The year I was 25 was my favorite year yet. It was the year I loosened my grip a little bit. The year I finally felt like I was on solid ground. The year I was 25, I lived in a little healing house with one of my best friends and the world’s best dog. We cooked dinner together, gave…
The year I was 24 began with brunch and ended with birthday cake in a bar. There was a lot of dancing and a lot of love, and it poured into the rest of my year. The year I was 24 was truly a year of realization. It was a year of fresh starts and new beginnings. Hellos and goodbyes.…
Sometimes love leaves and we don’t know why. We don’t get an explanation. We don’t get closure. We just have to move on. He felt like sunshine and electricity. I was hooked from the first kiss; making out in the parking garage entrance. Have you ever had someone push you against the wall of a glass elevator? One where everyone…
The year I was 23 was a climb. Endurance and strength. Remembering to stop, rest, breathe, and enjoy the view. I climbed with the safety of a rope, woven with the love, shared experience, and understanding of incredible friends and family. The year I was 23 started with a kiss… and oh what a foreshadow that was. Love, sex, and…
I walked in completely unassuming; it was just another Friday. And then, there he was, a mop of brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Our exchange was nothing more than a ‘Hello” but I was struck. By what, I didn’t know, but something in my soul stirred. This man was going to change my life, I could feel it, I…
I can’t lie, I’m a little disapointed that I only read 13 books in 2021. While non-fiction does slow me down a bit, I’m definitely going to make a conscious effort to read more in 2022! My favorite book that I read this year was Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Friends Saved my Life. I read it…
With September being Suicide Awareness Month, it seems like a fitting time to share my most vulnerable essay yet. Writing is a place where I don’t hide, it’s where I can be completely human. I think that sharing our stories is so powerful. It sheds light on the feelings and experiences we share. There is nothing worse than feeling alone…
The year I was twenty-two, started in the midst of a budding global pandemic. It was celebrated in a quite kitchen with tacos and wine on the roof. A quarantine night with my best friends was all I needed. A month and a half later, I left the sunset city that I’d spent four years learning, growing, and loving in.…
“It is when plans go ‘wrong’ that wonderful, unforeseen things are allowed to occur.” I’ve been living in Virginia for nine months now and that quote, a string of words I saw one day on Pinterest, is the best way I could describe my time here. The past nine months have been filled with so many unexpected, unforeseen, wonderful things.…
One year ago, around this very time, I thought to myself, at this time next year you’ll be doing something. You’ll know have your post-grad life figured out. For as long as I can remember, Christmas has been the marker in which I’ll know I’ll have my shit together. When I was 15, I got my first job working at…
Prior to college, I was an avid reader. I spent so much time at my local library growing up and I could often be found with my head buried in a fantasy or romance novel. I didn’t read much for fun during my first two-three years of college, maybe one or two books a year. I worked in a library…
One year ago, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3b breast cancer. It was October 19, 2019 that she called to tell me the news. I was shocked and devastated. I had accomplished something pretty big earlier that day and was getting a lot of congratulatory texts but, suddenly, none of that mattered. After my mom and I got off…
