A Full Life

writings

recent posts

about

Tag: recovery

  • The Through Line

    “The stable solution is the individual who tells the truth.” Like any relatively young person stumbling along and thirsting to learn, there is plenty that I don’t know and understand. Because I tend to write so personally and from direct experience, much of what I state on here vacillates and changes. As I have grown up…

  • Unmapped

    Unmapped

    “When you’re getting better, it’s a jagged line.” -Jenny Lewis Maybe it’s just what happens in your mid twenties, but shit, I highly doubt it – there was this black jumprope I had tangled up with the wires of an old Nintendo 64 shoved deep into my closet, and for a year I imagined it…

  • The Loss of Anger

    “I never get angry. I grow a tumor instead.” -Woody Allen As a child in the nineties, I idolized women who were angry and restless and lived to write and sing their fury. Fiona Apple, Gwen Stefani, Erykah Badu, Alanis Morrissette, Lauryn Hill, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Shirley Manson – even Madonna (before she became an enlightened…

  • Disarm

    Dian Fossey, famous zoologist and anthropologist, who spent an extensive amount of time studying gorillas in their natural habitat, came to understand that the best way to approach the magnificent creatures was without weapons of any kind. It was a daring undertaking – gorillas are potentially dangerous; no doubt their strength and size could cause…

  • Another, 1

    “In each of us there is another whom we do not know.” Carl Jung You must write every day to save your life. if you do not, your mind will get the best of you. You will think these dark thoughts. You will fall into such despair. You will give up. You are not an…

  • Savor It All

    “Savoring” is trending right now as part of mindfulness work, meaning that if we can spend just a few more seconds each day really taking in and delighting in that which is pleasant – the sun on our face, laughing with a friend, a delicious meal – we are increasing our ability to feel joy and…

  • New

    When I was seventeen, I got black out drunk on New Years Eve and found myself in a precarious sexual encounter with a man who I thought was my friend. I went numb after. It was 2003. Endless tequila shots by the wet bar before the party, to steady the nerves. I was toast.  My life…

  • The Highest Value

    I’ve been thinking quite a bit about values lately and what matters most to me deep in my guts. What am I on this earth for? What is actually important? How meaningful are the things that sometimes seem worthwhile but that tend to cause suffering? Some people put values into the context of, what do we worship?…

  • Cool Shoes

    Sometimes all it takes is a pair of shoes to shift everything. In fifth grade, my supremely cool step-mom took me to see Clueless and then proceeded to whirlwind me around Westside Pavilion on a shopping spree to mimic the far out fashion of the film. We’re talking plaid skirts and knee high socks, patent leather…

  • Rebel With a Cause

    My first rebellion was at fourteen, and it was all about sneaking out and getting transformationally high. I wasn’t trying so much to be a bad girl (no weird piercings and black lipstick for me, and barely even a fuck you to my folks) as I was trying to connect and feel at one with the…