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The Earring
I heard the clink of the earring on the tile before I even realized I had dropped it. I looked down at the blank floor. “Damn!” I said (under my breath because I’m trying to swear less frequently in front of my kids). I bent down and tried to look under the bathroom vanity. Clearly, the earring had fallen down into the crack under it. I couldn’t see much, so I went into the boys’ room to get a flashlight. Austin was reading a book. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I dropped my diamond earring somewhere in the bathroom,” I said. “I need your flashlight to try and find it.” He…
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School and Single Parenting
Every single parent I know is obsessed with what’s going to happen in September. Will schools fully open? Will we have to continue to home school our children? Will we do some sort of hybrid model? There are so many questions and no good solutions. Consequently, everyone is freaking out. I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and we were lamenting what the fall might look like. She and her partner are able to work remotely, but noted that without school, she gets very little done. I commiserated with her, because I get it. But do you know what I was thinking? It may be bad for you,…
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What Does It Take to Date a Widow?
As I write this, my partner Chris is sitting across the kitchen island, typing something on his computer. He’s focused on what he is doing, so I can take a minute to look at him. He’s got a scruffy face, the kind of stubble that’s sexy on men like him, and he’s wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg t-shirt, which makes him even more attractive to me. He is not smiling right now, because he is working, but I can see the softness that’s always in his eyes. It’s a softness I know because he looks at me with those eyes all the time. Just behind him is a photo of…
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Safety
About two months after Shawn and I started dating, we went to Vietnam for a week. I know this may sound like major excursion, but we were living in Japan, and Vietnam was just a few hours away by plane. We made a plan to start in the south and take the train north. We had no hotel reservations or timeline of events, except that our plane flew into Ho Chi Minh City on a Saturday and out of Hanoi a week later. It was the type of plan I often made in my early 20s, which consisted of, “I’m sure it will be fine.” We spent a great first…
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My Love Language
I can hear the murmur of his voice coming from upstairs. It is so early that the birds have only just started to chirp and the sky is still a bit dark. A few minutes ago, I heard the patter of little feet – they are Tommy’s, I’m sure, as he is always the first awake – and then the rustling of the covers. After a moment, the reading began. It is not the first time that he has read to them. They are almost done with the book he started just a few weeks ago, as he reads to them at night and whenever we all need to take…
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Who Would You Love More?
A few weeks ago, as I was chopping vegetables, Claire came into the kitchen and started talking to me. We chatted for a while about our lives, including when my boyfriend Chris was going to come back to stay with us again. “He’s back home for another week,” I told her, “but then he will be here for a long stretch. He’s really excited to see us again.” She smiled, did a little hop and said “yay!” It was quiet for a moment as she looked at me to see what I’d say next. As I sat in that space, I could feel her thinking. I waited. “Mama,” she said…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
