My reflection on putting down the confidence I borrowed and learning to belong as myself. When I was younger, I needed a crutch. No, I didn’t break my leg. It started when I was eighteen. I’d started dating someone older than me, and most of my friends had gone off to college while I remained a hometown girl. He would take me to these very large parties where I didn’t know a soul, yet everyone else seemed to have come out of the womb together. They’d known each other their en

A reflection on how motherhood and illness dismantled everything I thought I knew about strength—and taught me what it really means to be strong. Trigger warning: This post explores religion & faith, illness, medical experiences, and the emotions that can come with both. This may not be suitable for all readers. I remember the stucco tiles on the hospital ceiling the day the oldest version of me died. The version of me who didn’t have a concept of time, forgave easy, laughed

Becoming a mom changed the way I think about work, balance, and what a successful career is supposed to look like. I’ve tried a few different things when it comes to building a career after having a kid. I tried going back to work full-time for six months. I tried a part-time job and stayed home with my son on the other days. Then I tried full-time again and eventually realized that five days wasn’t working well for my family or my health. Still figuring that one out. When I

I promise to talk to my son about consent. I will try my very best to raise a man who respects it and who is willing to speak up when others don’t. I’m sorry that our girls still live in a world where they learn to be afraid. Where they’re given checklists for making nights out, dates and everyday experiences safer. And I’ll remember how I felt as a teenager. The time I trusted a boy with private photos of me, and he decided to send them to his entire hockey team. Eventually,

Some thoughts on forgiveness, reconciliation, and learning that healing doesn’t mean never feeling angry again. If you asked five people, “What does it mean to forgive?” I bet you’d get five different answers. I’ve asked myself this question many times. I’ve asked other people, too. For a long time, I thought forgiveness meant letting go. Letting go of the anger. Letting go of the hurt. Letting go of whatever happened and somehow reaching a place where it no longer bothered m

On making friends as a mom, letting go of the village I imagined, and learning that friendship can take many different forms. I’ve found there are a lot of phases to friendship as a mom. When I was pregnant, I mostly had the same friends I’d always had around. After my son was born, though, time changed. I wasn’t able to keep up with my long-distance friends in the same way. For the first year of my son’s life, I went to mom-and-baby groups. I actually felt more social than I

They said when our eyes first met I’d fall completely in love. When I looked at you I felt a love I hadn’t known before. I didn’t feel euphoric like they made it out to be. I felt curious and protective of my new baby. What they didn’t say was that the love would take on new forms. Each day it would grow just like the baby the love would hold. I was scared of myself as a brand new mom. Because I didn’t feel the ways they said I would I thought I was doi

A poem about the anger that protects our pain. Why is your anger being so loud anyway? Maybe, it’s shouting becauseevery dismissal taught meto speak a little louder. Every time I abandoned myself to keep the peace, something inside me learned that gentleness wasn't being heard. The anger arrived because they challenged my softness. The only thing that silenced the anger was realizing I didn’t need to be understood. I could let the crows keep cawing. Because a butterfly doesn’

A poem about why it’s so hard to land after you’ve already crashed. They tell me I circle like a chopper that I never fully land they ask me if I know how nice it would feel to let my skids hit the ground. I ask them if they know what it’s like to fly? Have they felt the rushof going full speed? Do they know what it’s like trying not to hit the trees? Have they actually hit one I’d ask. Have they felt the force of crashing looked up at the ruins inhaled so much smoke they cou

I opened
 Pandora's box "close the
 lid," my brain yelled to my hands. My hands tried to press
down on
the lid. The contents of the box
 flew out. My hands
 lifted, causing
 my head to look up. I'd been looking
 at the box
 for so long,
 I forgot
 to look around. When I finally
 looked up at the contents of the box floating
 through the air, I felt overwhelmed. until each piece found somewhere to land. There's no box anymore. no lid
 to keep closed. Just my thoughts flying ev

A poem about making room for the people and places that feel like home. I think it just comes down to how you want to spend your time. I don’t close the door on anyone to be rude. I open new doors that lead me into rooms where I am free to be me. Where I can laugh from my belly instead of smiling from my eyes. Where I can shed real tears over some of life’s fears. Where I can say the wrong thing and be given the chance to get it right. When I’m asked how I want to spend my on

A poem about the grit we gain from what we survive. Grain after grain the sand sprinkled over me. I watched as it was blended with the white sand that wasn’t mine. For sand is to conform to a certain shade in this pit. My sand was tainted it had been through some shit. While my sand no longer sparkled it had lots of grit. I decided that white sand was blinding it didn’t hold my truth. The further I dug in white sand, the more it all came loose. I’m proud of my tainted sand th

You’re like a stallion beautiful to look at, but impossible to tame. You poke your head around the corner from time to time, but you don’t run alongside the herd. A stallion doesn’t get confined to a barn — it would break down all the walls. While part of me wishes it could be free like the stallion, something in me always pulls toward the herd. My heart has often longed for the stallion to join the herd yet I know these fields aren’t wide enough so I let the stallion go.

My grief and I sat in a room and had tea. My anger poured us a brew from the lotus flower. Grief and I drank it we started to feel like we were stuck there forever. I asked anger what other brews we had anger stomped off. I guess it didn’t want me to feel any different. I realized it would probably always be my grief and me. Grief was the only thing that never stomped out of the room when things got hard. I sat across grief and I asked it, why are you still here ? Grief s

Why don’t you move off that log, snail? because I’m stuck, the snail said you’re not stuck, snail you just believe that you are. The snail moved forward, but it was slow can’t you move any faster, snail? asked the fox. No, said the snail I only know one speed. See, I tried to move faster once, and that’s how I got stuck here on this log. The fox snickered I can run so much faster than you, snail. You’re right, said the snail the fox ran so fast it believed it didn’t need hea

Even in the darkest storms, your light shone bright No matter how many times I tried to hide, you found me. You never tried to fix the soul you tried to move the clouds covering it instead. You knew—It wasn’t the soul that needed fixing it was the conditions that needed settling. You also knew while every storm passes, trees fall along the way. You didn’t tell me to wait for the storm to blow over. You told me to start planting new seeds. You will always be one of the

Who knew the strongest opponent was you? that the deepest strike came from your own knife? That the highest tide rose from your own ocean, where you bled into your own sea. That you’d need to learn how to calm your own waves, clear the sea of your own garbage, let go of the things you mistook for gold. That you’d have to learn new currents, marking rocks to guide the boats passing through. But you’re a strong swimmer you rose through the waves and found harmony within your ow

They handed me you and I thought I knew because you were something I grew. Turns out, I didn’t know you at all. I thought I was your teacher you became mine too. Just look at how much we’ve both grown through. Your smile stretches something wide in me. But your tears they wake fears I can’t ignore. I thought I knew anger I didn’t not until I knew what I would give up to protect you. If it meant sparing you even a moment of pain, I would take every ounce of it even the shame.

A poem about making room for yourself within motherhood. A good mother is a martyr she learns not to feel the thorns as they cut her. So, on the outside, she is a rose a beautiful picture of what it means to love unconditionally. I became a martyr until the sacrifice was myself. I'd catch glimpses in the mirror, but I wasn't in it. I saw tired eyes fear, shame and someone I barely recognized. I had shrunken beneath the weight of society’s advice. I had to step back so I could