coping

  • Nothing Else Should Matter

    Nothing Else Should Matter— Steven A. LaChance How did we learn to live like this,in a world that leans so easily toward hate? Where did it begin,this quiet beliefthat we are somehow betterthan the person standing beside us,to the right,to the left,close enough to touchbut kept at a distanceby nothing more than an idea. What…

    Read more →

  • I Was Here

    I Was Here

    Someday the world will wake up and I will no longer be here. Morning will come the way it always does. Coffee will be made. People will go to work. The quiet machinery of daily life will keep moving forward without noticing that one more voice has gone silent. That is the simple truth of…

    Read more →

  • I Want You to Know Who I Am

    It was around 1998. I was dating a man who lived in Columbia, Missouri. He was a tennis player. A handsome man who looked a little like a young Robert Redford. I fell hard for those blue eyes and that chiseled jaw. At the time I was raising my three children on my own. On…

    Read more →

  • The Performance of Survival

    School should be a safe place for all kids regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else that might make them different from others. That is the ideal people like to talk about. But the truth is that it is not and never really has been. Growing up, I understood something very clearly even…

    Read more →

  • Coming Out

    Coming Out

    Here’s something I’ve learned over the years. Coming out is not a one time event. It is not just something gay people do. It is something we all do, over and over again, in different ways, throughout our lives. We just do not always call it that. Coming out is what happens when you finally…

    Read more →

  • I Did My Best

    I Did My Best

    These are thoughts from the quiet moments in the morning, from a night that was too long. Sometimes the quiet in the early morning gets loud enough that I finally let myself say it. Not out of frustration. Not as a defense. Just because it is true. I did my best. I was a very…

    Read more →

  • We the People?

    We the People?

    I keep thinking about how different things might feel if we actually lived in a country of ideas. A place where “We the People” meant everyone. Not some of us. Not the protected. Not the powerful. Just all of us. But we never have. And that truth stings more than I want to admit. What…

    Read more →

  • A Calm Blueprint for Uncertain Times

    These are unsettled times. That does not mean panic. It means paying attention. When the information environment is noisy and trust is thin, the most responsible thing people can do is quietly steady their footing. Preparedness is not fear driven. It is how adults reduce stress, protect their families, and keep options open when uncertainty…

    Read more →

  • The Emotional Pandemic

    The Emotional Pandemic

    This morning I sat down to write and worked on a few things. The grammar was right and the punctuation was right. The sentences did exactly what they were supposed to do, and that was the problem. None of it felt like me. It felt like I was behaving on the page, keeping things in…

    Read more →

  • Two Weeks Left

    Two Weeks Left

    We are in our last two weeks living in Playa del Carmen. In a little over a week the movers will be here, and after that we will head to Querétaro. Lately, our days have been spent going through things, deciding what still belongs with us and what has quietly finished its time. That part…

    Read more →