“Where you stand depends on where you sit.” It means your personal situation informs your stance on issues. Try to imagine how you’d vote if you were sitting at a less privileged place.
15, 21
A lesson from author Tom Zumba. I hope you’ll never need it: “There is nothing nothing easy about this thing called grief. Nothing. But I ask you to please please please say yes more often than you say no. Say yes to you. To possibility. To hope. To love. To life. To healing. Please choose the light more often than you choose the darkness. Not that there aren't gifts in the darkness. There are. But it's often so much easier to find them the gifts in the light. Do all you can to stay in the light. Please remember that the person you love so so so dearly lived. Don't forget that. He lived. She lived. Here with you. And your relationship continues. Always. Don't be so overwhelmed and paralyzed and pissed off that he died that she died that you spend most of your time focusing on their death. Focus on your life. Together. Say yes as often as you can. Choose light as often as you can. Remember that he lived as often as you can. Don't lose her in the details of her death. This thing called grief is hard hard hard work. But you are stronger than you think. His book is called Permission to Mourn
21
You are always responsible for how you act, no matter what you’re feeling. (Or whether you’re drunk or in any way impaired.) Hammer this point home for the next 10 years!
13
“You’ll never be alone when you carry a poet in your pocket.” - John Adams Bring a book with you wherever you go.
12, 19
It’s fine, great, to be thrifty. But please don’t be cheap. Hard-earned money should neither be squandered or hoarded. Enjoy your success! But save more than you’re comfortable with. It’s like my running coach used to say: Keep going until you feel like you’re gonna poop your pants, then push yourself to do another mile. Point is, it should hurt a little.
16, 21
I forget who said it but I love it: “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Paper and pen. Write. Keep it or burn it whatever you like. Journal or make a list or bullet points or narrative…whatever. Just write.
15, 21
Paint rocks with pictures or kind messages and find public places to leave them where they can hide in plain site. See RockOurWorldArt.
8-11
White privilege doesn’t mean that your life hasn’t been hard, it means that your skin color isn’t one of the things making it harder.
14
I hope you find a partner with who are your most authentic self, and who you love for who they genuinely are.
15, 21
When COVID started my first thought was “Holy sh*t Trump is going to cancel the 2020 election because of pandemic.” Thank God I was wrong.
15
If you’ve never dressed a newborn before, an easy way to get the hang of it is to lay the outfit flat on the bed and then place the baby on top of it. Tuck her little arms and legs inside one at a time, then zip or snap them in. Done!
Infant
“You matter to me.” Is a beautiful way to express your feelings when a relationship is new.
15, 17, 21
Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.
20
When things get scary, look for the helpers. This is true in physical crises and existential ones. SCOTUS just passed down a few truly horrifying rulings, including reversing Roe v Wade. I’m disheartened in all that’s going on, but was reminded to look for the helpers, the activists, etc. Look for them…and join them.
10, 15, 21
I would rather deal with a big truth than a little lie. Whatever it is you’re going through we can solve it together but only if we’re both honest.
14
Just show up. That’s all we can really control. Show up, (don’t run) and take it from there. You got this.
21
We can disagree with people and still be respectful of them. (When what they espouse is something that hurts people, that’s where you can draw the line.)
16
It’s best not to cuss but writing bad words is even worse than speaking them. Even in casual texting, etc. Always an asterisk in place of a vowel to avoid being rude.
16
Crushes are fine but I beg you not to waste your time and energy obsessing about someone. Really it’s just a way to hide, to feel something without risking anything. F that. Turn your attention to something creative, constructive or productive. Make art, train for a race, volunteer or get a second job. Discover WHAT you love. Pursue that and your people will be there.
15, 17, 20, 21