Editor’s note: I wrote but never published this in late January 2021, just a few weeks after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and about two years into going low contact with my parents and no contact with my sister. It has taken three years, but I finally feel ready to share it. — Lindsey On Jan. 6, I was in a video conference call for work when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.…
I have had a flicker of a hankering to write lately, and I keep coming back to this space (which I have kept locked up off an on for the past few months) and wondering what we are going to do with this blog, which is nearly 20 years old. TWENTY YEARS OLD. I’m sitting in a Mt. Juliet coffee shop right now writing a post for a blog that is older than the person…
It’s been quite a while since I posted here but I have been busy, very busy. In fact, I am doing something very big. Check it out.
Without any prompting, ask your child these questions and write down EXACTLY what they say. Holden, 9 years old: 1. What is something mom always says to you? I love you. 2. What makes mom happy? Being kind and respectful. 3. What makes mom sad? Her child getting injured. 4. How does your mom make you laugh? When she says “bonk.” 5. What was your mom like as a child? Cautious. 6. How old is your mom? 39. 7. How…
• The algorithms don’t know what to think. It takes them a while to catch on when you’re newly pregnant and start serving you ads for maternity clothes, but then when your web searches turn darker and more desperate, the algorithms get confused and serve you ads for baby stuff and period panties at the same time. Your feed gets really weird for a few days as the bots try to suss out what you…
I’m writing this from the top of a ridge near Soddy-Daisy, where I am seeking refuge for a few days in an apartment atop a family’s carport. (Say what you will about AirBnb, but it may have saved my sanity this weekend.) I’ve been in the shit lately, with the miscarriage and the pain stuff and the surgery, of course, but also with just normal life in a pandemic — the working remotely and the…
I scheduled surgery for Election Day partly to be funny (“wake me up when it’s over, haw haw”) but mostly because it was the earliest they could see me to remove the 7-centimeter endometrioma that had invaded my one remaining ovary. The surgery went well (as far as I know) and the doctor was able to preserve the ovary, which is very good news. He reported back to Richard (while I was still conked out)…
If I were to give the Universe’s writers’ room a note on this season of the show called My Life, it might say, simply: This feels like a bit much. Why force her to go through the emotional roller coaster of a miscarriage in order to discover the cyst? Seems overly cruel and unrealistic. Maybe save the miscarriage for another season. Don’t burn all your plot points at once. But the writers are the pros,…
Content warning: Graphic descriptions of pregnancy loss We’re looking at a scabby, reddened wound on our dog Sarge’s side — a bite mark from some other moody dog at the park. It’s held together by two small silver staples. Richard looks at it under the light of his cell phone and pronounces that it is healing acceptably. “Injuries heal from the inside out,” he says. “Not from the outside in.” The dog seems fine, as…
It wasn’t temporary; it drags on and on; it may never end; oh godddd. How could we have known in March that America wouldn’t have the capacity to put its big-kid britches on and end this shit? (Okay, yeah, now that I’ve typed it out, I see it. We were doomed from the start.) It’s been a dark summer. The novelty of being stuck at home wore off in June but at least it was…
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