Sleepless in the San Fernando Valley

The camera caught somebody rolling through that stop sign. I was determined to figure out who it was.

I was sitting in the theater when I turned to my mother and said — Oh yeah, I didn’t say anything. My mom wasn’t there. She died last year.

Absent parents, absent kids, and feeling absent from yourself. What to do? Consider buying a poncho.

I think about the different doors that have opened and shut in my life and ask myself: What do I want to create now?’

I toasted the single, prolific, Upper West Side writer I never was.

I was reminded that my shine comes from within, not from other people’s likes, hearts, or comments.

It is time to stop teaching kids to drive and start teaching myself to let go. It isn’t going to be easy.

The next time I go to the corner market in the middle of the night, I am getting a milk chocolate Toblerone.

I am a Spiritual Person and all that, but I still want to know what I am waiting for, when it is coming, and what specifically it will look…

The thing I understand after losing my mother is that, no matter how old you are, you always need your mom.

Some things you can’t outrun, no matter how fast you type.

When I was young, I had space in my life but I didn’t know how to fill it. When I became a mom of three, there was never enough space for…

Whether I was hanging out with friends in high school, or bringing back a fiancé from New York, or collapsing inside the front door with…

I am bored of taking walks and paying bills and lying down and walking around in circles, like my dog who has always loved to pace. I am…

I ask my therapist: “Is this normal? Is this perimenopause? How will I feel when both my oldest and middle are gone?”

It made me realize how hungry I was for good stories.

Sometimes, I want to sit on the floor and scream “I want my mom” like a little kid on the first day of preschool.

With the hours left in my life, I am keeping it real. I don’t have time for “people being drama.”

It was weird to be sitting among friends, ordering cocktails, acting as if we had not just survived a real-life disaster movie.

He asked me why I didn’t get my writing posted on Monday. I tried to make excuses but it’s futile to battle with Baby Yoda.

Even though it has been a year, I cannot help but mark everything she is missing.

My mother would have been 79 years old yesterday. The pandemic is receding and the waves are receding and I miss her.

They were back East. I was out West. Our parents were gone.

One thing is for sure: it wears a body down.