What Does an Election Have in Common With Divorce?

In the shower one morning, as I was rinsing my hair, I mentally stepped back to notice the chatter going on inside my head.  To my dismay, I realized I was deeply entangled in an imaginary argument with some family members.  About politics.  And what’s worse is that my imaginary argument was the continuation of a real discussion that took place two weeks prior. Two.  Weeks.  Prior. What’s wrong with me? A billion things have happened since then. I highly doubt anyone involved in that discussion is still thinking about it now.  Why am I?  Why aren’t I focusing on […]

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Your Heart… Is Something.

I was 544 words into another blog post when I stumbled across this plan-altering video.  To summarize:  in less than 3 minutes, a little girl explains to her mother why her parents should be friends. She doesn’t simply say, “Don’t fight.”  She puts forth the most heartfelt logic to back up her request: “My heart… is something.  Everyone else’s heart is something too.” Her words touched my heart.  Although this child was requesting that her parents lower the height of their conflict, her reasoning extends far beyond domestic disagreements. After watching the video, I thought about my neighbors.  I thought […]

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Communication Breakdown (in the woods and in the world)

The following tale of communication breakdown isn’t about divorce.  Except, it is.  It’s also about all other relationships… Once upon a time, I went hiking with a group and became separated from one of my companions.  When he didn’t meet the rest of us at the end of the trail, I backtracked, searching for him.  I called his name.  He didn’t answer.  I walked faster.  I searched harder.  I called louder.  No response.  I was on the verge of panic when I heard him yell my name.  “TARA?!”  I darted in the direction of his voice.  As I rounded a curve […]

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Did S/he Cheat? Does it Matter?

Several years ago I had the feeling my partner was having an affair.  When I questioned him, he told me I was crazy, insecure and possessive.  During that period of our relationship, he did a lot of screaming while I did a lot of crying. Did he cheat on me?  I couldn’t prove it, and he insisted he was innocent, so I stayed in the relationship. Since then, I’ve heard many similar stories from people who desperately want to believe the best about their partners.  Sometimes they justify, “it was only an emotional affair.”  Sometimes they fall back on The […]

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Telling Stories

I’ve wrestled with the quote in the image above. It’s an empowering conglomeration of verbiage, isn’t it? It’s empowering… until you think about it too much. Then it just becomes confusing. Each of us has our own story, and we write that story ourselves. We determine the genre, rating and roles of the characters. In truth, we create our own reality. Most of the time we socialize with others who agree with our story and thus live in a similar reality. And, in that case, all is well. Problems arise when one tells a story which clashes with the reality […]

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