Learning to Live

Like most people, I went into 2018 with a lot of goals. The biggest one was to write more, but the thing about writing is that it can sometimes be scary. Taking my thoughts and feelings out of my brains and putting them on paper makes them real, and sometimes I try to avoid that. This avoidance led to a whole lot of reading. What better way to avoid writing about myself than by reading about others?! I did continue my tradition of documenting these books with writing down memorable quotes and I used these to define my 2018. "Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you." - Celeste Ng in Little Fires Everywhere 2018 was a good reminder that it's easier to forgive people than to hold on to the mistakes that they have made. I don't have the time or the energy to be angry with others for something that they may have done to hurt me, so I forgive them and take a lot of comfort in...

Last August I opened up to social media about something that I had been dealing with for a long time. It has been a little over a year since I came to the realization that I needed to make a decision to get help and within that year I realized the true power of our decisions. For a long time I was terrified of making decisions because I was always scared that I would make the wrong one, but as I have gotten older, I realized that the truth lies at the heart of every decisions. That truth is the life that we want for ourselves. This year I was fortunate enough to travel to a lot of beautiful places with some of my favorite people. That is mostly because at the beginning of 2018 I made a list of places I would go and I made it happen. Simply making the decision to live the life that you want is all it takes to get that life. People will often comment on my fun and adventurous life and forget the work that it takes to get there. We tend to believe that the grass is always greener ...

Hi everyone! I promise I'll be back with something soon... Just reminding myself how to write! Thanks as always to Brian Andreas for capturing my feelings about EVERYTHING.  http://www.storypeople.com/2013/12/16/how-to-write/

As a teacher it hasn't been particularly easy to listen to the media in the weeks following the Florida shooting. I didn't know how to react to everything that was spinning around on Facebook and I definitely didn't know how to talk about it with my students. I still don't know how to talk about it with them, but I have found it encouraging to listen to how they talk about it among each other. We have been working on an argumentative unit and although some people would definitely disagree with me, I do not believe in censoring my students. Instead, I believe that they should have the freedom to research and write about whatever they want. This unit started right around the shooting and naturally I had a few students who had a lot of feelings on the recent shooting and what the government was doing about it. My favorite example of this was when a student started doing a lot of research on gun control. I did my best to play the devil's advocate and challenge the p...

I was recently reading John Green's latest book Turtles All the Way Down (check out my review on Goodreads !) when I was struck by something the main character's mother said to her.   You see, Aza, the main character, struggles with OCD and it pushes her into what she calls "thought spirals." She was experiencing a rather intense though spiral when her mother reminded her that her now was not her forever. That did little to soothe Aza and I don't blame her, but probably not for the same reason.   Those 6 words can be interpreted in a few different ways. Aza's mom was using them to remind her that things would eventually get better and although it can be a comforting thought, I find things a bit scarier.   Those 6 words sum up how I feel about my anxiety.   Your now is not your forever.   Although it is meant to be optimistic and serve as a reminder that the future will be better, it tells me that the good times also don't last. So even...

Every now and then I think I should delete my blog because I don't think anyone really cares about what I have to say. But then I remember that it's not necessarily about other people. Writing is one of the best ways for me to flush out my thoughts and feelings and believe it or not, I have a lot of feelings. So here is another post dedicated to my feelings about this crazy beautiful life. Like most people I tend to go through phases of being obsessed with things. Sometimes it's an author, sometimes it's exercise, sometimes it's food. But right now it's literally anything that Nora McInery has done. Nora McInery is the Minneapolis author of  It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too). My best friend gave the book to me for my birthday likely because the title is basically the story of my life. Although I would recommend Nora's book without hesitation, I think I would recommend her podcast even more. "Terrible, Thanks for Asking" is basically...

I've never really been able to explain why I wanted to leave Minnesota and go abroad. Part of me thinks it was really just a middle finger to everyone who said I would never leave, but another part of me thinks it was because I knew I needed an adventure before I settled back down in Minnesota for the rest of eternity. Whatever the reason is that I decided to do this, I had no idea that it would change me as much as it has. Again, I find myself struggling to put my feelings into words, but I am obviously coming out of this experience a much different person than I came into it. I guess one could say that I had "miles to go" before I became the person I really wanted and needed to be.* Even though I feel like I can't summarize exactly how I have changed, I have a few ideas... 1. I'm so much more comfortable being alone. I was nervous to live alone, mostly because I am terrified of getting kidnapped, but my hobbies that were meant for one person got a...