Category: When You’re Stuck

The other day my project manager and I were talking about a project I really wanted to work on. Doing so, however, would require me to show up every single week at the same time. “Are you sure you want to commit to that?” she said, hesitantly. “Think freedom.” I didn’t even have to consider my response. “Giving myself a schedule is the only way I am free,” I said. “It means that the rest of my time is really

You forgive yourself, over and over and over again. You build little glass cases around your emotions, one by one. You don’t always like feeling sectioned off—but you forgive yourself for that, too. You are fragile now. You learn how to be fragile. Fragile means you need to play by different rules, for a while. “No” becomes your religion. Solitude, your faith. Your entire life pulls backward, like a tightened bow and arrow, going backwards, backwards, backwards, backwards, until you

  Get a load of this insider information: Did you know your brain actually needs SLEEP? I’m pretty sure that none of us are ACTUALLY SLEEPING, and you know who I blame this entirely on? Wine. Holy mother of dragons, discovery of the decade: If I have wine at night, I will not be able to sleep. And by “not be able to sleep,” what I mean to say is that I’ll be laying there in bed like a pissed

You know what’s a real mind fuck? The whole “getting taken seriously” thing. Let’s be honest: How much do you just wish you could just hammer down some Doritos and blog about your mother-in-law? Or talk about the fact that, yes, you definitely swore under your breath at tourists last night, who, in their “Pura Vida Costa Rica!” childlike optimism, declared that the city-wide blackout—the one that happened RIGHT BEFORE YOU WERE ABOUT TO MAKE CHICKEN QUESADILLAS—was “charming.” Charming? Did

The truth is, we desperately need to learn how to be mothers to ourselves. We desperately need to learn how to take our own kind hand and caress ourselves. (Not like that, though frankly that couldn’t hurt either.) We need to be soothed; instead of telling ourselves how stupid we are, we need to say the things that a mother would say to her daughter. That she is strong. That she is capable. That she is okay. That she was

What gets measured, gets managed has got to be the most annoying piece of business advice ever. (Right next to “create epic content,” “follow your passion,” and “don’t fart too loud when the mic is on,” of course.) Coming from a background in PR, I’ve always hurled silent insults at the whole “what gets measured, gets managed” thing, because many important outcomes—like positive sentiment, for example—are harder than Donald Trump’s head to measure. And yet, all these years later, I

So, I’m standing there at this bakery in Costa Rica, trying not to order the things one orders at a bakery, because if I order bakery-like things from this bakery, I might as well give my stomach pooch full on permission to never, ever fucking go away. And then what will become of me? Forget the fear of becoming a cat lady; I’m far more terrified of becoming an angry, bitter old wench who could never stand to look at

“Just to let you know,” the massage therapist warned over the phone, “I’m blind.” She arrived to my house by taxi, and as she pulled up, she looked out the glass toward me as if she could see me…even though she could not. The art of the gesture stunned me. “Hello!” I greeted, wanting to be helpful without being condescending—a line I wasn’t sure how not to cross. As she exited the car, the taxi driver—a shy, round thirty-something man

“I’m sorry I bailed on you,” the neatly folded note began. It was 2013. I am at a retreat, and this was the note I received from a fellow participant; a lovely woman in her early 30’s with whom I had made Friday night dinner plans. I had waited for an hour in the lobby, my black jeans tucked into my chunk heeled, cream-colored leather ankle booties. I wasn’t in a hurry; I’m never in a hurry. I just assumed