I’m cautiously optimistic despite all the warnings I received going into the newborn stage — I saw myself as a mother in glimpses. I imagined little people running, laughing, giving hugs, crying. I saw myself taking my kids for ice cream. Watching them run and play in a yard surrounding a house I don’t yet own. But I never knew how to imagine myself with…

My husband is from Angola and is a very skilled cook. So, when he came home one night with 4 boxes of Idaho Spuds I was intrigued. — My husband is from Angola. He has lived in the United States for seven years. We’ve been together almost two years, and we’re still discovering how different our tastes are when it comes to food. Cinnamon on baked fish? Not my favorite thing. …

Running became less about my speed and more about how long I could stay on the trails and soak in the beauty around me and silence all my worries. — It’s the feeling of warm, humid air caressing my arm hairs. The smell of the briny bayou that the trail runs alongside. It’s the siting of new birds like the roseate spoonbill that I thought was a flamingo the first time I visited this trail. It’s the nutria —large bayou…

But, as the song goes, if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. — I didn’t grow up dreaming of getting married and having babies. Usually, articles that start with a line like that are about respecting the writer’s choice to be “child-free”, but this is not that article. You see, I’m 8 months pregnant. In fact, as I type away on my keyboard…

At 8 months pregnant, if I want to fall asleep on the couch while watching a true crime documentary, then I’m going to do it. But, why exactly do I feel guilty? — I want to go home, lie down, and fall asleep watching a true-crime documentary. There is nothing inherently wrong about this want. But, according to any self-help or self-improvement article you stumble upon, choosing to do nothing instead of being productive is self-destructive. These articles often tell you that doing…

I’ve lost thirty-pounds, gone down two pant sizes, changed careers, stopped drinking, but most importantly, I started taking chances. — The Low It started with the pandemic and the imminent shutdown. The timing was terrible as I’d just been laid off from the law firm I’d only started working at in December. The lead attorney decided to close after twenty years in business having accepted a position as a partner at a…

I turned 30 years old at the end of January and it’s been quite a ride. Considering the global pandemic was erupting in Asia at the start of the new decade and quickly working its way westward, there was only a brief time where being 30 felt just like being…

A year ago I had no clue where I was headed. I’d just moved back to my childhood home after a prolonged, agonizing break-up with my boyfriend of eight years. To say I was lost would be an understatement. I felt like I had just lost my best and only…

Do you ever feel like your own worst enemy? Do you have self-destructive impulses you combat daily? I too was a sufferer. Much of my young adulthood was dictated by self-destructive behavior I allowed to fuel me and hold me back. I never believed I deserved anything good. I always…