It’s ok. You’re not alone. — There’s a lot of pressure to be exceptionally festive in our culture full of happy Instagram posts. Those expectations get cranked up to 11 when holidays are involved. The impossible standard of being in a picture-perfect nuclear family never seems more onerous than during the time we’re all in close…

Why I rejected the digital approach — Reemerging from the chrysalis stage after a long term relationship is bewildering. The last single period of my life was the better part of two decades ago and the world was a different animal. …

Are we ready? — Good news, America! We’re number one. We’re leading the world in the pace of climate change. I’m not a scientist (this was determined by scientists), but this is a problem. There is no lateral boundary to the atmosphere. It does not end where our country ends. …

A year ago at this time, I was stocking the shelves of a nearby grocery store in exchange for $12.69 an hour and an allotment of all the leftover produce that was good enough to eat but too ugly to sell. After a 16 year relationship, my ex partner ghosted…

The other side of survival mode — Imagine, if you will, that your life story contains three acts. If you’ve ever read a Dumas novel or anything that follows the character arc of destruction to redemption, then you know the protagonist thrives only after hitting bottom somewhere in the middle. For many of the readers on this…

A story about seeing beauty in destruction — I recently started over in life. I had always assumed that by my fourth decade, I’d be wise. I’d be a fully assembled person. I’d have everything figured out. I’d be living according to a grand plan. I was wrong. This story is for all of us trying to make…

A short rant about the wackiness of our modern economy — I am increasingly convinced that the defenses of American-style capitalism have become as absurd as those used to defend any other type of fundamentalism. Substitute the stock exchange for the Pope in terms of infallibility and you have a sovereign little fiefdom that operates out of lower Manhattan. It moves…

Poetry — Higher up the rockface Where the dangers of a broken trail Pitched flatter into safety, My hunched back released the weight Of our collected time That had been dragged uphill. I looked back at the rutted history, Weary. Short breathed. Hot chested. The furrow carved itself Behind every step As…

Realizing how to move on — If you are among those who have been dumped by a callous person you mistook for someone better, there is the potential to fall so far into the pit that just clawing one’s way out seems to be as much progress as can be made. We’ve all been there in…