Category Archives: Uncategorized

How To Honor The Living

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Months ago I wrote a post exploring how to cope with losing someone, but not through death. If there are great notes about how to grieve a “living loss” that’s not a romantic break up, I’m not aware. It’s not like there’s a greeting card series or shared cultural ritual for dealing with it. It’s just, someone decides to leave the relationship and you have to sit there and accept it and handle it mostly alone. There’s no bereavement leave or floral arrangements for losing a friend who yet lives. There’s just you and the void they left, soldiering on. Continue reading →

Forgiveness

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…Continued from Tuesday

One evening, in my early 20’s I received an unexpected letter from a long lost neighbor..

Now I don’t say “friend”, because at the time I received the letter from her, we weren’t friends, we were more estranged acquaintances who happened to also be former neighbors and high school classmates. Continue reading →

Invisible Disease: My Life With Sickle Cell Anemia

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sca“How do you get it?”  is the question I get the most after telling someone that I have Sickle Cell Anemia.  I can’t help but think that they want an answer immediately to ensure that they’re standing at a safe distance and haven’t contracted the disease.  But that’s NOT how you get it.  It doesn’t come from touch, or exposure.  One must be born with the illness.  My mother has the disease and my father has the trait, meaning I had a 75% or more chance of having Sickle Cell.   Continue reading →

I Sat By The Ocean

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329967_3035595809348_483772491_oThe closest thing to a higher power of which I can conceive is the Pacific Ocean. If you’ve been following along, you know I’m a staunch atheist, but I don’t want you to think that means I’m cold and dead inside. I am moved by forces I understand to be greater than myself, I just don’t believe in god. When I’m at the ocean, however, I experience sensations I’ve heard the devout and the spiritual describe. My favorite place to experience the Pacific is at the Washington Coast, though the Hawaiian Islands are a close second. I sit for hours in contemplation, watching the waves break and crash, knowing it’s a phenomenon that’s been occurring for billions of years. The Pacific is constant and massive at almost 65 million square miles. It’s temperamental, ever-changing, never still. It never stops. It could take the likes of me and churn me into bits. I respect its awesome power and worship its extraordinary beauty. In some ways, the time I spend at the beach is like church, or at least fulfills the purpose for which I understand the religious attend. I feel overwhelmed at the shore, yet safe in the knowledge the tides have been going in and out longer than I can imagine, unstoppable. Continue reading →

Take All Your Pain & Put It On Me (So You Can Breathe)

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I live youDoes the title resonate? Have you felt this before, wanted to offer this act of service to a loved one? Done it, even? No?

Congratulations, you’re not codependent.

Must be nice. The earliest I can remember wishing I could experience someone’s pain for them was when I was fourteen, and my first boyfriend was suicidally depressed. This was Seattle in 1994, people. Our God of Grunge had killed himself that very spring, extinguishing a voice that made art from the collective angst, gathering and expressing the feel of the cultural moment to exquisite perfection. Oh, had I not told you before that Nirvana is my favorite band, Kurt Cobain my personal deity? In killing himself he destroyed some of the stigma surrounding suicide, and suddenly in the adolescent subculture it was ok to feel crushingly low and talk about it. Continue reading →

Gratitude Attitude Published on GirlTalkHQ

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gapubWe sent GirlTalkHQ a post written for you about choosing to be grateful on a micro level and watching your life change as a result. Since they consider themselves a blog devoted to female empowerment and inspiration, they chose to publish us: http://girltalkhq.com/i-chose-gratitude-and-watched-my-entire-life-change-before-my-eyes/.

Talk about feeling grateful!

Haters Are A Sign You’re Succeeding: We’re Published!

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Haters_Logo_BlurWe’ve reached an exciting milestone this week, online publication by Skirt Collective, a site that “aims to be the modern woman’s compass”. Head over there and check out a post I planned to publish for you in January, “Haters Are a Sign You’re Succeeding“.  Here’s a taste: “…and from that day forward, I saw my haters in a new light – as an important energy source. It was amazing the time and energy they were willing to spend having strong feelings and opinions about me and my choices. They were living proof that I was seen, and they would provide the fuel to push me forward, toward excellence.”

Thank you to our early adopters for your dedicated readership!