My Blog

Dear Sis,

At some point, you have to stop counting how many times you've started over and start asking what all those beginnings have taught you.

There are some kinds of starting over that feel exciting, and there are others that feel like survival. Starting over after a relationship ends can be one of the hardest kinds because you're not only changing your circumstances. You're also grieving the future you thought you were going to have.

I've started over more times than I can count, although for a long time I didn't think of it that way. I thought of starting over as something that happened when I had failed at something, when a plan didn't work, or when life forced me into a direction I hadn't expected to take. Looking back now, I see it differently. Some of the biggest changes in my life didn't happen because I knew exactly where I was going. They happened because I knew I couldn't stay where I was.

For most of my daughter's life, being her mom has been one of the biggest parts of who I am.

There are moments in a parent's life that you know are coming, but somehow you are never completely prepared for them.

There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix.

For a long time, I didn't understand why healthy relationships could feel so uncomfortable to me.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why I seemed to end up in relationships that hurt me.

There are going to be times in life when we fall down. Sometimes we make a mistake, sometimes we make the wrong choice, and sometimes we work hard at something and still fail. There will be relationships that don't work out, plans that fall apart, opportunities we miss, and decisions we wish we could go back and make differently. That's part of being human. None of us gets through life without stumbling along the way.

Dear Me,

I've started a lot of things in my life.

I've procrastinated a lot in my life.

For a long time, I didn't really know what coping was.

There is a little girl inside me who still needs to hear some things.

There is a point in healing when you realize that some of the things you are struggling with as an adult may have started long before you had the words to explain them. You may know that you are an adult. You may have responsibilities, relationships, a job, children, bills, and an entire life that depends on you. But there can still be a younger version of you somewhere inside, carrying questions, fears, insecurities, and needs that never completely went away.

There is a kind of exhaustion that comes from not being able to sleep when your mind is struggling.

For much of my life, I tried to understand why I experienced certain things the way I did.