On Easter Sunday, my husband and I took our children to Mass, as we do every Sunday. I wasn’t born Catholic, and I haven’t always been a regular churchgoer even after I became one. But we love our church here, mostly thanks to the wonderful priests who run the place. I originally became a Catholic [...]
Filed under: 1990s, 2010s, extended family, job, mother, parents, road trip, siblings, single parent, strength, travel | Leave a Comment »
When I met my husband in 1995, I thought he and I had a lot in common. We were both crazy computer people, in an age still well before personal computers and internet access were common place. We both were independent, working hard at our careers and had a lot of ambition at the starting [...]
Filed under: 2010s, extended family, fear, insecurity, marriage, parents | Leave a Comment »
“Oh, that is SO gay,” my daughter said the other night at the dinner table. My husband and I looked at each other, a question there for both of us. Do we go there? My 22 year old son, home now post college graduation and furiously interviewing at any number of amazing companies, looked down [...]
Filed under: 2010s, daughter, divorce, gay, marriage, parents, son | Leave a Comment »
“Mom, I have some news for you.” I gulped, holding the phone. It was a cold day in March, and I wondered what my boy, standing in his apartment seven hundred miles away in college was about to tell me. I remembered uttering those words to my mother as well, from my dorm room 100 [...]
Filed under: 2010s, boyfriends, college, dating, girlfriends, insecurity, parents, son | Leave a Comment »
Before the hurricane decided to head this way to New England, it was chasing us down on our family vacation the week before. It’s funny to even say those words together: “family vacation”. We took a few of them when I was a child, a “family vacation” but it was never really the whole family. [...]
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I am on vacation this week, going back to my family who still live back in Michigan, as I alluded to in my previous post. I tried to make sure I had enough posts to get me through the week while staying at my sister’s house, but unfortunately I am going to not be able [...]
Filed under: 2000s, elementary school, extended family, parents, road trip, siblings, strength, sunrises, travel | Leave a Comment »
Ironically, I am currently on vacation and am right where I was describing in my last post; in Michigan, staying with my sister’s family, with my brother coming in and taking pot shots towards the family dynamic at will and then complaining about the consequences. Yes, that evening was a year ago nearly exactly, and [...]
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“Should I go get him and bring him back?” I asked the group assembled around my sister’s patio table in her backyard. We were days into my trip to Michigan and it had been a mostly tense experience. The kids were having a blast being all together, but my sister and my brother were trading [...]
Filed under: 2000s, alcohol, anger, divorce, extended family, houseguests, parents, road trip, siblings, travel | Leave a Comment »
I stared at the screen in frustration. It would have to be me, again. It seemed like it was always me. My father had booked a trip up North for the summer. Normally, my father’s visits to any of his children were fairly short and to the point; he would fly in for a few [...]
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We were sitting in the breakfast area of the Hampton Inn with my father. It was Labor Day weekend, and this year, my father’s 70th birthday fell on the Saturday of that weekend. Two years ago, R’s mother had thrown a splashy, expensive party for his father when he’d turned 70. We didn’t have enough [...]
Filed under: 2000s, birthday, daughter, divorce, extended family, love, parents, road trip, siblings, son, strength, travel | Leave a Comment »
