Journeying Home Together
My husband was waiting for me to finish my nightly bedtime routine as I filled him in on all that had happened at a writing workshop I’d attended earlier that day. I leaned on the bathroom counter, my face lathered with soap, and said, “I just don’t want to be ‘the depression and anxiety girl’.” The workshop had done its job: it clarified my niche in writing and helped me to narrow my
On the first morning back to school after spring break, I woke up with a horrible headache and the suspected onset of a cold. Add in my daughter’s anti-enthusiasm about school and a cat who demanded more attention than normal, and my morning was off to a rough start. At 7:16, I sighed and took a sip of my already-cold coffee. “I’m just done,” I muttered, as I walked from
A couple of months ago, while the world still slept in gray and brown here in Georgia, my husband carved an intricate network of biking trails through the woods behind our house. (I use them for walking, though, because the one time I ventured out on my bike I was scared to death. I’ll do it eventually. Just not yet.) It’s been so good for me to have a natural
A week or so ago, I went to my daughter’s school to read to her class. As the eighteen second-graders lined up to go outside to eat the (Pinterest-inspired and extremely juicy) fruit kabobs I had brought for a snack, several of them surrounded me. It wasn’t the Pyrex dish in my hands that had their attention, though. They had questions for me. “Mrs. Bolyard, are you really writing a
I had a dream last week in which I was driving a huge truck. It wasn’t just any truck, either, but one of those massive ones they use in the rock quarry down the road from my house. One of those dump trucks on steroids, that dwarf school buses and make semi-trucks look like toys. One of those whose gargantuan spare tires require a police escort down the interstate. One of those. I drive
My daughter and I were in a minor accident this past Sunday on our way home from church. It happened at an intersection we drive through several times a week, and as we passed it last night I took a deep breath and told her, “All right! We did it!” She was understandably confused. The thing is, I tend to get superstitious about things like that. I don’t necessarily think
Spring has come to Georgia, although we gave winter little more than a passing glance. Those of us who wait all year to snuggle up in hooded sweaters were sorely disappointed this year as we more often needed T-shirts and sandals. It has taken some work to come to terms with this. Grief is a process, y’all. Yesterday I sat in a sunny corner of the library, the floor-to-ceiling windows
These words have been simmering for almost three weeks now, and even as I sit ready to tell the story I’m not sure they’re ready. It’s a story that must be told, though, and because time has a way of smoothing out the edges of what cuts us deeply – in good or bad ways – I need to make sure to get these words down while I can. The
When I was a freshman in high school, I had an intense crush on an older boy. We’re talking intense, y’all. It was orderline obsessive, actually, and looking back, my behavior and feelings were completely unwarranted. I hardly knew him, save our experiences in first period Health & Safety class, and he literally didn’t know I existed. As friends can do, mine were determined to change that. Dissatisfied with my
She has always been a collector. (We try not to use the word “hoarder,” but yeah….let’s call a spade a spade.) Even now, as a more mature eight-year-old, she has boxes and baggies fully of miscellaneous treasures stowed away: leaves, tiny sticks, interesting rocks, beads. If it’s tiny, you can bet she has it squirreled away somewhere. When she was very little, she treasured each little handful of odds and ends
