Life Blog
If you get a penny for your thoughts, than I must have thousands of pennies. Read my thoughts about life, writing, and more.
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I remember my past like scenes in a movie. As if it all happened to someone else, in a different reality, separate from the one I currently reside in. I say “I” and “me” when recounting the sordid tales, but feels like a lie. Despite all evidence and witnesses that confirm their truth, I cannot…
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We need Quiet Time. As a society, we hate silence. We play music in the background of coffee shops and grocery stores. We fill “awkward silences” with small talk and mindless chatter. We even go so far as to say that quiet people “have no personality”, or regard them with suspicion because “it’s always the…
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It’s a book-shop kind of Sunday. Quiet chatter, and whirling grinders tickle my ears. The smell of coffee and books float through the air with each long, slow breathe. I camp out at a small table with a hot tea latte, a muffin, and my little laptop. The window to my right displays a cool…
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When I was 19 I went on a date. It was clear early to me early on that I wasn’t interested in him romantically, and I made that clear. He said he understood and that he was okay with being friends. For the last 9 years he’s been an occasional brunch buddy, conversation partner, and…
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“If” can be a dangerous word. When we use it looking forward, it’s about risks, possibilities, and potential. We may wonder what life would look like if we moved to the city, or if we take that trip, or if we ask out that person. Thinking about what could be is how we make the…
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I had a bad reaction to my antidepressants. As a teenager I tried Lexapro. Just this year I tried Zoloft. Both drugs are SSRIs, meant to increase Serotonin (the happy chemical) in the brain. Both times I took the smallest dosages possible, and both times I suffered from “Serotonin Syndrome”- a series of side effects…
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Am I demiromantic, or just afraid of love? This is a fair question that I spend several therapy sessions mulling over. It’s true that I have a lot of trauma surrounding love and relationships. Those traumas come both from watching my mother’s abusive marriage in childhood, and from my own toxic relationships in my teen…
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I read a lot of cozy mysteries on vacation last week. Don’t ask me how murder mysteries can be so charming and relaxing, but they are. Cozy series tend to follow a set formula: a single woman in her mid-20s to 30’s, owns a successful small business in a small town. Despite the small size…
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If you asked me 5 years ago, I would have said I wasn’t creative. There were many reasons why I felt that way, but they all simmered down to 1 thing: I didn’t feel like I deserved to do so. It is an unspoken rule that the title of “Creative” is something that must be…
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I still have my old ipod Classic. Though made redundant by smart phones, once upon a time this dense device was the pride of my early adulthood. I bought it my senior year of high school, with the earnings from my first job. I filled that thing with as much music as I could find,…
Ashley Mae West 