It’s been almost a year since I wrote anything on here. A year ago, things were starting to go downhill for our family, before picking up speed and careening down said hill, splashing into the ocean, and then sinking deeper and deeper into this metaphorical ocean. Each time we thought we’d reached the bottom, we’d…

My son quit swim team. This year has been rough, moving, then starting middle school, growing 7″, being off his ADHD meds (his choice because he did so well during remote schooling, he figured it wasn’t a problem anymore). Swimming has been rough, too. He’s wanted to do theater, which meant more time for rehearsal…

It’s been cold here, lately. Not Edmonton cold, or Montreal cold, but cold enough that I’m wearing socks and have to be careful not to slip on ice, even at the end of the day. While I usually wear dresses to work in the basement office, even the sweater dresses aren’t quite warm enough for…

This post is about resiliency when you’re neurodivergent. I know that there are critiques about the uses and abuses of resiliency when it comes to race and class, but this is just thinking through resilience and neurodiversity and how it is, or could be, harmful. I have the comfort of knowing that if I or…

I feel like I might finally be settled in. I know and remember what (most) of the light switches do. We finally figured out why one of our remotes was causing other electronics to freak out. The kids just finished their first term of the academic year. We have a routine that works most of…

This started as an IG post. I wasn’t sure where I was going with it, so I just left it there, typed on my phone, posted and shared. And then the day just got worse. And then the week got worse. It was recently World Mental Health Awareness Day, which is about as made-up a…

I didn’t want to move, not really, not now. But it was decided that it was time to buy. I had just changed positions, changed titles, and received a pay-raise. I was ready for a chill summer, but instead, we embarked on one of the most stressful events that a person can experience. We weren’t…

This post was cross-listed on my new sewing blog, Comedy of Errors. A twitter-story for a few years ago was making the rounds again, on working memory and people with ADHD. I’m terrible at ending my writing. Always have been. I rarely plan out very far, because, well, I have literally no idea what the…

I write a lot about my son and his ADHD, but not a lot, if at all, about my daughter, who also has ADHD. She has basically forbidden me. So as much as I want to write about her right now, I can’t, so I won’t. But I will write about how parenting children with…

No, not the summer of 2020. After my son had to have his arm re-broken in the doctor’s office, without anesthesia, because the person who had put on his cast a week prior had set his arm incorrectly, he looked up at the pediatric orthopedist and said, “You know, I’m really lucky. If this hadn’t…

I wrote this to a friend of mine who is going through a really rough patch, and I thought, well, maybe I’ll share it here because someone else needs to hear it today. It really has been a year from hell. Sending you light and love and it’s a beautiful fall day, full of light…

Wednesdays are the worst days for my son. Something always sets him off on Wednesdays. Mid-week blahs, I guess, but every week something happens and it ruins his entire day, and it is almost impossible to get him to swim team. Today it was an unexpected (well, to him, I’m sure his teacher said something…

This is an original essay I wrote for my collection on mental health, Learning to Breathe. I have never been good at keeping quiet. But I had to learn how, growing up, if I wanted to know anything, being that silence was the currency that we traded in, I had to learn to listen to…

We went to the beach last week. I took a day off and did one of the few activities that is safe as well as one that truly feeds my heart and my soul. It was a Tuesday afternoon after an overcast morning with a chance of thunderstorm later in the day. I was betting…

I avoided Hamilton was it first became a cultural zeitgeist. In 2015, I was mired in a depression and I didn’t want an uplifting piece of pop culture that I was sure I was never going to get to experience in person in my life. The musical (and everyone I knew that somehow managed to…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? There are socks all over my living room. The kids get home from school and the first thing they do is take off their shoes and socks because the weather has gotten so warm. And so there are socks everywhere. Socks on the floor,…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? We have a nickname for my daughter: Goldilocks. Nothing is ever just right for her, and she oscillates from it being too hot/too cold, too hard/too soft, too long/too short, too loud/too quiet, etc almost constantly. Shopping is a nightmare. Bedtime worse. Everything has…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? This isn’t our first dog, a dog that we had to give away (read the linked piece, he’s better than fine). The kids and I have missed Thor tremendously since we had to let him go. When we moved to Virginia, the house we…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I am now at the age that people I know are starting to have to care for rapidly aging, sick, and/or deteriorating parents, particularly mothers for whatever reason. I’d get into the gendered expectations of care and the mother-child relationship versus father-child, but that’s…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? When I was in 10th Grade (well, Sec IV) our English teacher asked us to think back to the point when we were younger, really really young, and we were confronted for the first time that we weren’t limitless. The first time we confronted…

I lay in bed this past weekend, sun streaming into my room through the blinds, hitting me in the face, warming my pillow. I turned over and closed my eyes again, thinking about what a luxury it was to fall back asleep in the warm sun on a soft bed. There was no place to…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? Growing up, I was often accused of being lazy. This, I have learned, is a common misunderstanding of people with ADHD. I heard it all the time – from my parents, from my teachers, from my grandfather, from my step-father. I could, and in…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I used to joke with my friends that God put me together slightly wrong. My feet are flat, my arches collapse, I’m quite severely knock-kneed, my legs meet at a sharp angle at my knees, my hips are misaligned, my bottom ribs jut out…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? We’ve moved. We’re completely unpacked. I found the book I needed to read but couldn’t find after the move because I put it somewhere “safe.” I read the book. I’ve already bought 5 books in the new year, started three of them, finished none…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? My son has never dressed up for Halloween. In his nine years on this earth, Halloween has been fraught holiday, to say the least. We’ve bought costumes only to have him refuse to wear them when it came time to trick-or-treat, we stopped buying…

