May is ALS awareness month, and I’d like to write about how ALS has affected one of my best friends and her family. I met my friend at my first job out of college. We’ve been friends for four years, and she has been one of the best friends I’ve ever had (I’ve written about …
Sight and readiness
How about a light-hearted post today? My family has the worst eyesight known to man. I’m pretty sure all four of my grandparents wore glasses, and both my parents wear them. My dad’s eyesight was so bad, he had to wear hard contacts. Then he got cataracts, had surgery, and now he doesn’t need contacts. …
Rest: A poem
The other night I felt like writing, but I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Instead of writing on my computer, I hand wrote a stream-of-consciousness poem that’s pretty morbid. It’s raw, but I want to share it because some of my feelings might be relatable. Sleep, is there no rest? Tired all the …
Ray
Right before starting my freshman year of college, a close family friend passed away from lung cancer. The night I found out, I did not sleep at all. I went over 80 hours without sleep that week. I was diagnosed as bipolar shortly thereafter. Ray was like a grandfather to me and my siblings. We …
Faith and doubt
I began writing this post because of a prompt from one of my friends who asked if I’ve written anything about faith and mental illness. I wanted this post to go a certain direction, but as is often the case, the original idea morphed into a totally different beast. This is another post I’ve been …
A book that inspires me
Several months after my psychotic break and after I had begun to accept my diagnosis, I went to Barnes & Noble with my dad. He’s always enjoyed going to the psychology section, and I tagged along. I found a memoir called Manic written by Terri Cheney (you can buy it on Amazon here). The cover and …
Dear me at 16
Thanks to a prompt from a trusty random subject generator, I’ve decided to write a letter to my 16-year-old self. Let’s see what happens. I’ve been wrestling with this post for the better part of a week, and I just cannot get it going. So, I’m going to try to write it in stream-of-consciousness. Just …
A Christmas Story
Last year, a group of women from my church started getting together once a month at one of the minister’s houses for dinner. For Christmas, they organized an ornament exchange. They decided to do it Dirty Santa style. For Dirty Santa, someone writes numbers on scraps of paper corresponding to how many people are playing. …
Words of affirmation
I’ve been trying to write at least 1,500 words every day, and I’ve reached that goal most days the past two weeks. Sometimes I have evening plans that keep me from writing, but for the most part, I’ve been writing a little every day. I feel like I’ve fallen back in love with writing, I …
Love language: Quality time
Quality time is my primarily love language, which means I love spending time with the people I love. I do not care what the quality time looks like; I just want to be with the other person. In college, I was really good friends with a girl who ran cross country and track, and who also …
Between Two Poles 