Playing life is not fun With a shadow for a father. The only time I see the real form Is when he weeps Or verbally punches me Or rages And sometimes when he is having non-manipulating fun.
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All articles filed in relationships
Fault Lines
I think each person has a fault line. A crack-line under the skin. Maybe you remember the day it appeared to you, and it became visible to others. Perhaps it shows itself after an unexpected event. Like a death. Or a diagnosis, for example. I observe your eyes glossing over when I try to explain…
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Raising A Priest: My Son And Choosing Faith
It’s Fall. I’ve been reluctant to completely close my bedroom window, clinging to the birds’ chirps, and cold gusts of air. The fresh air wakes me and I pause before getting out of bed. I often encounter resistance to opening my door in the morning, wondering what I have to offer my children who are…
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Imagine Being Enough
It has been three years since she left. The missing of her grows like sprawling crabgrass over my tender lawn. I long to hear her voice and see the sparkle of life in her brown eyes. Eyes that saw me. She would have delighted in the things that have happened since she’s been gone. I…
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What If I Don’t Understand
Growing up, our family of four did life with many other families of four. Each relationship held unique traits, and yet a few core identifiers overlapped. There was a dad, a mom, a daughter, and a son. One family in particular stood outside of the predictable family dynamic: they had a son with a genetic…
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Rupture. Release. Beauty
I’m getting divorced. Three simple words. Three simple words that don’t convey the pain and messiness of this season. Three simple words that don’t feel real. Three simple words that represent an impossibly complicated emotional state of being.
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Messy But Beautiful
When my husband told me that our sixteen year old had come out to him as transgender, I laughed. I thought it was some weird joke I didn’t understand. John may as well have said Sam was on a spaceship headed toward Jupiter. I was shocked and confused; it made no sense to me. “Bring…
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Transitions are…
With one hand I hold tightly to my husband, in desperate need of his support, and with the other I push him away. It’s confusing and frustrating, but this is how the young and scared part of me struggles for control and acts out in fear. My mature and wise adult self knows better. I have…
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Just Like That
“The days are long, but the years are short.” Gretchen Rubin “And just like that, my youngest is a senior…”My friend’s words, appearing on my laptop screen, snap me out of my social medial reverie. My youngest is a senior too…just like that. I glance toward his bedroom door, and I feel that if I…
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Middle Age
The scent of my mother’s Clairol Nice and Easy solution in Medium Warm Brown wafts through our kitchen. I sit at our cherry wood table staring at my Algebra textbook. She unwraps the cellophane from her head and cranes her neck under the kitchen faucet to rinse. “It always starts out a little dark,” she says…
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