Would you believe me now if I told you I was happy? That I get why I was too much, too full of feeling that pushes people away? That I see unhappiness in all its forms, how I want to push it away, too. How difficult it is too be with difficulty. How I brushed […]
Category: Depression
Washing the Dishes
When I finally insist that the vacuuming of the room needs to happen, the breaker clicks off. The roar of the machine overloaded the circuit. The room is black, only the light of the screen still lit. I push every breaker except for the right one, my rain boots on my feet grounding me to […]
My Story
My Story * by Nancy Schatz Alton Put your stories down, they say— they are too heavy and they make you angry. You want a prettier word for make. Furthermore you want the I. The I of your stories to say, It happened to me. Oh life, you gave me this grief and […]
The Whole World
Whole World by Hsueh-Feng The whole world is you. Yet you keep thinking there is something else. Yesterday I made a protective cone around my center of strength and propelled myself through the day. The memory of the last election taught me that I needed a plan. A plan like a salve: self-care so […]
My Tears Are OK With Me
At my yearly medical exam yesterday, my doctor asked me how I am. Well, it’s been a difficult few years, I started. Then I got to the part where I mentioned that my kids were growing up and needing me so much less. And that when the older one needed me, she really needed me. […]
Fire
Tell me, why does this one precious life feel hard? Even as my mind plays with the word hard. Is it the right word? Is hard allowed when so many have it worse? Why is my mind a trap that cycles me like a washing machine stuck in the spin cycle? Has that metaphor already […]
Not Alone Enough
Lately I’m stuck on a phrase that isn’t helping me. Have you heard of the idea that we are making it up as we go along? We are making it up as we go along. We are making the coffee and toasting the bread and waking the offspring. It is winter time. Given a day […]
I Came for the Mystery
Life is this changing thing that can’t be grasped too hard. I fall down, not like a leave. I fall down like a weight. There’s one loud thump and I’m back in the past like a good memoir writer returning to the page every day. People make fun of trigger warnings or maybe they think […]
Oh, Peter
“Sometime you hate everything.” That’s what my friend wrote to me ten days before he died. I didn’t want to look back on our email interaction when I heard the news of his death. Because reading his typed words the first time was bad enough. I hadn’t seen Peter since I was in my early […]
My Bleeding Heart, Examined
So often I don’t know how to start writing. Especially on happy mornings like the one I’m living right now. The girls don’t have school and I laughed when Chris tried to wake us all up. I loved his befuddlement, the way he called out, “Are you up yet?” Even though we’ve been talking about […]