I keep stringing Christmas lights this year. They're going everywhere-- over all the walls and windows, bookcases and mantles. These small white flecks of light have always comforted me, a curtain of warmth to the unmet expectations and aches of the season. This year I find myself putting up more lights. More lights and more lights and more lights. I'm looking for the ache to dissipate, as if just another...
It’s been a year since Nellie was born. It’s been a year since I became a mother. It’s been a year since I labored new life into this world — for her and for myself. That’s the thing about having a baby, the newness of life isn't just exclusive to the tiny human. In that second between Nellie cocooned and warm in my belly, to when she was taking her first...
Year end wrap-ups before the end of the year?! That's for the overachievers. Or the regular achievers who can follow a calendar. Which, let's be honest, is usually me. But not this year. Lots of things have felt "usually me" but, well, "not me this year." This year, I've had a lot more tiny moments of being entirely unproductive. (More like feeling entirely unproductive since carrying a child, keeping said child alive,...
There are a few TED talks about what we tell our daughters, something I think about all the time these days. I am grateful to not be the only one asking these questions that I don't have answers to. In the year you born, I cried for so many things out of my control. I cried for Mosby court and Creighton, for John Marshall High School, and for the...
UPDATE: I wrote this (obviously) pre-baby. Since writing this, we welcomed our first child, a daughter, into this beautiful and terrible world. All the feelings I express here -- the helplessness and the gratitude -- ring all the more true now. -- My daughter was due last Wednesday. Currently, it’s Saturday. The doctor claims that all systems are “a go," but for some reason, she’s pretty happy in her cocoon. She...