Some things can’t be kept at bay with meditation and good sleep habits. Some heart months last for years. It comes every winter in a flurry of hearts, red ribbons, exclamation points, and drags behind it a trail of admonishments about vegetables and brisk walks. There are national retailers selling shirts with catchy slogans and inevitable […]
Chronic illness and injury has taught me—is still teaching me—patience. These days are not a consolation prize for what I didn’t win, for where I didn’t or couldn’t succeed, for a better life I might have had if only…They are my life. “Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?” Erik asked as we […]
“Cancer patients are expected to be poster children of a movement, meant to reassure the masses that this plague, and even imminent death, can be overcome with positive affirmations and attitude adjustments.” As if anyone needed reminding, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the pink is out in full force, Pepto Bismaling the world […]
As I was appreciating my hair and my boobs that morning, I was also thinking about how little we can ask from the universe. Pretty much just this—to be kept whole. On the morning of my 39th birthday, I was grateful for two things: my hair and my boobs. There were other things too, of […]
Even when girls and women say, out loud, that they are experiencing pain, people, including medical professionals, are more likely to minimize or dismiss what they say. I had a headache that lasted for years. It was there when I woke up and there when I went to sleep. I got so used to it […]
My husband hates talking about death, but I bring it up frequently. I hate keeping it as a shadow that follows us on sunny days. I want it out in the open. I want to take some of the darkness out of it. I am in the middle of my second breast cancer scare. Last […]
While my college and grad school friends tried to get pieces published and establish their careers, I played with my IV lines idly and watched the faces of the other women as they had mini consultations with our doctor. I was 23, and a newly minted Master of Fine Arts, when I left my family […]
It wasn’t until after I became a mother at age 34 that I began to understand where terms like “Mommy’s little helper” and “Mommy juice” came from. With alcoholism and addiction strong in my family line, I grew up with a deep anxiety that someday this condition might wake up inside me, too. Never able […]
