Meaningless Words

 There are certain things you just assume are going to happen to you. You don't necessarily make a detailed five-year plan about them. You don't sit down with a spreadsheet and write husband by 29, child one by 31, child two by 33, emotional stability by 35, matching towels by 37. You just assume that at some point, life will move in the general direction you've always imagined it would. For me, motherhood was always one of those things. When I was little, I wanted to be a mom. Not in some vague, "maybe someday" kind of way. It felt inevitable. Of course I'd grow up and have children. Of course I'd have a partner. Of course there would eventually be a house full of noise and toys and someone asking me where their other shoe was while I stood there knowing full well it had been on their foot twelve seconds earlier. I just assumed I'd get there. I'm 33 now. There are no children. There isn't even a partner. Which is becoming a bit of a logistica...

 I don’t even know where to start. Everything’s been a blur lately — and somehow, I’m both numb and feeling everything at once. This year was supposed to be the one where things finally calmed down. I’d just healed from a car accident that totaled my car and left me bruised in more ways than one. I thought if I just made a few bold moves — new job, new apartment, new start — I could breathe again. But instead, it’s like I accidentally rebuilt my life inside a burning house. And now I can’t find the door. The new job started great. I took a short-term permanent position — days, 7 to 7 — and I thrived . The house was calm, the clients were kind, and I started to think maybe I’d figured it out. Then that contract ended, and I took another full-time position at a different house. That’s where everything shifted. One client there screamed through the night, cussed at me, sometimes swung at me. My body never learned the difference between “yelling” and “danger.” My anxiety was like an a...

 If you’ve never cried because your sandwich fell apart while simultaneously plotting the downfall of capitalism, congratulations — you probably don’t have PMDD. I do. And the thing about PMDD is, it’s like PMS but with more drama, bigger explosions, and the kind of mood swings that could qualify me for a NASA centrifuge test. It shows up monthly, ruins my life like clockwork, then vanishes just in time for everyone around me to pretend it wasn’t that bad. So, I did the sensible thing: I saw my doctor. My doctor, by the way, is a man. Not that this is always a bad thing, but let’s just say he looked at me the way I look at Ikea instructions: vaguely concerned, a little sweaty, and absolutely lost. His entire medical wisdom on periods began and ended with: “I can offer you the birth control pill…” As if that is the magical cure-all for hormonal mayhem, rage spirals, and sobbing in my car because someone took too long at a stop sign. I asked about actual treatment options. ...

 I used to say with the confidence of a drunk girl holding her friend’s earrings: “I wish a man would try to hurt me. I’d fight. I’d kill him before he even got the chance.” Turns out, I was lying. To myself. Because when the night came—when my gut told me this guy from Tinder was safe enough to meet at his house—I didn’t fight. I didn’t run. I froze. I remember staring at the brown half-wall with green paint climbing up to the ceiling, like if I focused hard enough, maybe the ugly color scheme would swallow me whole. Maybe if I memorized the layout of the house, I could find my way out… except I couldn’t even remember where the front door was. I thought about whether there were cameras recording, whether he planned to go further, whether there was some level beyond this in his personal hell. But mostly, I was silent. He was silent. Except when he was reassuring me: “You’re doing a good job.” Words that now fill my mouth with the taste of vomit. And then, like a scene cu...

Yesterday, I lost one of the most important people in my life. My nana. I don’t even know how to put into words what it feels like—like someone quietly took a piece of the world away, and somehow, everything looks the same, but it isn’t. It won’t ever be. She was a firecracker when she needed to be and the gentlest soul when you least expected it. She was stubborn in the way only grandmothers can be, and she loved with this fierce, quiet kind of love that made you feel safe just by being near her. I keep thinking about all the moments she won’t be here for—big ones, small ones, the things I always wanted her to see. I wanted her to see me be successful in securing a house I could call a home. To find true love and be treated the way she always told me I should be. To meet my future kids, the ones I know she was waiting to see. And the pain of never having given her that will never lessen. Because she deserved to witness all of it, and I wanted her to be part of it. I’ll never forget...

 I’m in my early 30s, and I’ve never felt lonelier in my life. Not the kind of lonely you fix with brunch with friends or a good cry on the phone with your mom. I mean the kind where you could be lying next to someone, sharing your home, your bed, your life… and still feel like you’re shouting into a void. Like some kind of sad, unpaid extra in your own love story. Here’s the kicker: I know I do this to myself. I seem to have a radar exclusively tuned to unavailable men. Not just single-but-not-ready men. I’m talking about the ones who will move in, share groceries, share pets, share Netflix passwords—but God forbid they share a title. The kind of relationship where it walks, talks, and quacks like a partnership, but the moment you say boyfriend , they look at you like you’ve just asked them to donate a kidney. A kidney! I just wanted a label, not a body part. And the worst part? I’ve actually had chances with genuinely good guys. The kind who text back, make plans, want a future. ...

