Our summer started with an epic Knicks win, and though C and I are not sports people, we basked in the city's energy, watching the final game on fans’ brownstone stoops was an experience I’ll probably never have again. We joined a summer petanque league, this time C and I playing on different teams. I went on my first father-daughter trip in years (and actually had fun!). Christopher and I spent time in Portland, Maine, and fell in love with the city, which led us to reevaluate what we want in a home (more on that in another post). We BBQ’d with his friends who are like family in New Hampshire. We went to Providence and ate so many oysters while reading novels. We met my mom at a yoga retreat in Massachusetts. We took full advantage of our $30-a-month Alamo Drafthouse season pass, seeing movies weekly. We discovered a new indoor pool a quick bus ride away from us, and we swim as often as we can.

I kept waiting to miss Europe. And I did — sometimes. But I also noticed that I wasn’t spending my days wishing I were somewhere else.

As this summer comes to a close, I’m grateful for the season. It looked different from past summers, but between a European heat wave, rising flight prices, and fires tearing through the regions we wanted to visit, it seems like the universe was trying to tell us something: I didn’t need the same type of summer I’m used to. What I needed was trees and sand, and water—be it beaches or lakes. Sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we actually need.

As I sit at my desk, looking out at an alley full of inoperable refrigerators, a neighbor growing weed plants, and an apartment terrace still in disarray from the storms, with trash scattered across the sidewalks and staticky music and car horns blaring in the background, I wonder if this is what I really want.

A friend told me she didn’t go to her dad’s wedding after he remarried and she has no regrets about it, even though she and her dad have a pretty decent relationship. My husband said he wants to go even if I decide not to. I told him how weird that would be, and he said that’s part of the reason why he would do it. My cousin wants me to go, but I think it’s because this is weird for him too.

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Sometimes advice from someone who has absolutely no stake in your life feels safer than advice from the people living inside the problem. Maybe that's why, on a whim a few months ago, I wrote to The Cut's advice column, Going Through It. I asked for advice — am I a shitty daughter if I decide not to go to my dad’s wedding? If I do go, how do I keep my emotions in check? I’m happy for my dad; it’s never been about that, but I know myself, and I can spontaneously combust into tears when something gets to be too much. I don’t want to mask my tears of overwhelm for tears of happiness. I had forgotten I submitted anything until a few weeks ago, when I got a response from the editor, asking for some follow-up material before running the column the following week. My biggest fear, though—people wanting to talk about the elephant in the room: the divorce. I hope that my dad’s family and friends have enough common sense to not mention it (the first rule of fight club: you don’t talk about fight club) — so if you’re reading this and you’re going to the wedding. Ask me about the food. Ask me about the weather. Ask me whether I've watched Love Island. Ask me about literally anything except the divorce.

I wasn't expecting my first appearance in The Cut to be as the subject of an advice column, but I'll take it.

‘My Dad’s Marrying a Stranger. Do I Have to Go to the Wedding?’

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Despite the title being something I would have never used, the advice was actually pretty great.

The article is behind a paywall (message me for access), but the gist: she gets it! Without knowing me, she somehow managed to read my mind: “I think a part of you wants to attend — you see it as crucial to upholding a decent relationship with your dad. If that’s true, I have ideas about putting you back in control of your presence among the toasting, cocktail-attired throngs.”

I realized she was right. I do want to go—not because I'm excited about the wedding itself, but because I want to preserve whatever version of my relationship with my dad we're rebuilding. I want it to be a weekend of fun, not of dreading, so figuring out how to navigate the hardship is crucial.

The advice I’m taking with me

1. “Pretend there’s a thread pulling the crown of your head tautly to the ceiling, thrust your collarbones forward, and keep a look of light amusement and openness on your face whenever you can remember to. The expression should neutrally convey, to anyone looking, Isn’t this something?”

2. “Head off their prying by asking lots of questions before they beat you to it. It’ll be harder for them to juice you for drama if you’re waist-deep into a different topic. Another solid way to be the conversation boss is to think of three safe things to talk about in advance, then steer anything hairy back around to one of them. And … look. Some people are going to be total ignoramuses about this situation, and they’ll ask you insensitive, invasive-feeling questions. It’s a wedding! That’s what they’re for. Prepare for that eventuality, and make your peace with it now. (Again, if you can’t? Send regrets.)”

