me at the same time — was realizing how many of us carried similar stories. Rape. Sexual assault. Parental abandonment. Parental abus

I see on a regular basis in my local moms’ Facebook group, women of all ages saying they feel like they have no friends and want to build friendships with other moms who share similar interests or have children the same age. Some are young moms. Some are older, like myself. When does this friendship shift happen, and why? Many of us lose touch with our high school friends after graduation. Maybe we keep in contact with a select few for a while. But life happens. Some people g

Mother's Day. Another commercial day where Hallmark (back when people still gave cards to each other) and greenhouses make millions. According to my husband, when he worked at KFC in his youth, it was their busiest day of the year. Some women choose not to have children, which I 100% respect. Kids are definitely not for everyone. Some can't have children for a plethora of reasons. Some have had children and lost them; something my brain doesn’t even want to go near trying to

What is with ALL of the feelings? I was reading through my teenage journals again (why do we do this to ourselves?) and was thoroughly embarrassed by the absolute absurdity of my emotional ups and downs… while also realizing—I am LIVING IT AGAIN. "Cool. Cool cool cool". - Jake Peralta It’s a good thing my husband is always up for a good root, because damn. I haven’t felt like this since my late teens/early twenties. And oh—the STORIES I could tell about my sex life back then.

Two Puberties (Because One Clearly Wasn’t Enough) As girls, we don’t realize that somewhere down the road of womanhood… we get two puberties. Aren’t we just the lucky ones? I got my period at age 12. Even though I knew it would come someday, I wasn’t any less scared or prepared when I started bleeding for the first time. Of course, it happened at school. Grade 7. Naturally. Thankfully, most of my friends had already started their periods and someone had a pad I could use unti

"Things are not just black and white". I have heard this from counselors, psychologists and spiritual teachers over my extensive career in being a mental health patient. I still struggle with this analogy and have to remind myself frequently that nothing is all bad or all good. Your brain doesn't naturally think like that though. I really have to work hard to retrain in my case, decades of thinking this way. Those brain wave ruts are so deep you need a lift and PPE to get tho

One does not simply start a blog… right? I mean, it has to start somewhere. And with the current state of my peri-menopausal brain, there’s a solid chance you’ll walk away from this post either deeply enlightened or… …squirrel. This has been a goal of mine for years. YEARS. But it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that 99% of people on Facebook don’t give a shit about what I post… so why would a blog be any different? I don’t have an answer for that yet. But here