For the third year in a row, I am participating in #MWE, an exercise where you listen to one new-to-you album every day in the month of February and then write one tweet about it. I’ve found some new albums and artists to love the past two years and I’m…

I am a writer. Or, am I? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know the rules about calling yourself a writer, and my confusion is made worse by people who put restrictions on what it takes to call yourself a writer. Do you do it full time? Do you do…

Gratitude normally comes easy. You can sit down and tick off a list of things you’re thankful for in under a minute. Family, friends, life. But what happens when “normally” is non existent and you’re not seeing your family or friends and life is just harrowing? We might have to…

Anxiety and depression are lonely afflictions. You often feel like no one understands you, that you are alone in how you feel and act on a daily basis, that the world does not want to hear about your despair. Maybe you go to therapy, maybe you write in a journal…

Do for yourself, people tell me. Treat yourself well. Indulge every once in a while. I have tried to take this advice most of my adult life, but never could really muster what I needed to splurge on myself. Oh, I love spending money. I love buying things. But I…

My family hates watching Jeopardy! with me because of my tendency to blurt out the answers before Alex Trebek finished reading what was on the board. My mother would remind me that Alex would chastise me for this; but I was in the comfort of home and not in the…

My therapist is really fond of trying to get me to not worry about things I can’t control. I laugh sometimes because the entire foundation of my anxiety disorder rests on me worrying about things I can’t control. Death, the weather, car accidents — things that are out of my…

I was maybe ten, standing in the parking lot of a hospital with my cousins, waving to my aunt who was on the fifth floor supposedly waving back to us. I couldn’t see her. They didn’t let children into hospitals then, so we stood outside hoping to catch a glimpse…

the divorce of things It was 2010 or so, a warm summer day, when an internet friend from a few states away backed into my driveway with her pickup. We loaded the cargo into the truck bed and when she pulled away, headed home with hundreds of my CDs, I…