New Horizons

I once knew a girl who was free. She wasn’t weighed down by worry or shame, and she got lost in adventures led by her fearless feet. Occasional scrapes and snags were part of the passion. Mending her wings seemed to require just a little rest, and then she’d fly off again. I long for…

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Counting Steps on the Cliff

The sun dances across my lap. The old Honda’s engine revs and releases around the curves of Lake Crescent. Turquoise waters on my right shimmer clearly against the evergreens next to its shore. I count the logs cast aside into the lake’s bottomless waters. Just past the upcoming campground we will take a hard right…

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Love Covers

I stood in the spotlight, strumming the first four chords I’d ever learned on guitar over and over and over again. I couldn’t remember the first note of the song. I’d been playing guitar for over ten years, having played in front of people hundreds of times. A minute went by. Another minute passed and no notes came. One…

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It Began With A Shooting Star

Encased in mummy bags borrowed from our host, we lay side-by-side beneath the stars. Nine teenagers, journeying across the U.S. to various Colorado camps, adventuring to the tutelage of a wanderlust trio: our chaperone and her twin girls. This trio enveloped us with their memories of this wild landscape, eager for us to experience epic…

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The Storm Will Pass

My past birthdays have not always been the most memorable days for me to look back on with fondness. Each year creates space for my heart to sit in ambivalence. My deepest longings and timid expectations jumble into a complicated pinata-sized package waiting for my colorful bat of fears and insecurities to start swinging. I…

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No Labels at Our Table

Released into the sunshine to work in pairs, we were grateful to leave the small confines of the conference room that held 10 therapists for an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprossessing (EMDR) training. Our exercise was to identify a lie we believed and think of resources that could be internalized to counteract that as part…

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