I see them smiling together on Facebook, their photos gleefully captioned “Mom’s Night Out!” as they escape their kids for wine and pedicures. They comment on each other’s throwback Thursday pics, poking gentle fun at the teased bangs one had peeking out from under her graduation cap. I imagine they wore the matching heart necklaces […]
friendship
Requiem For a BFF
Being the new girl in 8th grade was like walking over hot coals every day. All the other kids were a part of established cliques. Hormones and insecurity are a double rip tide that pulls under all but the strongest and most resilient of us during middle school. It was a life preserver to have Karen draw me […]
Finding Love in the Present Tense
On the cusp of womanhood, we dreamt of boys who would sweep us off our feet, play the guitar, and in the sun-drenched summer days of southern California, carry a surfboard under muscular tanned arms. We wrote bad poetry and were waterlogged from long days at the pool. We ate cookies, drank Coke, and […]
The Fringe Hours That Fuel My Life
The lock clicks as it slides open, a loud pop announcing the beginning of the day. I had already been waiting a few minutes outside the door for the restaurant to open, rubbing my tired eyes and stretching my muscles that weren’t yet aware they were supposed to be working this early. Every Friday that […]
Reason, season, lifetime.
My list of best friends used to be long. I’d prattle off a list of 20, 30 names, believing each person held and knew and understood a different part of my core. I’d count the number of weddings I’d been not only a bridesmaid in, but also a maid of honor in, not-so-secretly believing my […]
There Are No Experts
I listened carefully as the man in the center of the room, a well-respected black civil rights activist, shared about his years of experience in community organizing and advocacy. Then he said a word that made my insides clench in shock: “Orientals.” I hoped it was a slip of the tongue. Surely a longtime native […]
Where Stories Intersect
I wouldn’t call us close friends. We had gone to school together our entire childhood. I remember her easygoing attitude, the big grin and contagious laugh. We had mutual friends, sat in some of the same classes and attended a lot of sleepovers together. Still, as adults our lives went in different directions and […]
Emmanuel and Showing Up
The first few days of Advent, I felt irrationally angry. I tried to call it irritable or easily annoyed, but when I sat down to dig through it all what I found was anger. Advent is an invitation to the waiting, and frankly, I would like to decline. No thanks. Can’t come. Wish I could […]
Why Does Twitter Terrify Me?
Why does using my words terrify me so much? Let’s start out with a confession: Twitter terrifies me. I got my handle a few years ago. The day my friend Melissa explained to me how she manages her twitter account, makes lists, what she posts, and what a hashtag is, my heart thudded in my […]
Bridge Over Broken
Break. Shatter. Fracture. Rift. The words we use to describe the end of a relationship are all about being broken to pieces. When a close friendship ended in the bitter cold of winter, I was surprised to be staring at the deepest, hardest grief I have ever felt. I refused to believe that I needed […]
This is a Post About Loss
This is a post about loss. I write this over and over again. Ambling through the labyrinth trying to think of just the right thing to say. I don’t think there is a right thing anymore. If you haven’t become an intimate friend with loss, with the emptiness that comes from the missing, then you […]
For Those Who Love Jesus, but . . .
I didn’t mean to stay for three hours. And it was more than the rose leaf tea, more than the endless Super Why episodes she put on for my three-year-old. It was more than the familiar story of young love and marriage, or the moment we both confessed that our moms are our best friends […]
I thought I’d do a new friend a favor and not make friends at all
I realized Joy went to church with me on Pentecost Sunday. I sat with my parents at the special outdoor service, held in the local high school stadium. In the bleachers before the service, I shaded my eyes with my hand to see the stage. There was a girl up there. A girl my age. […]
Community: Slamming Doors and Kitchen Messes
I was 19 and had nowhere to go. I had been couch surfing for nearly a year and was running out of options. A friend and I had talked about going out to Chicago to check out a Christian community known for its ministry to lost hippies and punks and the homeless, as well as […]
Leaving Home and the Geographies of our Days
Every time we leave, I always hope for a clean break, where you wince but then rip off the band-aid and you’re okay. Where the pain is quick but then fades, and soon, you’re just left with a scab. Or I hope that if the pain does remain, it’s still beautiful in its own right, […]