3. “When in doubt, be otherwise occupied. One nice thing about the size of this crowd: You can disappear into it.”

This is the year I decided to test out sobriety. My last drink (a glass of flat prosecco during the even more flat Marty Surpreme movie) was on December 31, 2025. I decided that I don’t actually like drinking — it interferes with my writing, sleep, and emotional well-being. My dad’s wedding is really going to test that (would it actually be easier with a couple of tequila shots?). Weddings are basically designed around alcohol, with an open bar, and with my Catholic family, I know what’s to come.

So this is me spending the next 3.5 months figuring out how I can not have a total breakout at this wedding. I’m still trying to navigate how to be a child of divorced parents. I could quite possibly spend the entire wedding in the bathroom stall crying, or catching up with friends and family I haven’t seen in years. I don't know whether this wedding will feel like an ending or a beginning. Maybe it'll be both.

Christopher and I have flights booked, my dad made us hotel reservations, I’ve made plans to see old friends; what’s left to do except find my dress to match my invisible crown?

^{Spiegel, Amy Rose. “‘Dad’s Marrying a Stranger. Do I Have to Go to the Wedding?.’” The Cut, 22 July 2026, https://www.thecut.com/article/going-through-it-can-i-skip-dads-wedding.html.}

This year sucked for reasons I have written about countless times (in case you missed it, my parents got divorced after 36 years of marriage). I thought 2025 would be only about survival, but turns out, some pretty incredible events happened.

All The Wonderful Events of 2025
~I started an MA in Happiness Studies
~Christopher and I moved to Brooklyn (2,300sq ft to 750)
~C and I rented out our house in Nashville
~My mom moved back to Texas, which allowed me to reconnect with old friends
~I had three essays published (in case you missed them, here they are: Business Insider, HuffPost Personal, and The Manifest Station)
~Christopher showed up for me in ways I could never have expected. Somehow, I love him more.
~Lily Allen released West End Girl (and we got tickets to see her in Brooklyn)
~I switched book projects (and have a draft of a new manuscript, WHAT?)
~C and I spent six weeks in Eastern Europe
~I discovered the joy of Wallace & Gromit, and Studio Ghibili
~The move to Brooklyn allowed me to reconnect with good friends from Cairo
~I got bangs (and actually like them)!
~I had the most beautiful quilt made from fabric I collected while camping through Eastern and Southern Africa
~C and I both sold our cars
~I discovered the joys of doing yoga in Prospect Park
~I saw my mom every month, but three
~Christopher, my mom, and I spent Christmas in the Caribbean
~Zohran Mamdani won the mayorship in NYC (it’s nice to vote for someone who actually wins)
~So many friends bought houses and moved
~I read 54 books, my favorite was Water Moon
~I visited nine new countries, bringing my total to 74
~I reconnected with a friend from high school
~I joined an ACOD (adult children of divorce) support group, and made some great friends from it
~I went to Hudson on a writing retreat with Chloe Caldwell
~I started a mentorship with Margo Steines
~I started a Substack
~I wrote so much
~C and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary (and got Le Labo, lucky me?!)
~C and I spent 3 weeks in Texas, time split between Austin, Marfa, and DFW
~I got a NY driver’s license, a NYC ID, and voted in my first local election in NYC
~I didn’t buy a Labubu
~I experienced my first NYC Halloween (they know how to do it here)
~I swam. I spent so much time in the water.

2026 is already off to a wonderful start. I woke up to it snowing in Brooklyn yesterday. C and I went to Mamdani’s inauguration. We made it through AOC’s speech and the prayer before we could no longer feel our feet (it was 11 F with wind chill).

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I haven’t posted on Substack out of embarrassment. But it’s official. I’m putting Slut Gut on hold. Maybe forever, maybe temporarily. My hope is one day it will blossom into the beautiful book I know it can be, but right now isn’t the time.

When I told my two mentors I was thinking about switching projects, they both asked me the same thing, are you avoiding finishing this book out of fear? Maybe I am, but not out of fear of actually having a finished book, fear of it not being the book I want it to be.

I had been contemplating putting Slut Gut on hold for months — since my parents’ separation. I found it too difficult to write stories about my parents as a married couple, as a child of parents who were still together. The book that I set out to write began molding into something else. I didn’t want to write about their divorce in Slut Gut — it already had a clear ending, Christopher’s I engagement; to change that felt like I needed to change the book entirely, so that’s what I’m doing.

