A Full Life

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Tag: recovery

  • This Above All

    On the micro level I would consider myself prone to existentialism in that my daily life is often wrought with anxiety, a struggle to reconcile the suffering of humanity – the apparent meaninglessness of such suffering and the proceeding determination that there may be no divine order – and that it is my responsibility alone…

  • West Lands

    When I sit down to write fictional stories, the setting is always the same, and the setting is way out west in California. I don’t know other places well enough, and even if I grow to, which I might now that I live in the Midwest, my bones quite literally grew to their capacity in…

  • Mother Shower

    I had a dream the other night about a brand-new mother in some nebulous ancient culture being showered with immense love, affection, celebration, and tender care. Flowered garlands and feet massaged in oil abounded. Certainly, attention was also paid to the small child, but much of the community in this dream was tending to the…

  • And I Will Tell About It

    What do we share when we stop hiding ourselves away? This is, of course, the internet, social media, the shame over guilt culture of appearance and perfection, and in these realms we skirt the truth, muddy it up, maybe forgo it all together. What happens when we decide, I’m going to share it? We’re free.…

  • Sacred

    The little baby boy still growing strong in my belly is due to greet the world in exactly eleven days. He’s kicking me in the ribs as we speak. He might come tonight. Or next weekend. Or in two weeks. (I’m predicting June 8th.) I conceived this child in the middle of September 2017, found…

  • Eighteen

    fiction short The other girls are smarter. Did you hear that one go on and on about Prufrock? You didn’t get any of that from reading the poem. (You set it down every other line to take a hit, yes, but you still read it, and you still turned in a fine essay. The professor…

  • How to move to a new city, get pregnant, get married, and not take Valium

    Imagine you meet a man (or woman) who you know you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with, (and how do you know this? Well, you don’t entirely, but you just sort of feel it, you know you can tell this person the truth and look ugly in front of him and even…

  • Widening Rings

    When you first start feeling less afraid, you want someone to pinch you. Is this real? And do I deserve it? After the exhaustive stretch of hyper-vigilance and over the shoulder gazing, of expecting lurking danger at every turn, the realm of trust and serene neutrality can feel like a trick. Sleight of hand only,…

  • the story and The Story 

    Long before I set out on a spiritual path of recovery, I felt some sort of kinship with some great beyond. Even as a child who had little interest in Sunday school and no discernible relationship with God in a religious sense, I prayed all the time. I prayed out loud before I went to bed…

  • When the Rug is Pulled: Humility, Identity, and Other Such Things

    When I first began my teaching career in 2011, I prided myself on two things: my ability to connect with students and my classroom management. I wasn’t always the best lesson planner or designer of rubrics, and I certainly wasn’t always fired up about professional development and the state of education, but I could create…