Full-time writer and aspiring linguist. Food, literature, film, and art lover.
My life as a writer started when my parents gave me a little blank book with a cat on the cover for Christmas when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. Something extraordinary happened when I decided to turn that book into a catch-all place to write down all the stories I made up or record the details of my daily life. I discovered a pastime that made total sense to me on a level not much else ever has, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Today, I’ve been writing on a full-time professional basis for over 15 years. I make most of my bread by writing advertising copy, blog articles, web pages, and similar types of content for various clients across multiple industries. However, I’m the sort of person who craves variety in my work, so I often switch things up and am always on the lookout for opportunities to try something new. …
Yes, it’s important to know when to call it quits, but you also need to know when to stick it out.
Even the happiest couples I know can tell you at least one story about the time they almost broke up. Those who have been together a really long time usually have even more of those stories, and with good reason.
Great relationships that have been going strong for decades didn’t get that way overnight. They went through their ups and downs over the years. They almost certainly came close to ending at some point. Ultimately, the people in those relationships fought for what they had and put in the work to turn things around instead of ending things. …
When I was still young, everyone assured me getting older sucks. Everyone was wrong.
As a child of the youth-obsessed ’80s and ’90s, I didn’t grow up with the most favorable view of aging. There was nothing like the body-positive movement to help people feel more comfortable with their unique physiques, and no one was taking many stabs at racial inclusion yet. But far worse than being too fat or too brown was being too old, especially if you were a woman.
Once you hit 30 or so, you either lied about your age or refused to give people a straight answer when they asked. You hated birthdays. You stressed over every wrinkle and grey hair. Taking care of yourself meant trying to seem as youthful as possible for as long as possible, and being mistaken for much younger than you were was the ultimate compliment. …
I’m a born couch potato if there ever was one. So, if I can do it, anyone can.
Everyone knows someone who’s a member of the lucky few — those enviable folks who seem to have no trouble whatsoever being active, staying fit, and loving every part of that process. I was never one of those people, although it certainly wasn’t for any lack of trying.
Countless New Year’s Days found me promising myself that this year would be the year I finally got in shape and stayed that way, so I’m no stranger to failure. I’ve been on and off all sorts of ridiculous diets. I’ve tried all the hacks and shortcuts. I’ve committed to workout routines, stuck with them long enough to make some progress, and then fallen right off the wagon again for reasons I still don’t entirely understand. …
Elevated Living Newsletter: January 2021
Most years are a little bit different for everyone. However, I think I speak for us all when I say that 2020 sucked on one level or another for every last one of us. Even if you lucked out enough to keep your income, stay healthy, and remain relatively productive (like my husband and me), there’s no debating the fact that the last 12 months have been a crazy emotional roller coaster.
If you haven’t lost someone you care about to COVID, then you may have spent the summer in a wildfire zone, worried that your home was going to burn to the ground. Don’t even get me started on the social justice issues that have come to the forefront this year or the stress surrounding an extra-crazy election. …
The chances that it had much to do with you are actually pretty slim.
I have a bit of a confession to make. I’m a chronic ghoster, and I’ve been this way my entire life. In fact, I’ve been ghosting people for so long, I was genuinely taken aback the first time I heard someone talk about it out loud using actual words.
My first reaction was to be surprised that enough other people did this for there to be a known term for it. My second was to feel like a horrible person because, while I now make an honest effort not to ghost unless it’s truly warranted, it’s unlikely I’ll ever stop doing it altogether. …
At this point, it’s a given that 2020 sucked. But 2021 can be different with the right changes.
I knew 2020 was going to be a dumpster fire before it even got here. I just didn’t yet know it was going to be one for everyone. Toward the end of 2019, I had an entire string of unfortunate things happen to me —the type of things that make you wonder if life as you know it might be over.
One of them was the sudden termination of several important client relationships due to the passing of an anti-freelance law in California known as Assembly Bill 5. Because of that, I quite literally went into my 2019 holidays having no idea how I would put food on the table going forward, as I assumed I’d seen the end of my days as a freelance writer. A few personal challenges hit around the same time for extra fun. …
Life’s too short to waste it on people who drain you instead of making you better.
Some people deal with their eventual mid-life crises by buying sports cars or hooking up with random 20-somethings. I wasn’t quite that dramatic about mine. (I don’t drive, and I’m perfectly happy being married to someone my own age.) But I did seemingly wake up one day tired of settling for less in areas of my life where I knew I deserved more. So, I started working out and taking better care of myself. I also developed some new skills.
And then I took a long, hard look at my social circle.
I hadn’t felt genuinely close to most of the people I called my friends in years, but I was doing what most people do when they’ve known folks a long time. I was hanging on to them because they were familiar. I also thought that was simply what you did with friends — stick with them forever, even once you’re not sure you like them as people anymore. …
If you come from a toxic family, a COVID-safe holiday may provide the space and perspective you need this year.
With the holiday season officially underway, the inevitable is happening. I’m seeing so many friends becoming increasingly depressed at the certainty of an isolated, COVID-style holiday season. Some of them haven’t seen their siblings or hugged their parents in many months, so the idea of not doing it for the holidays is overwhelming for them.
It breaks my heart to see people I admire and care about going through that. It also makes me feel bad for not being able to empathize better with how that must feel.
I come from a highly dysfunctional family filled with emotionally abusive, toxic people, so I’m voluntarily estranged from many of my blood relatives. That’s been my life for many years at this point. But if it hadn’t been, I know how I’d be feeling right now because I’ve seen a few other people out there feeling that way, as well, this year. …
I thought I was just spinning my wheels at the time, but I was learning a lot in retrospect.
Long before I’d ever even considered becoming a writer, I did the same thing many creative folks did before they really hit their stride in life — I worked retail. And since I had terrible trouble convincing anyone to hire me to do anything else, I kept working retail on and off throughout my entire adult life as a traditionally-employed worker.
I also hated every second of it, although maybe not for the same set of reasons so many other people hate it. I’m not what you call a people person. At all. When I was younger, I wasn’t terribly confident or assertive, either. …
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