In my evolving journey to be healthier, I’m still making a lot of mistakes. If what you eat is the door to losing weight, portion control has been my key. I haven’t necessarily cut out foods I love but cut down. I play the game of counting calories which I’ve warned people about for the last ten years. I lean towards obsessive, after all, and food and weight is something I don’t want to be obsessive about.
Time Stop
I look for it while / the morning is still dark / my blankets still warm / sounds of sleep louder than waking
The Secret to Friendship
Building friendships is a series of saying “yes” and showing up, again and again. There is a beauty in finding your people, the ones who share your interests and beliefs and whose hearts seem to mirror your own. The cosmic connection of being known by others.
My Sunday Blues
I aspire to be someone who sleeps well on Sunday nights. They’re called the Sunday Blues for the many of us who feel the sense […]
The First Draft Slog
I am working on a story that I’ve been trying to tell for a long time. It’s fiction, a novel that I’m building from a novella I wrote in college. It’s about a boy who loves his family but watches it fall apart and how he lives and heals in the wreckage. Loosely. It’s also about a cat.
An Adult To-Do List
Ten recent and normal human things that baffle me in young single adulthood AKA times I wish I did still live with my competent and […]
The Meaning of the Middle
My friend Jenna said something to me in the spring of 2014 that changed me. She was visiting me in Boston during our senior year of college, and I was laying out my truths for her as we walked through Cambridge: that I hadn’t been okay, that I had relapsed in self-harm, that I felt like the nearly seven years I spent not relapsing meant nothing. I had promised myself never again and I had broken that promise. Spectacularly.
The Physicality of Giving
I volunteered at Caritas of Austin’s Community Kitchen yesterday morning. They are a local nonprofit that works to end homelessness in the Austin area through education, job placement, and food services. My four-hour shift was spent preparing the dining room, putting out donated cupcakes on trays, and then pouring milk for the 200+ guests that came through during the lunch service. After the guests left, we put the leftovers away, swept, mopped, and took off our aprons.
My Body & I: A Love Story
My body and I are best friends, but even best friends fight. Our origin story would be best tagged as “enemies to friends to lovers” in an AO3 search string. I wasted so much of my adolescence battling my changing body, criticizing it the mirror, obsessing over the number on my jeans and always being able to say “small” when asked for my t-shirt size.
I Hope You Dance
I take a Zumba class on Monday nights at my fitness club. I like it mostly because I’ve memorized the steps in the last five months I’ve been going, leaving my mind to have fun rather than think the way through the dance. When I first took the class I barely thought about the exercise; all my energy was on watching the instructor and trying not to look ridiculous.