Posts tagged life

i want to go home

About a year and a half ago my parents sold the house that I grew up in.

It wasn’t just the house that I grew up in.

It’s the house where my sister, and then many years later, my daughter, were brought home to sleep in a crib within walls that had already seen the beginnings of two other women in my family.

The house was in my family for four generations, although at one point, there was a fifth.

My childhood was spent in that little (kind of too little) Cape on a hill. I lived with my great-grandmother, … Read the rest

you can’t win if you don’t play

I’m not a lucky kind of person.

When I was younger, I used to go to Foxwoods to play BINGO quite often.

I loved the whole experience of it – waiting in line to get my cards, then going over to the two-dollar dobber store and picking out which color I wanted (usually pink or green), and then finding a place to sit in the massive room that had a haze of cigarette smoke hanging above everyone’s head.

My friend(s) and I would set up somewhere and then look around and make fun of all the people who brought entire … Read the rest

nothing is forever, not even close

“All I’ve ever wanted is to be a writer” is a sentence I’m sure I and many other writers have uttered throughout life, and it’s true but also not true.

There was a time in childhood when I watched the movie SpaceCamp over and over and over again and then was taken to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. where I doubled down on my dream.

I took home posters of the Milky Way and a Space Shuttle pointing at the sky, its bottom engulfed in the flames from the rockets about to take them away.

I Read the rest

am I in this for the long haul?

I have been feeling awful lately.

Since I had COVID-19 for the third time in December of 2022, my body has not been the same.

I have a running list of symptoms that I’ve been dealing with since then:

  • Fatigue
  • Brain Fog
  • Joint Pain (worse than usual)
  • Hot flashes
  • Heat intolerance
  • Constant dry mouth
  • Sleep Apnea
  • Hyperparathyroidism
  • Iron Deficiency Anemia
  • B-12 deficiency
  • Neuropathy
  • Depression (worse than usual)
  • Anxiety (worse than usual)
  • Forgetfulness/memory issues
  • High blood pressure
  • Tachycardia
  • swelling in the feet and ankles
  • and did I mention the oppressive, crushing, painful, and relentless fatigue?

I just had a nuclear stress … Read the rest

any day with you, babe

When I was younger, there is no doubt that my most ideal day, beginning to end, would be one spent in New York City.

I might even want to spend that day there alone, because I did that once, I went for three days and two nights alone, and it was the best trip to the city I can remember.

I took the train, a little over two hours from New Haven to Grand Central, and I sat writing in my journal and listening to music.

But the people around me didn’t know that part of that time I wasn’t … Read the rest

I’m Not Ready to Give Up

If you’d like, you can also read this for free on Medium.

I don’t know what to do with myself right now.

Just over a year ago, I started work at a wonderful place with wonderful people, and over 90% of the time I can confidently say that I love my job, and being there makes me happy.

That is a true statement.

For the entirety of my life since I grasped the understanding as a child that one day I would have to work at a job to have money to live, I knew that the only job … Read the rest

I miss my friend

The plane ticket would be $347, one way
The bedroom would be small and uncomfortable
The significant other would be annoying
There may be the possibility of
encountering wild boar, again.

But I miss you
and (if I could)
I’d pay any price
to see your smile
to hear your laugh
and just be with you
doing absolutely nothing
just like those days we always used to love.


Inspired by the Writer’s Write October prompts | photo by me

let me go

If I could do just one thing –
if someone asked me:

“What would you do
if you could do anything?”

I’d run. 

I’d pack a light bag and run. 

I would leave work one day
and I just wouldn’t go home. 

Instead, I’d drive to an airport,
pick a place with palm trees and sun,
and I would run. 

I would disappear, poof!
Like magic, she’s there one moment
and she’s gone the next. 

I want to go
where no one will ever find me.

I want to run off into the sunset
and never be seen or heard … Read the rest

self-pity serenade

This is not the club
I ever wanted to belong to.

I have nothing against
childless cat ladies; sometimes
I think they’re the lucky ones
if all they have to be
responsible for in life
is their feline friends.

I never wanted to be
in the single mom club
or the forever a fat girl club
or “the ones with serious daddy issues” club.

I didn’t sign up to be 
stuck living this life 
so afraid I’ll die
from the loneliness,
from the acute and
stinging lack of companionship.

Precious few humans
will be able to die saying
they got … Read the rest