Baby Lion has been an integral part of the family since my son was born. We just didn’t know it at the time. He was one of the first stuffed animals that was gifted to my son, one of many, however, sent to us by a family member before my son even born. He was…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? Fall is my favorite season. It wasn’t always. I love swimming outdoors, so summers growing up were always my favorite, after long, cold winters spent swimming indoors. There was a freedom in the summer, too, being able to ride my bike everywhere, but especially…

My swimmers had an amazing meet this past weekend. They all got at least one best time, and most of them got at least one cut time (which is ultimately meaningless, but goal times are goal times and it keeps them motivated, so ultimately not meaningless at all). This is my third year coaching some…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? My son, who also has ADHD, is an introvert. I’ll often find him sitting on the couch, under his heaviest, thickest blanket, watching YouTube on his phone. I call it his Fortress of Solitude. He prefers Cocoon of Awesomeness. He knows he’s an introvert,…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? It’s my 41st birthday next week. It’s a pretty benign birthday. Usually 40 is the big deal. I didn’t really tell anyone other than my closest friends that I didn’t think, when I was younger, that I would live to see 40. I’m not…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I got good news. Out of the blue, I get good news, professional news. My mind immediately starts to spin, and panic sets in: What does it mean for our family? I think about all of the things that will have to happen, have…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I’ve always had too many words. Too many thoughts, too many feelings, too much of everything. I was always overflowing with everything, and it poured out of me every which way, always, overwhelmingly. In silence, the words would crash against the inside of my…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I officially got my diagnosis yesterday: ADHD. I will probably start medication, but I have to talk it over with my doctor. It was a relief. As I said on Twitter, it’s confirmation for me that there is something wrong with me, but at…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? We’re less than a month away from the day my son broke his arm, which also happened to be my daughter’s birthday. It wasn’t quite rock-bottom for me, but that week, it was for him. He had been having trouble in school, blessed (because…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I had a good weekend, mentally. I got stuck because of weather, as did my husband, trying to get back home to our kids. As I told him, the meds keep me from spiraling; there’s no cure for mom-worry. But I stayed chill. I…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I dyed my hair red this weekend. And I helped my daughter dye her hair blue. It didn’t really turn out all that blue. I wanted to avoid bleaching her hair, and I didn’t use enough of the semi-permanent dye, so her hair looks…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? Disney was wonderful. It was a perfect family vacation, as perfect a family vacation as you can get given that we were four very different human beings spending an intense amount of time with each other over five days. But it was what our…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? I’m having anxiety dreams about our upcoming Disney trip. I always have these dreams when I’m about to travel – missing flights, delays, lost luggage, forgotten important items, getting lost, getting separated, ending up in the wrong place… These dreams have plague me for…

There are two sides of 2017 for me – before the anti-depressants and after the anti-depressants. That cleaving of the year in two roughly coincides with my son breaking his arm this year, twice, the second time right in front of me. That moment of me, doubled over, hysterically sobbing on the pool deck in…

My daughter quit swim team today. Or rather, I sent the confirmation email to the appropriate people that had her removed from my roster (she swam in my group). It’s been a tough four months; she does three different activities before school and was swimming or doing ballet every day after school. We were constantly…

I have always been “coach mom” – emotionally invested in my swimmers, and attempting to be nurturing to them and their love of swimming. I’m the “nice one” or, to others, the one who is too easy or soft on the swimmers. I coach 8-11 year-olds – I’m ok with the accusation of being too…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? Yesterday was Halloween. I had a good time. In fact, I had an outright delightful time. The weather was clear and cool (but not cold), the kids were in good moods, the candy was flowing, there were friends, and there were no tears, especially…

This post originally appeared on my tinyletter, Where is my Mind? A few years ago, my husband, who is loath to go to the doctor, went and found out he had high blood pressure. He had been living with a headache and generally not feeling well for months, living with the misery of it. He…

I don’t remember last Spring. I don’t remember noticing the change in the weather, the grass turning green, the trees blooming, and the leaves coming out. What I do remember is slowly falling apart, and then all at once. I remember being with friends, thinking to myself, I should be happy, and so I acted…

I’ve written this post, variations and fragments, bit and pieces, stops and starts, in my head over the past week. And when I open up the text box, it all melts away. The words refuse to be made concrete. The thoughts resist being articulated. My whole self shuts down at the thought of making sense…

“I think I do overshare,” Fisher says. “It’s my way of trying to understand myself. … It creates community when you talk about private things.” I wasn’t going to write another post this year. I thought I was done writing about 2016, and that I would start fresh in 2017, writing about going (once again)…

Timehop is helpfully reminding me of the time back when my son, only a few months old, screamed and cried about about 90 minutes every night when we put him to bed. Of course, it felt like hours (and some nights it was). And even though it only last a few months, to our family,…