Lighten up. Enjoy every moment. Don’t be so serious. None of this is as easy as it sounds. At a recent social gathering, I found myself barely tuning in—not wholly engaging. Instead, I was going over my mental checklist of my next set of responsibilities. I had been doing that a lot—barely engaging in real…
I was nine years old when a toned-down version of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt began airing on network television, and I was absolutely terrified of the opening sequence. The old black-and-white TV in my childhood bedroom had two knobs on it but, alas, no remote control. If and when said super creepy TV show…
A friend called last weekend to tell me she’s going through a difficult divorce. Everything she thought she had, she said, has crumbled around her. Her pastor husband confessed to twenty-plus years of infidelity, but only after being found out and confronted by the church. We talked at length about healing after divorce, about recovering…
I battle anxiety and depression. Years ago a friend told me that instead of saying, “I have anxiety” or “I suffer from anxiety,” he prefers to say he battles it. I have adopted his language, and so I say that, for me, anxiety and depression are a battle. It’s a much tougher battle than most…
I did not want to write this. I’m afraid that by writing all this down for all the world to see, you’ll judge me. That you’ll think less of me. That you’ll think I’m “crazy” or weak. But I also feel like I need to write all this down, to share about when I walked…
Although I’ll always have blurry spots in my memory of it, the trauma that shaped me has remained crystal clear. That’s what our minds do; they jumble information from our past when it becomes too hard to carry it. In processing unfathomable experiences, however, this can help us find our way through to the other…