I had a sex dream last night.
It was the first I’d experienced in well over a year. I awoke with relief, and an odd sense of pride.
I honestly had wondered if the part of me that is sensual had left me. Certainly I’ve neglected her this past year.
Each of us has a fallow season. I can type that. I can honor that. I guess I’ve been fearing it also, that it might extend throughout my days.
The playing field is shifting on the pandemic. A vaccine is not a wish— it’s a reality. The weather is warming…
Please forgive the title. I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also a single lady endeavoring survival during a pandemic. This involves a nearly unforgivable level of introspection. This latest journey was invoked by a Facebook memory about a piece of art.
This is Ynon Mabat’s Psalm 131:
“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul.” — Psalm 131
I bought it after I (finally) ended a rather tumultuous relationship. I was feeling immensely broken. Alone. Scared. …
Do the holidays find you melancholy? Joyful? Yes? For me they are always a bittersweet affair.
A holiday with a family of two can sometimes feel very small.
My daughter is now 17. I have been her sole parent since she was 4. I don’t have a close, supportive family who are in our daily lives. We lost her father’s side of the equation to the unimaginable. We are an island. A lovely one. But an island.
I love our traditions we’ve crafted, the home we’ve made, and the hard-earned peace of my now. But. I would be lying if…
It’s the first Sunday of Advent.
In thousands of churches, a purple candle will be lit today, representing prophecy. This is a time when Christians look forward to the coming of Jesus.
The candle represents Hope.
During the pandemic, I have had countless people reach out to me from every era of my life. At first, I thought it was simply loneliness and would-be flames swinging for the fences.
If there’s a man from my past getting divorced, I’m the gal he’s calling. Like I’ve been sitting on a shelf just waiting for the opportunity to be his. I’ve had…
I haven’t written in months. Writing, at least for me, can be a lot like that first gynecologist appointment where I was encouraged to hold a mirror down there.
Enlightening. Terrifying. Fascinating. Myth-busting. Real.
It’s not a flower, people. It’s a mouth. And it’s hungry.
As is this writer.
After a period of too much binged television, a handful of 2000 piece puzzle assemblages and baking every recipe on my Pinterest board (I’m a modern-day Rapunzel), I’m ready to hold up the mirror of truth once more to my life.
I started this blog just a blinked eye before life…
I dread Father’s Day.
You see, I’m a single mother who has full-time custody of her child. My mini has not been alone with her father since she was 4. There are very good reasons for this.
After more than a decade of court supervision, state agency interventions, therapists, supervised visitation and exploratory endoscopes to track how acid from stress was destroying her body, I am the proud owner of a piece of paper that proclaims me the parent to this beautiful soul.
My child does not miss her father. She has not wanted him in her life since she…
I recently read that we spend nearly half of our time thinking of the future or past. The present often fails to hold our focus.
I have rooms within my memories of past relationships that are coated in dust and cobweb-ridden. Tarnished from lack of mental caress. Sepia-toned memories that I do not miss and never intentionally visit.
And then there are my memories of John. Those rooms have floorboards worn smooth from my frequent visits. There are fresh flowers in the vases and dust motes in the sun beams lighting up even the corners of these rooms. …
Listen — I never claimed to be a social psychologist, although I am a Brené Brown devotee.
That said, I have dated a wide range of gentlemen. An astronomy professor. A bartender. A Ux expert. A farmer. An architect. A chef. A cyber-security compliance guy. A professional bull rider. An underwriter. I’ve been divorced since 2007. My dating history could round out a high school counselor’s list of potential careers.
I’ve always prided myself that I never excluded the possibility of love based upon someone’s vocation or salary.
I make a solid wage. I live within my means. I do…
I spent last night watching the few episodes of The West Wing with Richard Schiff, thanks to #watchingwithrichard trending on Twitter.
It was perhaps the best date of my life.
Before social distancing hit, my own (dating) social distancing had been happening on and off for years. I’ve been hot and cold with dating for over a decade, really. It is seldom that I hit a “just right” Goldilocks era and am able to quest through the reality of the dating landscape delighting in the process without taking an emotional hit.
Mostly I’m either all in — actively seeking love…
I started my day with coffee, poetry and sunlight. The requirement of isolation begins invisibly each day. My morning rituals have always been solitary.
Some days, it remains unfelt. Others, it builds from a whispered dissatisfaction that feels like a shirt too tight across the shoulders to the humming buzz of amplified tinnitus, as though my thoughts were too expansive to stay in my head. As though they craved freedom also, but were caged within me.
I love Rudy Francisco. He speaks directly to my heart with each line he crafts. Today, I needed this. …
Single 40-something mama speaking truth to modern dating. @mamaluscious