Can We Talk? PTSD, Fireworks, and Faking Normal

Okay, another Joan Rivers moment—can we talk? Let’s talk about fireworks and PTSD. I know a lot of folks have what borders on a fetish-level love affair with fireworks. They hit the stands like it’s Christmas morning, dropping hundreds of dollars on colorful explosions for the 4th of July and, here in Utah, for Pioneer …

Continue reading Can We Talk? PTSD, Fireworks, and Faking Normal

Life Out of the Closet (and What Was in There With Me)

My apologies, folks. I took a couple days off from blogging—not for any dramatic reason, just your standard‑issue writer’s block mixed with a case of garden‑induced serenity. I was busy skipping between a handful of half‑baked blog posts that couldn’t quite find their endings and soaking in the quiet joy of tending plants. Honestly, sometimes …

Continue reading Life Out of the Closet (and What Was in There With Me)

Two Years Four Weeks Later: The Hard Truth that was held in

      Author's Note – Two Years Later I originally wrote this piece nearly two years ago, in the wake of my husband's suicide. At the time, I was swimming in a sea of questions, grief, and societal expectations about what my relationship meant — to others, to me, and to the world. What …

Continue reading Two Years Four Weeks Later: The Hard Truth that was held in

Oh Yeah, He’s Dead

            Okay, well… the way things are going, we’re still not circling back to the Change Series just yet. If I’m going to tell that story properly—especially the part between the Army and civilian life—I need more time to flesh it out. I rushed past too much in the first …

Continue reading Oh Yeah, He’s Dead