Pandemic

Picture it: a school in 2020. I dodged students as I sprinted to the bathroom where I had approximately 90 seconds before I had to join my virtual students’ Google Meet and welcome my in-person students with a smile. In a haste, I pull the toilet paper and only receive one square of it. “That’s not enough,” I thought. Pulling a little harder in hopes to get a few more turns out of the roll, my hand drops with—one square. I pull again. One square. Realizing how much time I’m wasting along with the crippling rage caused by ripping off one square at a time, I bust out in tears of anger and pure exhaustion. Yep, right there in the bathroom stall […]

When my son died by suicide back in 2015, I was halfway through a four-year term as a municipally elected official. For the two years remaining in my term, I felt overwhelmed and stressed. Life was not a good place for me. My son’s death had left me questioning my faith and I felt like I had no solid place to plant my feet. The next couple of years were spent hustling for work, dealing with a husband who had just undergone his second brain surgery and, well, trying to survive. I remember wanting the world to stop and let me off. There were days I didn’t want to be alive. Not that I wanted to die, but I was just so

I’ve learned in life that it is really important to look back. To reflect. To pay attention. While COVID-19 still moves among us, many of us are beginning to step back into the very gray area of normal. I don’t know about you, but I want to emerge into the new normal different from when the virus began. In some ways, I don’t want to go back to the life I lived before the virus. The way the world stopped caused all of us to tremble, worry, and anxiously wonder what will happen next (at least a little bit). It caused us to literally stop in our tracks, cancel all of our plans, and sit still. We have all felt the question…”Now

I’ve always considered myself an intelligent person. Not a brainiac by any means, but someone that exercises good judgment and who thinks through things completely before taking action. That was until last week! Last week provided a new perspective on my mental fortitude and judgment. Here’s what happened. My friend was making fabric surgical masks. You know, the kind you can put a filter inside to give greater protection from our invisible viral enemy—the Covid-19 pandemic. She made them from fun cotton fabric and gifted me with a blue floral one. She had neatly tucked a filter into the pocket and reassured me that it would protect me from all that attempted to assault my respiratory system. What I failed to recognize