Over the past year specifically I’ve missed some things that are now becoming very apparent. There’s been a lot of curiosity coming from one side, but not much coming from me. Now that I know what I know, there’s only one question that I’m curious about… How does it feel when people start getting curious and looking around instead of only looking at me? How does it feel to know people are talking about you when you aren’t in the room? Discussing your behavior, your motives, y

I’ve wrestled with this question for years now. Do I block them, or do I leave them where I can see them? The accounts keep appearing. Different names. Different profile pictures. Different categories. Some sit empty with no followers, no posts, and almost no history. But there is usually something about them, some wording, timing, reference, or detail, that feels coded enough for me to recognize a pattern. And that creates a strange dilemma. If I block an account, another on

My neighbor knocked on my door today just to tell me I was really knocking it out with the flower beds. It was such a simple compliment, but it meant more than most people realize. Because these flower beds and I have been in a relationship since 2022, and it has been complicated. 🙃 When I moved here, there were flowerpots sitting on top of the soil. I remember wondering why anyone would put flowers in pots inside a flower bed instead of planting them. I understand now. Clay

There comes a point when an apology stops meaning anything. Not because the words themselves are wrong, but because the behavior underneath them never changes. July 2025 For three years, I heard versions of reflection, accountability, forgiveness, grace, enlightenment, prayer, growth and letting go. I was told about verbal sparring, unfair words, misunderstandings, pride, guilt and the importance of doing better. Some of those words were beautifully written. Some even sounded

This is my mother during her senior year of high school. She died on October 1, 2018, the same year I lost my husband. I have always loved my mother immensely. But loving someone does not mean agreeing with everything they did, every decision they made, or every way they chose to survive. My mother did things I didn’t always understand. She handled things in ways I might not have handled them myself. And since she died, reconciling the woman I loved with some of the choices I

At first, I’ll admit, I was almost flattered. I kept trying to figure out how people who suggested I end certain relationships found their way into an alliance after their friendships with me ended. What could they possibly have in common? Then it clicked. Me. 🙃 One couldn’t accept that I ended a relationship because of his own behavior, so he went looking for another explanation. He reached across a boundary to someone from my past because apparently “she decided she was do

I’ve received a surprising number of messages lately that all say some version of the same thing: “You must have something really special for these guys to act like this.” “You must have some kind of effect on men.” “There has to be something about you if they can’t just move on.” I never looked at it that way. I looked at their behavior and saw abuse. I felt the desire to hurt me word for word sadistic. For a long time, that was the only explanation that made sense to me. Th

Today is International Sons Day, and over the past year, a lot of our milestones have revolved around two things: the hair and the height. 🙃 At 13, he grew about four and a half inches, topped six feet tall, and after what felt like an entire scientific project, we finally figured out his hair.🥳 But the thing that has surprised me most this year has nothing to do with how much he has grown physically. It’s his comprehension. A lot of people have asked me whether my son und

September 27, 2017. The day the flicker stopped. A few days later I walked out of the hospital without our son. No baby in my arms. No car seat. No first ride home. No beginning to the life we had already imagined. I remember it like it was yesterday- my phone being dead, not remembering what vehicle we had rented after the accident, the feeling of absolute disorientation and the feeling of intense grief. A loss I couldn’t prevent. This is what I have of Kollin. His tiny hand

On September 26, 2017, I went to the emergency room at 19 weeks pregnant following a car accident. At 11:45 that night, I was checked. My heartbeat was strong, and so was my son’s. Kollin was still there. His little heart was still beating. At 12:45 AM on September 27, I was transferred to the OB unit so they could establish baseline stats and check us again. This time, they couldn’t find his heartbeat. There are moments in life when reality seems to split into a before and a

There’s a vicious loop that can happen when someone is repeatedly labeled by a group of people. Call someone “high conflict” often enough, and eventually every time they defend themselves becomes evidence of the label. Say they’re “playing the victim,” and when they finally say, This is hurting me, nobody has to listen. Their pain has already been discredited. Say they “push good people away,” and suddenly they aren’t allowed to decide that someone is no longer good for them.

I’ve been called a “medicated mess.” I’ve been told I need medication. I’ve been told I’m on too much medication. I’ve been told I should be off medication. Apparently, somewhere along the way, people who were in relationships with me also acquired honorary medical degrees. 2025 The medication was prescribed for a diagnosed condition: complicated grief. It wasn’t recreational. It wasn’t evidence that I was unstable. It was treatment for severe depression. And somewhere in all

Most of you know, but for those of you who don’t, this is a process of healing. And from what I’m understanding, that process could take a year, possibly two. So, for my frequent readers who are enjoying the stories, yay for you. 🙌 And if you’re not… my bad. Either way, we’re gonna be here a while. 🙃❤️‍🩹

I think we need to define the word threat. How is exercising anyone’s right as a citizen of the state of South Carolina considered threatening? There is a difference between saying, “If you don’t do what I want, I am going to hurt you,” and saying, “If this behavior continues, I am going to contact law enforcement.” One communicates an intention to cause harm. The other communicates an intention to seek help. Calling the police is not something I invented as leverage. Reporti

There is a sentence I have started paying much closer attention to: “I haven’t done anything illegal. I looked into that extensively.” That is not the reassurance some people seem to think it is. Because there is an enormous difference between asking, “Is what I’m doing right?” and asking, “How far can I go before what I’m doing becomes illegal?” The law establishes a floor. It does not establish the ceiling for human decency. Something does not suddenly become kind, ethical,

There is a phrase in these messages that changed the way I understood a lot of what happened: “I tried to get under your skin.” At first, I asked what that even meant. Now I understand it quite clearly. To get under someone’s skin means to deliberately irritate them. To bother them. To provoke an emotional response. And in this case, the message actually explains the reason: because he believed I cared about someone, he intentionally used that person to get a reaction from me

For 25 years, I considered someone my friend. And then, at the end of that friendship, I learned how she had apparently come to see me. Argumentative. Condescending. Unable to control my emotions. Someone who “plays the victim.” Someone who “pushes everyone good” out of her life. She even reached into my marriage to make her point, bringing up an argument between my late husband and me that happened months before he died. She wasn’t there. She didn’t witness it. She didn’t li

There is a sentence I understand differently now. “…one day it will hit you the hardest when you’re again at your lowest.” I read those words one way when I first saw them. I read them as anger. Maybe even as someone hoping that eventually I would hurt enough to understand whatever version of me they had created. But looking back, the phrase that catches me now is at your lowest. Because I have started asking a different question. What happens when someone actually gets you t

Sometimes you don’t realize that something you did was interpreted completely differently than you intended until much later. I realized recently my departure from a beach vacation didn’t quite land the way I thought it had. What I believed was a very clear decision to remove myself from friendships I no longer wanted was apparently understood as something else entirely: that I left because I didn’t want to face accountability. So maybe I never made my reason clear enough. Th

Death does strange things to the living. Most families have experienced some version of it. Someone dies, and suddenly people want the watch, the photographs, the furniture, the jewelry, the money, or the thing they believe was promised to them. Sometimes it is sentimental. Sometimes it is financial. Sometimes grief and entitlement become difficult to tell apart. But there is another, more uncomfortable side of estate planning that I had never really considered. When you crea