I wrote the first draft of Slut Gut right after I lost forty pounds. The weight has come back, not all but enough, thanks to life-changes (a combination of getting married, two traumatic family deaths, going though a parental divorce, and moving states). I no longer feel like the person who wrote that first draft, maybe one day I will find her again. Maybe one day Slut Gut will be born into a different personal essay collection, or I’ll just publish the essays as stand alone pieces. Right now I know I can’t continue writing about a person I no longer am.

I’m not ready to share the working title for my new project, but it is about my marriage beginning as my parents’ marriage ended and the year following my their divorce. Many of the themes from Slut Gut will carry over, perhaps some of the writing will as well.

If you haven’t given my Business Insider essay a read yet, now is the time! It’s a great summary of my parents’ late-stage divorce.

I also started a new Instagram to document my journey as an adult child of divorce, give me a follow.

Drop your recommendations on your favorite divorce memoirs…

My Submittable submissions statuses stare at me, like Facebook status of a lover who refuses to change their status from single, to in a relationship. I ask myself, how long can something be in progress, but then I remember, I too am in progress. When I first uploaded my essays to Submittable, I checked the page multiple times a day, refreshing a page like a crazy ex stalking her ex-lover’s new partner’s instagram page. There are never any changes. I know there won’t be; it takes longer than three minutes for work to be reviewed by publications, in some cases, over six months.

The longer the essays sit in Submittable purgatory, the more things I find wrong with them.

I have failed to mention those whose status HAS already changed. The rejected ones. There have been so many over the years, screenshots and screenshots worth, a receipt roll of rejections. The essays nobody wants, most of them with a generic rejection “thank you for submitting, we regret to inform you, we will not be publishing your essay”. The essays that I think are good enough to be sent out in the world, others disagree.

But sometimes there are the nice rejections, the ones with feedback or encouraging words.

“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your work. Although "Teach Me How to Touch Me" is not the best fit for Write or Die Magazine at this time, we hope you will submit your work again soon. I'll also add a personal note that I absolutely loved this essay (read it in one breathless sitting), but it honestly just isn't the kind of thing we publish. Wishing you the best of luck with it!”

With rejections like these, I ask why can’t this be the kind of thing they publish? If it’s good and held your attention, wouldn’t others have the same reaction?

Finding a home for writing isn’t something I know how to do well. I know how to write (sometimes I question, can I even do that?). If can’t even find a permanent home for myself, how am I supposed to find a place for my words to live? Why can’t they be nomadic like I once was? Spend a few months on one website, try it out, then move to another — just I have done with houses. But that’s not how writing works. They must be permanently housed, to prove you’re good enough.

Having essays published gives book publishers a chance to understand your work, prove that you can write, and in some cases, gives you a following. “They” say, landing a byline is the first step to getting your book out in the world. While some say you don’t always need a byline to land a book deal, a majority of writers I’ve interacted with will disagree (exception: be a social media influencer). Since I started writing in 2020 it’s been ingrained in me that as a nonfiction writer, I need to publish essays if I want to get a book deal. Does not being published online make someone a bad writer? I tell myself no, but often I doubt myself.

Starting a Substack made me feel validated as a writer. I have one paid subscriber (thanks mom). But people are reading my work. Shouldn’t that be enough? I still want more.

At the end of July, I went to a writing retreat in Hudson hosted by and , two talented (published) writers. They both encouraged me to go on a pitching frenzy. I drafted two pitches in less than five minutes, had Chloe review them, then sent the two essay ideas to a few editors. The pitches were about my parents’ divorce and the impact it has on me as an adult, the other was about being in an age-gap marriage. I heard back from one of the four I emailed; let’s call him N. He showed interest in both pitches and asked to see essays for each. I took a few days and wrote. I knew for this publication I needed to have a certain voice and style. I was told they were taking very few essays, so my goal was to have them take one of them. There was some overlap with the essays since I didn’t expect to have both publish by the same site (that’s not me being a pessimist, it’s just the reality of it).

While I waited for N’s response, I heard back from a flash prose contest I entered.

