Some Thoughts on Jesus
Today is Easter Sunday, and Easter has always been a special holiday for me, because it commemorates a cycle of renewal and rebirth. I no longer consider myself a Christian, but the resurrection is the part of the story of Jesus that makes the rest of it matter. If I still believe in anything – which some days I do, and some days I don’t—it’s in the person of […]
To My Younger Self
I heard the now Grammy-winning Brothers Osborne song, Younger Me, today and really listened to it for the first time. And it kind of got me in my feelings a little, thinking about my relationship with my younger self. I was so angry with him for the longest time. I thought he had ruined our life, that he’d been a coward. And yeah, there were sometimes he could have been […]
The Bucket List
I am not at the point in my life where I have begun thinking about its ending. Maybe I just have some weird subconscious idea that I am immortal? But I have been thinking about things I’d like to do while I’m still young and healthy enough to enjoy them. Is this a bucket list? You could call it that. I don’t love that term, but it’s the term we […]
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
Yesterday, someone I know hit me with a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and my initial reaction was like ‘Wow! Fuck you too!’ I didn’t say this, of course. I didn’t react at all. The person meant well, I think, but that is just such a classic microaggression, and it’s not hard to understand why I have such a visceral negative reaction to it. I think it’s […]
My Writing Rituals
I belong to Apex writers and am part of the Accelerators group, led by Forrest Wolverton. In Accelerators, Forrest uses brain research to help us unlock our writing and career goals (It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist). Last week, we were talking about the rituals we all use to get us in ‘the zone’ for writing, and it made me think about how we all do that, […]
Gratitude and Grace
The other morning, I was awash in gratitude. Gratitude for my life, and the people who are in it. Grateful for my two jobs. Grateful that I have a home that I love. Grateful that my body is healthy. I have not always felt this way. I spent a lot of years at war with myself, hating myself, hating all of the things that I was and resenting all of […]