Slower than the Average Bear

Dear Diary, I was sixteen and in the best shape of my life when my basketball coach nonchalantly said, “You’d be so much faster if you just lost 20 pounds.” What should you never, ever say to a sixteen-year-old girl? Those 11 words. Let’s be clear: I was a 3-sport athlete when I was sixteen. […]

Pickleball is Life

We women deal with the patriarchy and mansplaining and misogyny every single day of our lives. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Some of us deal with it from strangers, some from partners, some from husbands. We’re tired. We don’t want to deal with it any more.

I Am Dante’s Inferno

Dear Friends, For those of you who don’t know, I live and travel full-time in a 5th wheel. It’s a gorgeous tiny home on wheels, but space is definitely limited. The king-sized bed is squeezed in so tightly, it’s nearly impossible to put on a fitted sheet. So, bedside space is at a premium. This […]

Swinging for the Fence

Maybe Coach Watson will stand at third and give me the coveted “hit away” sign. Maybe I’ll connect with my rebel spirit and swing away regardless. I like to break the rules once in a while. And maybe—just like that day in after-school practice—I’ll hit one over the fence.

The beauty of the whole game is in the possibility. That’s why I love playing.

Identity Crisis

Dear Diary, It’s the one year anniversary of losing my six-figure job. One year since I was told things were not working out. One year since I heard, “Friday will be your last day.” One year since the financial security rug was pulled out from under me. I have to begin by saying I’m still […]

Is Love Blind?

Dear Diary, I have a confession to make. I’m a Love Is Blind junkie. I watch every season of it in every country in every language. Sometimes I like to kid myself into believing that I’m expanding my cultural knowledge by watching Love is Blind: Brazil. I mean, I’m just polishing up on my Portuguese, […]

It’s Not Cancer

Dear Diary, It’s not cancer. IT’S NOT CANCER.  I asked the ortho twice yesterday to be safe. Both times, he gave me an emphatic no. I’ll take that. As most of you know, my sister recently died of glioblastoma. Cancer—even the mention of it—scares the bajeezus out of me now. What it actually IS, however, […]

The Fear

Dear Diary, I’ve been afraid of a lot of things in my lifetime—spiders, heights, Jason Vorhees, the under-the-bed clown in Poltergeist, drinking out of my toddlers’ used cups, jolting myself awake while snoring on a plane, inadvertently swallowing bugs while I’m sleeping—the list goes on. The thing is, it’s usually pretty easy to recognize when […]

A Quarter-Life Celebration

Dear Diary, He turns 25 today. A quarter of a century. From a newborn on life support to an adult on his own. I wrote his story years ago, when the memories were still relatively fresh and new. So much time has passed. So much has changed in our lives. But one true thing will […]

Skating Away

When Christmas morning arrived and there were two shiny new pairs of ice skates under the tree—one for me and one for my big sister, Carrie—I was in heaven. I tied the laces together, carried them on my shoulder, and waited for the temperature to drop. I sang, “Please don’t let this feeling end, it’s everything I am, everything I want to be…” over and over again until my sister finally told me to give it a rest and poked me with the spit-sharpened end of a Jolly Rancher stick.