For so long, the only thing I ever knew with writing was what a rejection felt like, but to have this win, felt like a shift. I can’t share any of the details on the contest, but they will select three of the fifteen finalist for a cash prize and to have their work publish. I submitted a piece less than 100 words that I wrote quickly after an interaction with a stranger a few months ago. I had so much fun writing the piece, because that’s what writing is supposed to be, fun, right? Even if I’m not selected for this contest, it is still a win.

While I waited for a response from N, released TRYING. The book I didn’t know I needed. It documents her struggles with infertility, while not directing relevant to my life. I could change anything she talked about in the book to something I was TRYING to do… At her book launch my book, she signed my book… always TRYING to get a fucking acceptance at a lit journal.

A few days after I sent the essays to N, he replied with a google doc of edits, he liked the essay on my age-gap marriage. After two rounds of back and forth… the essay is getting published AND I’m getting paid ($200)! I’m scared to mention the website because what if I jinx it? Can they take back the acceptance? I signed a contract, sent my bank account information, 11 photos of Christopher and me, and a bio (with a link to my substack).

It’s not NYT, but it is a website that gets about 25 million hits a month. Comment any guesses, and honestly if you send me a message I’ll probably tell you. It won’t be published until December-ish, so until then it’s a waiting game.
**They’ll change the title to something click-baity, so if it sucks, it’s not my fault.

I joke that Chloe Caldwell introduced me to my husband because I was working on an assignment for her year long class when I met him. Did her book, TRYING get me my first published essay too? It seems like in the book everyone gets what they wanted, except Chloe (go read it, it’s great and will bring you luck).

It’s been three years since I’ve been actively trying to have my writing published. I have at least 60 rejection emails (including four from N who bought my age-gap piece). I’ve thought about stopping, but I don’t know how to not write, my world is now centered around words and plopping them onto pages and documents. At Chloe’s book launch, she reminded me that even when her life blew up she had her words. I feel the same way. I will keep returning; butt in seat, words on a page. The same cycle. I want to write, so that’s what I’m doing.

As a reminder, it’s free to subscribe and it helps support my writing. Now, to finish SLUT GUT <3

Two months ago my husband and I moved from Nashville to Brooklyn. There’s a multitude of reasons why we left Tennessee. The two biggest ones: we wanted more opportunities to surround ourselves with creatives and we didn’t want to live in a red state anymore.

Christopher and I have both lived in big cities before. Cairo for me. Dubai, London, Boston, for him. The idea of being car free also really appealed to us. The freedom to hop on a subway and be anywhere in the city in under an hour? Yes please.

When we found a rent stabilized unit across the street from my friends, it felt like a sign. It was time to make the move.

Everyone keeps asking me, how’s the transition to NYC. I expected it to be a bigger shock, but we’ve settled in nicely. I can navigate to and from no less then ten places without GPS (including which subway stops and exits to take). I found my favorite coffee shop and I know what to buy from which market. I can use lingo like “the 2 or the 5 train” instead of calling it the metro like I did in Egypt. I found the places that make me happy, Prospect Park during off-leash-hours for pups. I only have one qualm, where is the mustard?

Whenever I order a burger at a non-burger-focused restaurant (i.e. a bar) the server either looks at me like I’m nuts or gives a big smile and says sure, then comes back with a mustard-adjacent condiment; honey mustard, a ketchup mustard mixture, mustard aioli, the house special sauce (which is probably mayonnaise in disguise). Now before you come at me. I know where the mustard is, the hot dog vendors are hoarding it, but I don’t eat hot dogs (will I ever be a true New Yorker?). New York is great, but why is it so hard to get a mustard with a burger? We cannot be the only New York transplants who dip our fries into the *superior* condiment? Please don’t come at me making your case for ketchup.

Christopher and I joined a gym two weeks ago. It’s one of those really boujee ones that’s trying to be like Equinox. It has a pool. It’s not just a pool, it’s a pool with lane reservations. For anyone who swims in public pools, you get it. It often involves fighting for a lane, asking awkwardly if you can join someone else’s (queue my rejection anxiety), or the pool simply being too full for another person to enter. In short, lane reservations rock. This gym also has a cafe where they serve smoothies and healthy sandwiches. We sometimes use it as a co-working space. The best part about the gym? Next to the napkins and plastic utensils, sits dozens of spicy brown mustard packets. On our last trip there I stuffed five into my canvas tote; a fringe benefit. They now sit on our entryway table, next to our keys and sunglasses.

We found the mustard, we’re home.