Writing

The urgent thing was my life was actually falling apart in real, tangible and dangerous ways. But the more convincing thing was my heart’s withering cry; a knowing that it would actually be more painful to live and not wake up.

Last week I gave notice at my job. This May would have marked three years there—my title is Vice President, Marketing. Which means nothing except perhaps that I’ve put a lot of energy into work for fifteen years, the entirety of my “career.”

My question is about being public in your writing about your struggles with addiction and getting/being sober. Do you worry about your daughter being affected socially by your being “out” as a sober alcoholic?

I'm one of those annoying people who never shuts up about books. And it's not because I've read so much (I haven't, relatively) but because words are my primary map for life. There are hundreds of books that made a mark on me, but the ones on this list are those I return to again and again and recom

I’d hear the words tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth like a drumbeat in my heart—a prayer, an encouragement, a promise—that if I could find a way to do it, I would be forgiven and free. But I couldn’t find any version of the truth that didn’t make me a monster. I searched, even prayed for “good enough” reasons to leave: lies, a big betrayal, hidden addictions, a mortal flaw in him or our relationship, but never found anything but my solid, kind, just-as-promised man.

I'm interrupting my brief writing hiatus to put down a few things I know today, my 38th birthday. It has been a year, lovelies. A big, beautiful, transformative, burn-to-the-ground-and-build-it-back-up kind of year. I'm sitting here at the kitchen table in my dad's house in Colorado, 4:13 am. I'm tired from a bad night's sleep, but the coffee is hot and the candle burning smells like orange and cinnamon and the sky is dark and cool. The picture above is just before publishing this. Yes, I have fabulous morning hair and a few of them are grey.

I was driving my daughter to school earlier this week and absentmindedly reached for my chapstick in the console. I took off the top and as I went to put it on, a few pieces of something poked my lips. I drew it back to investigate, annoyed. Probably my daughter had stuck something in it to be funny. Maybe I’d dropped it in the sand? I turned the tube around, brought it closer, studied it. Oh.