Over the last 30 days, I have been running an informal sleep experiment on myself. I committed to getting no less than 7.5 hours of sleep per night and allotted 8.5 hours in bed to ensure it happened. I made this self-agreement as I was moving into a new work-college-all other demands of life-schedule that accounted for more hours than I think I have ever planned for in a week. With sleep included, 156 of the 168 hours in each week were mapped out on paper.

I know the perils of too little sleep: exhaustion, mental fogginess, forgetfulness, impatience, mood…

In recent months, one son has developed a new illness-related problem that seems to be here to stay. The digestive issue has caused further weight loss and an additional persistent feeling of unwellness. It has come with a new level of silence that signifies stoicism or the attempt to not worry me, the mom.

“It’s okay, Mom. You don’t need to feel sorry. It’s not your fault.”

In those same months, my other son has experienced a decline in organ function typical of his illness. The horror I experience when I hear his now-returned coughing is worse only for him…

Much of you I want.

It took 25 adult years to find you.

You possess qualities that make you so desirable. I admire you, like you, love you, love spending time with you, adore looking at the life-chiseled features of your face and listening to you express your inner thoughts.

We share similar passions. Our families, reading, discussion and intellectual growth, exercise and nutrition, the beach and outdoor activities, and time alone for introspection or to pursue individual interests, are the things we cannot do without.

Your quick wit and intelligence bring laughter to my lips and challenge my ponderings.

…

We all have drainers and depositors in our lives. We are all drainers and depositors to some degree in the lives of those with whom we interact.

Drainers are those who take from us to the degree that they run us out and leave us empty, deprived of strength and energy, feeling wasted, used, or lost. Conversely, depositors add to us, teach, strengthen, and enrich our lives. Depositors return to us more than the worth of our investments or expenditures.

Drainers are everywhere. The power of their suck is ruinous to our mental, emotional, and physical health. Drainers are toxic…

What a year 2020 has been! Good riddance 2020! For weeks, we have heard tones of negativity that 2021 will bring more unwanted experiences. Many have already begun sewing negative attitudes into the fabric of the coming year. They have been using black filaments that obscure positive expectations, sullied strings of dissatisfaction, and rotted and weakened threads incapable of holding the pieces together.

Yesterday, we said goodbye to 2020 and looked into the new year.

Yesterday was also the day my family laid our 105-year-old matriarch, Mamie, to rest.

Mamie was love. Mamie was strength and resilience defined and redefined…

The two investments we should all be making right now.

Heck. I know what you’re saying. “What the hell are you talking about?” “Do you see what’s going on right now?” “Hello?”

Well, I’m not talking about financial gains. I’m not talking about money, when so many of us have been laid off, fired, seen our businesses and places of employment shuttered, and our 401Ks take massive hits. So many of us are now dipping into our savings or accessing survival funds from our credit cards, wondering how we will pay them off.

Although, if we have a few pennies…

Good morning, Hardships, Adversities, and Crises. I welcome you all. I’m so glad some of you arrived yesterday, and the rest of your contingent will continue to show up today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. I really am.

It’s good to have advanced notice that you are coming because I can better prepare for you. So, know that I am grateful for the heads-up. Now I can do what we all do when visitors are coming. …

Long before social distancing became the thing it is today, and long before I knew it had a name, I was practicing it. I was using it, teaching it to my sons to keep them healthy and alive, and becoming a master at it.

My practice isolated me from others. It made them consider me to be strange at the very least and psychosomatic or utterly crazy at the other end of the spectrum. I lost friends, church and community acquaintances, baby sitters, one job, then another, and another.

Back then, my husband said I had no time for him…