 I’ve spent the past eight years as a behavioral and residential counselor, and somewhere along the way, the job stopped feeling like a job and started feeling like a slow unraveling. When people ask what I do, I usually give the short, polite version: I work in behavioral health . It sounds professional, contained, maybe even rewarding. And sometimes, it is. But most days? Most days it feels like I’m patching leaks on a sinking ship with my bare hands—and a roll of duct tape I bought on clearance. I’ve watched clients die. Not one. Not two. Too many. Drug-induced psychotic breaks that felt both sudden and inevitable, leaving behind an echo of what-ifs that never really fade. One client—who I genuinely felt like could beat his demons—ended up taking someone else’s life and then his own in a suicide-by-cop standoff induced by a days-long methamphetamine bender and zero hope. I can still see the headlines in my mind, and the YouTube video a bystander took of the horrific scene unfold...

Five years ago, my neighborhood gave me the unsettling realization that horror stories aren’t just on Netflix — sometimes, they happen while you’re folding laundry. An elderly neighbor’s house was broken into. The intruder? A young man I’d seen strolling around plenty of times — coffee in hand, enjoying the sun like a perfectly normal human. That night… he was auditioning for a horror movie. Or maybe he was on superhero steroids. Either way, terrifying. He busted her door in. My neighbor and I initially ran over because we could hear her alarm going off. That’s when it escalated: he suddenly stabbed her in the neck with a letter opener, then came to the front door. He saw me dialing 911, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, “I’m going to kill you, bitch.” Then he jumped off the stairs and started running at me. Cue me running back to my front door screaming for my ex to come out. That’s when we all tried — desperately — to hold him down. Spoiler: it did not go smoothly. He even attac...

 I thought I was having a wholesome moment. My dog Piper, looking like the furry king he is, all curled up in my bed. Obvious Instagram material. Obvious Snapchat story. I snapped the photo, hit upload… and went about my life. An hour later, I checked my story. And that’s when I realized: apparently, my vibrator had decided to make a cameo on the headboard. Just chilling there, photobombing Pipers big moment like it was auditioning for a part in a very adult Disney movie. Cue a mix of horror, disbelief, and laughter that made me almost choke on my iced coffee. Horror because… well, yeah. That picture is floating somewhere in cyberspace. Laughter because this is literally my life: perfect, awkward chaos that I cannot control. Lesson learned: always scan the background before posting. Or don’t — and let your dog and your toys share the spotlight like the messy little sitcom that is your life. Either way, Snapchat just became a lot more honest. And that, dear internet, is how my ...

 I thought aging gracefully was something people did in yoga pants with green smoothies. Turns out, it’s also watching your grandparents slowly swap their car keys for reading glasses the size of dinner plates. I always thought grandparents were immortal. Like, they survived the Great Depression and raising our parents — surely they could survive anything, right? Turns out, aging doesn’t work like that. My Nana now weighs 74 pounds. Seventy. Four. That’s basically the same weight as a golden retriever. And she can’t see or hear anymore, which means every conversation with her now sounds like I’m yelling into a void while she nods politely, probably assuming I just said something about the weather. And then there’s my other grandma. Early-onset Alzheimer’s. The words alone feel like someone dropped a piano on my chest. She’s still here, but sometimes it feels like she’s fading in and out, like a TV with bad reception. And the thought of losing either of them — maybe both, maybe soon...

Welcome to the corner of the internet you didn't know you needed but will definitely pretend to read when your coworker walks by. I'm the girl who thought adulthood came with instructions. Spoiler: it doesn't. Instead, it shows up with bills, questionable life choices, and a tendency to buy houseplants like they're emotional support animals. Somewhere between "I can totally handle this" and Googling "How to hang a shelf with no level" I realized ... maybe my chaos could at least be entertaining.  So here we are.  This blog is where sarcasm meets honest, where real-life disasters get turned into comedy, because crying in Walmart isn't a personality trait. We'll cover everything from dating app nightmares to the time I learned the hard way that Ikea instructions are more like polite suggestions  than actual guides. Basically if life feels like sitcom that forgot to cast a laugh track, welcome home. S&S