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Two Of Us Are In a Room One of us is sick.  She has lost what would’ve identified her as a girl. The thing women look to have, develop, and maintain throughout our lives. Yes, the very same thing that causes teenage girls to cry over the pain of them growing. They are for much more than looks-they symbolize what we, as women associate with being feminine. In this room, the doctors have taken both of her breasts to try and save her life. They tell her the illness ravaging her body is hormone-based and she must have a full hysterectomy to live. We all know there is so much more to being a woman than breasts and a womb, but can you tell her that? Can you tell her that she is still a woman as she sits in this chair with poison being fed into her body to try and shake the disease? She has already cut  her hair. She said now she has to shave it off, because it hurts her. She is losing the feeling on the bottom of her hands and feet because of the side effects of the poi...

For many of us, the idea of blooming into a woman was an exciting prospect. I remember there being so much emphasis on those two organs that grew upon our chests. I remember the pain they caused me as they grew. I cried myself to sleep many nights in the 7th  grade because I went from an A- to a D-cup seemingly overnight. By the same token, I remember how, even at that age, I somehow felt more attractive because I had breasts than I would be without them. No, I did not base my worth on my breasts, but I did gain more confidence in those awkward years for having them. As I’ve grown older, I have had a more hate than love relationship with my own breasts. They were not great milk producers when I tried to breastfeed my son. They still make shirt-shopping such a hassle and the “boob gap” you get with button-down shirts is a thing! Not to mention the fact that I regularly find random debris in my bras. I must be struggling with where to put food because, no matter h...

We have all seen it. You go out to dinner or an outing with friends. There, you see people sitting together and no one is talking to one another. They all have those handy pocket-sized computers in their hands. The THING we on average touch about 2,617 times a day—our cellphones!  In a famed study, a researcher studied how many times friends touched each other while sitting at a café. He collected data around the world. In Mexico City, couples touched each other 185 times. In Paris, 115 times. In London, 0 times. In Gainesville, Fla., twice. We live in a world where you can have conversations with total strangers in some of the farthest reaches of the planet via internet, yet we are a million miles away from the people right in front of us. It really is amazing (not to mention completely inconsiderate and rude) that we have all become this way at the behest of technology. I love that I can Google ANYTHING and get a result to explain to me my question. Yet, I loathe having to talk ...

One day while at work it became so clear to me. All my life I have fought to be me. Fought to be who - I - wanted to be. Look and dress the way that I want to. Demand others to treat me the way I want to be treated and know that I am never going to be what any one else wants me to be. I have ended relationships with friends and lovers/ husbands/ boyfriends that did not serve me. That were toxic to me in some way or another. So how in my 41 years of life have I been so brazen with all these relationships but the one relationship that literally is the biggest part of my day, every day? How did I miss that the place that I have spent approximately 24,960 hours of my life at is the most toxic relationship I have ever had. My place of employment. Then it hit me. If my job was my boyfriend, I would have dumped him LONG ago. So when this sadness hit me, like a huge brick wall, I realized that I needed to find what it was that brought me joy. So I thought about it one day about the things ...