But it no longer exists — They say it comes in waves. They say it will get better. They say it takes a year. I say, “screw what they say! I just want to go home.” Then I wipe the tears away. First I stayed strong because we had to walk out of the hospital. Then…

Gratitude changes your life — Breakfast was over. I was sitting at my home office laptop. My delicious, crispy, buttery, strawberry jam-topped Thomas’ English Muffin filled my belly. Cleanliness being next to godliness, I scraped the little farina balls from the outside of the muffin onto my paper plate. …

There’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about what it means to be trans — Someone in your family shares with you their preferred pronouns and the new name they have chosen and ask you to think of them by their new-to-you gender identity. What do you do? I thought it was simple. Honor their request. Apparently, it’s not so simple. And I am shocked. …

As I bridge the day — Saturday and the date of the fifth — that only became important in June when my husband Mike enjoyed his favorite pastime, then never came back to me, to us, the tears still come. Late Friday, I spoke to one son on the phone…

Love came in a garbage bag. — I was a single parent working two jobs. I was barely making it paycheck to paycheck. My son was 3. He and I would go to bed at the same time (7 PM), and I would get up at 10:15 PM to work my 11 PM to 7 AM shift…

Stories from a sport card autograph collector’s wife — I was feeling a little disorganized in my apartment. Disorganization clouds the brain so I picked up a shopping bag intending to put it with the rest of the stack and found something inside. Reaching in, I pulled out a Sharpie. I held it tight to me knowing it was…

How a pendulum helped me find my glasses — Fall in Vermont is beautiful. Every day this week after work I used the last two hours of the day to explore areas I expected to be very colorful. Friday afternoon I made my way up to the base of Mount Mansfield on one of the back dirt roads. …

Look for the signs that show you the way — I walked through the aisles at the warehouse and noticed a 62-ounce container of milk chocolate M&Ms that captured my attention like a broadway musical banner. I didn’t know why I wanted to buy them because chocolate’s not really my thing. …

Moving from frustrated and lonely to smiling bone-deep — It was two a.m. and I had just arrived home after single-handedly driving twelve hours round trip to visit my Uncle Dan who lives in a retirement facility in West Haven, Connecticut. My husband and I normally made this trip together, but he passed unexpectedly, eleven weeks earlier. This was…