This musing was originally published on the former Life and Other Stories blog on February 15, 2022. It's been updated and re-edited. _____ "You don't have a job either." The words stung. And the only reply that popped out of my mouth was, "But I have three kids, zero being teenagers. She has one sixteen year old." He nodded and said, ...

This musing was originally published on my former blog, Life and Other Stories, on March 2, 2022. ______ My kids had their Midwinter Break last week. It was an overly busy nine-day stretch of time off school that I’m still recovering from. And I’ve officially accepted that kids do grow up too fast. I didn’t mean to schedule everything ...

A photo from the courtyard of a gluten free bakery in Downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, taken during my trip in December 2021. The mattress was hard, the walls were paper-thin, and water poured from the tub faucet while it was positioned "off." I slept like garbage the whole trip, but when my kids said, “I miss you," I could only respo...

Photo by Danika Adderley "You seem like you're struggling more now than you ever did before," my husband, Brian, said last week while the kids were at school and we were hauling out their room. My knee-jerk response was, "Well, yeah — I just lost my dog, and life has gotten so much more complicated in the last decade." But it was more ...

Roxy, 2018. I remember being so annoyed when a friend referred to her dogs as her children years ago. You can’t leave babies at home all day while you go to work, I thought bitterly. I was really struggling then, trying to balance working my business with a preschooler, a toddler, and a new baby. Our pets had taken a back seat in our M...

Photo taken at the University of Washington campus by Brian T. Goff, March 2024. Content warning: Brief mention of self harm. I tell my husband it gets easier, but now I question if it actually does without the total betrayal of who we are neurologically and physiologically. Let me explain. My oldest daughter is Autistic (and now the y...

Seattle, misting at night. October 2021. I like the seasons here. Unlike the minimal change in Florida where you go from summers of torrential downpours and suffocating humidity to a point where you're drenched whether it's raining or not — like you step outside your air-conditioned home, right into a heated indoor swimming pool while ...

Friends (from left to right): Tracy, me (in heels – I'm not tall), my sister-in-law Sarah, and Mara, 2011 Throughout the pandemic lockdowns, I had two conflicting feelings happening at the same time: internal peace, and internal and external chaos. It took me a while to nail down why both, outside of the given: we live small with a fam...

Pacific Place Mall (Olive Way entrance), Seattle, 2021. Just when I take a break because things are "too much" and I need some time to process everything, more happens.... But I'm alive, and my children successfully and safely returned to in-person school on the first. And now I'm giving myself time to process things. Over my break, I ...

Photo by Kat Smith I disappeared again. I have no excuse other than some health issues landed me with a total loss of concentration. What started as a "I won't write during vacation week" turned into a three-week ordeal of me battling with myself to even journal half a page daily, which rarely happened. I'll be straight with you: thing...

A photo of my kids walking through Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, 2021. There's so much going on right now, I feel at a loss for words. I've been processing or working on each thing separately, and I've yet to bring it all together. I've started several different musings about each thing, but I think in keeping them apart, it's ma...

A photo of my workstation in February, 2021. I was ecstatic. I've had this novel idea floating around in my head for nearly three years. I'd contribute a scene to an index card here and there, and just go about life. Then, struck with this lightning-bolt of inspiration, I decided to start writing out the scope of the story. I told my h...

Me, my sister-in-law Sarah, and Anjali at dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, FlintCreek in Seattle, 2018. "We should get together soon." Words I've yearned to hear yet simultaneously dread. I've grown accustomed to this antisocial lifestyle. I've desperately wanted more time to write, but the idea of going back to the way things...

Photo by cottonbro studio I. She fidgeted in her chair beside my hospital bed. She would go between reading her romance novel, setting it down, then out for a cigarette. Then pacing the room. Reading. Then out for another smoke. I couldn’t talk. I had a tube down my nose, dry-scraping my esophagus with every micro-movement; pumping bil...