When I don’t write, I sit alone with my thoughts – smashing fists at four in the morning keeps me awake with the crunching of knuckles. That’s where I was last night, staring at a white ceiling fan two hours from my alarm in the spare bedroom. Affectionately named “The Happy Room” by my son, […]
I knew five months ago in March as I reached my 5-year cancer remission date and felt something missing. I knew seven months ago in January as people began to call me by my first time instead of my last. I knew, most of all, eight months ago in December as my body trembled when […]
“Oh Captain! My Captain!” It’s the title and repeated line of Walt Whitman’s poem. It’s also a pivotal scene in many English teachers’ favorite film collection about teaching with passion and gusto. I always imagined myself as a female Mr. Keating, albeit a bi-racial small Asian version with tattoos and a gold butterfly nose ring. […]
When I heard it, I kept thinking that it wasn’t true and also: “THIS is the reason why I have trust issues!” Here it goes — bears do not sleep the entire time for hibernation. They don’t. According to the Alaska Dept for Fish and Game, which was the result of my immediate Google search […]
It was 2 AM, and I hit a mental wall. I’m normally a night owl, piecing together everything I need with the moths and sleeping dogs at my feet – but it wasn’t exhaustion which made my hands freeze and my eyes fixate on anything but the computer screen – it was the reflection I […]
There are few things in life that give me as much joy as either a fresh cup of coffee burning down my throat or calculating how much money I saved on a sale or by doing it myself. We just moved into our first home – more on that in next post – and I […]
In the last few days, my phone has been peppered with texts and missed calls of people checking up on me. I will admit – I am really bad at texting people back. Sometimes it takes me 3-5 business days to respond or remember. Sometimes I respond in my head, and it doesn’t make it […]
Can I just say it? Chemo prepped me for Covid-19 and social distancing. I’m scared to go outside without a mask. I’m not allowed outdoors. I’ve been ordering random things in the mail and groceries because I cannot go to the store. I don’t even know if I have “real” clothes anymore because I’m only […]
It’s taken me weeks to pump out this post – mostly because I wanted to avoid the swirl of emotions it would evoke in me – but here it is. Last semester, I barely survived the workload I gave myself. I did too much. Wow, that last phrase was harder to write than I thought it […]
My sides were cramping, not from the routine but from watching Shiloh’s skinny arms swing furiously with the pale yellow 1lb weights. “Three, two, ONE!” he shouted as we finished the set on the TV, then he set the weights down and announced, “no weights!” He was now the instructor. Kevin and I couldn’t stop […]
Ovarian Cancer is Nothing 