Pushing Pause on the Pursuit of Happiness
For most of my life, I’ve been very good at chasing more—more goals, more plans, more accomplishments, more of whatever comes next. But lately, something feels different. I still have dreams (including one that’s somehow become an actual second draft of a book!), but I’m beginning to realize I don’t have to wait for those dreams to come true before I’m allowed to enjoy my life. Maybe I’m actually starting to understand this whole thriving thing!
Maybe This Is Thriving
What if thriving isn't somewhere on the other side of everything that's hard? Maybe resilience isn't always dramatic. Maybe it's ordinary—showing up, loving, praying, hoping, and trying again tomorrow. I've spent so much time waiting for the next big thing that I'm beginning to wonder if I've misunderstood which parts were the big things all along.
Remember September 12
Twenty-five years after September 11, I find myself thinking about the fear, the grief, the flags, and the extraordinary way strangers turned toward one another. Maybe remembering that day means more than honoring what we lost. Maybe it also means remembering what we discovered about ourselves—and what we’re still capable of becoming.
Nothing Happened. Everything Changed.
How does someone go from being one of your favorite people to someone whose name makes you sigh when it pops up on your phone? And why can some relationships survive years of distance while others quietly disappear without anything ever really happening? I’ve been thinking about friendship, distance, unmet needs, slow-motion ghosting, and the strange ways people move in and out of our lives.
Maybe They Do
What started as a ridiculous “Why not?” turned into two months of voting, sharing, dreaming, and approximately 7,482 references to Jeff Goldblum. We didn’t win America’s Favorite Couple—but somewhere along the way, I realized the contest had stopped being about winning. It became about 28 years of choosing each other, growing through the wonderful and the ugly, and realizing that maybe I’ve been keeping the wrong score.