HUMANS 101

Two weeks ago, I was kneeling to pull up ivy in the backyard with my sweetie, and when I stood up, I didn’t feel real anymore.

I don’t really know how else to describe it.

I wrapped my right hand around my left wrist, trying to feel real again, but it didn’t do much. I felt like I was disintegrating into particles of light but not in a fun, hot spiritual sense.

Jason could tell something was wrong with me immediately. “What year is it?” he asked. “Which way is north?” He did a silly monkey dance to get me…

THIS IS US

The first playdate was the product of an infant/toddler reading hour at my local library in the fall of 2002. I’d been freshly laid off from a dot-com job that had consumed me. My daughter Ana was 18 months old.

I’d been adrift, aimless, caught in the purgatory between unemployment and whatever came next. Suddenly I was in the company of a toddler all day, every day.

And so I found myself in the library at 11 a.m. …

Lived Through This

Everything is going to be okay.

We whisper it to our children when they skin their knees or have a fight with a friend. We proclaim it to those who have lost their job, their partner, their health. We post it on Instagram, showcasing our optimism. We repeat it like a mantra to ease our own anxiety.

Everything is going to be okay.

We assert it to bolster our conviction that the pain is temporary or even inflated. …

Humans 101

Do you remember that time something on your bike was broken, so the mudguard rubbed against the tire, creating a consistent and terribly obnoxious grinding noise whenever you pedaled? And then you thought, “Hey, I should fix this.” But then you thought, “Hey, I don’t know how to fix this.” And then you didn’t think about it anymore because you were preoccupied with life. Then you got back on your bike, and not only was it still making the grinding sound, but now it was impossible to shove backward, and the light fell off because the wire had been sanded…

This Is Us

I have a new therapist.

I liked her the first day because she was kind and a little bit older and not a totally silent human being, which is something I look for in a therapist (and is not a given). The second session we got into a small fight, and the third one was fine but imperfect, so the jury is out. In general, it takes me about six sessions with a therapist to warm to them, to click into the thing they have to teach me.

I’ve had a lot of therapists, and some aren’t even memorable. My…

Lived Through This

In Chicago, on a May morning so bright it teased tulip heads from their sleep, I nearly killed a man I’d never met.

I had just dropped off my daughters at school and was headed to work. I turned off the radio, unable to focus on it anyway. Even though I functioned and appeared fine on the surface, the combination of a new divorce, a new boyfriend, and my children’s emotional needs had turned my brain into a tangled mess of anxiety and grief that needed a daily combing out.

So, on that short little car trip, I did what…

This Is Us

Over the winter, I got the urge to travel to my hometown, Pittsburgh. If you’re familiar with my writing, you know I have a love-hate relationship with that place. Two things bring me back home: holidays and funerals. But this time, neither was the reason for my trip. Before shutdown began, I was battling what I thought was depression.

I was preoccupied with the passing of my parents, who I could still pick up a phone and call. I began to obsess over the pain of their passing, almost to the extent that I could already feel it. I would…