I started this blog one year ago today. In honor of my humble little anniversary, I propose a toast: To being utterly sincere. To being, rather than appearing. To pursuing what we really want, rather than goals that distract and protect from the pain of rejection. To walking in the fog for a bit, rather…… Continue reading One year

In Spinster, Kate Bolick references a 1950 New York Times article that describes “coolness” as “that perfect mastery (or numbness) of self that enables the ‘hipster,’ the cool cat, to listen to the loudest and most throbbing jazz without displaying the least sign of emotion.” I was so struck by this definition of coolness in light of recent…… Continue reading Through being cool

In May 2008, I put my furniture on a moving truck, loaded everything else in my car, hugged some friends goodbye, and drove from Atlanta to Maryland. It was two weeks after I graduated from college. I followed a guy there. Of course I did! I was as directionless as ever, fiercely un-independent, basing all…… Continue reading A trip back in time

A partial list of lessons and ongoing work: 1. Like most people I know, I was socialized into a competitive meritocracy. We are told we must make something of ourselves, make an impact, be successful. It’s been an endless race of competition, pressure, and achievement. There’s a million little ways to demonstrate your superiority, from…… Continue reading Ongoing

Do you have half an hour? Watch this: https://www.marieforleo.com/2017/09/brene-brown/ Brené’s work has constituted the core of my emotional, mental, social, and spiritual development in the past year.

Advice almost never works. The theory is that the advice giver knows what she would do in a given situation, knowing what she knows and based on the circumstances of her life, but we can’t ever fully know another person and what would be the right thing for him or her to do. In coaching,…… Continue reading What is a mistake?

I’ve started and discarded several posts since my last, finding it difficult to land on a focus. Current events, on a national and global scale, as well as the everyday events of my own life have me feeling scattered and stretched thin. Overall, I am good. I am healthy. I feel like most of my…… Continue reading Facing feelings

I had first day jitters this morning before I walked into my freshman comp class, but when I saw the fear in my students’ eyes and remembered that for most of them, my class was their first college class ever, I was able to relax and remind myself that it is my job to support…… Continue reading Support networks

A reminder to myself and anyone: “Half-opaque though we are to ourselves, we so readily presume to see the reality of another’s life on the basis of little more than fragmentary glimpses and biographical half-fictions.” –Maria Popova