I’ve read four out of the five books I took out of the library three days ago.

If you’re doing the math, it’s 1.33 books a day. Part of me is proud; the other part can hear my therapist at our next session: “So, what are you avoiding?”

In preparation for this inevitable question (you know you’d prep too, because the alternative is to not tell her at all, which is just silly because lying to your therapist is a waste of money and time), here is my list:

1. Scheduling a mammogram. I am mostly avoiding this because I don’t like phone calls. It’s a silly and dangerous reason (esp. with my family history; I have to get them every six months. It’s obnoxious but necessary). I will do it this week, I promise. I also have to schedule a visit to my ob/gyn, and to another office to talk about HRT. It’s more phone call avoidance, and it’s largely because one phone call always leads to more. Ugh.

2. Sending my advisor and dean an email about the upcoming semester. It starts in two weeks, and I can’t bring myself to figure out if I want to take another course. I have been sitting on this option for over four months now, and I’m still not sure.

3. Budgeting. I’ve been delightfully avoiding it the past few weeks (hey, I mean, it is summer break), but it’s now unavoidable and driving me nuts. I know it will get done first, before everything else on this list. Details tend to overwhelm me, especially when they are number-oriented or don’t make sense. This might require multiple phone calls, login passwords, and a meeting with the financial department at my college. None of which I want to do, but it’s at the point I have to get it done.

4. Sending a text to a few potential new friends to get together. This one would more likely happen if I did the items in #1 first (I need more of those hormones that help one care about relationships 😝). With school starting, my introverted, peri-menopausal self doesn’t have the capacity to organize something or the energy to give to new/any friendships. Since my hormones have changed, it's so low on my priority (and desire) list that I often get irritated just thinking about it, as it feels like more work. More things to do. I spent a good chunk of the last decade organizing and putting in the work with friendships: parties, girls’ trips, getaways, outings, events, dinners, lunches, etc. Just thinking about this makes me irritated, because why can’t those friends or even new friends reach out and/or take a turn planning things? And now I am even more irritated because I sound like a brat. The reason they don’t do it is probably the same exact reason I am not, either. I get that. Mid-life transitions are wild.

5. The ultimate thing I'm avoiding: the second draft of my book. I haven't touched it since Tortola. My therapist and I have been digging deep, but I don't think the answer is at the bottom of a cenote. It's more like the 760,000-gallon Ocean Realm tank at Adventure Aquarium where sharks, stingrays, sea turtles, and a few thousand fish all incessantly circle. Every one of those creatures is a legitimate reason I'm not working on my draft. To me, the answer is simple: take all the creatures out of the tank except one. It has worked twice now: finishing my first draft during the lockdown in 2020, and my month in Tortola, where I had nothing to do but work on the book.

   School starts in two weeks, so I doubt I’ll get back to my second draft. There is a tiny chance I end up hating my classes enough to need the escape, or that I talk the dean into letting me work on it and call it an independent study. (Both of which would be solved if I'd just do #3).

Reading the list back, what strikes me is that it’s a closed loop. #1 unlocks #4. #3 unlocks #2, which unlocks #5. Nothing on it is actually hard. Phone calls, emails, a spreadsheet, a text. Maybe two hours of real work total, and I have been carrying it around this summer like a pile of wet pool towels I need to hang.

Somewhere between a lockdown, an island, and a Tuesday in September, there has to be a version of this where I write with the sharks and stingrays still in the water.

While I figure that out, I think I’ll finish the fifth library book first.

As I mentioned in my previous post for free subscribers, The $1200 I Saved (make sure you read it before this one), I am working on my belief that everything can be fixed. I got the idea from my dad, who also believed everything could be fixed and who could also seemingly fix everything.

While writing the post, I noticed my long list of embarrassing fix-it questions I posed to the internet this week instead of calling my almost 80-year-old father. No part of me wanted to call him and endure the long pauses and the lengthy, detailed instructions. I didn't want to argue while he explained how simple things were to fix, when I’d rather just buy a new one.

The problem is, for better and worse, my dad led by example. He demonstrated how to figure things out in real time. So naturally, I want to figure things out on my own, too. I love the capable and clever feeling. The “aha” or “I did it!” moment. Thus, calling him feels like using cheat codes or a walkthrough in a video game when you are stuck. When you finish the game, it just doesn’t feel as good. (When we were kids, my brother and I lost weeks of our lives to The Secret of Monkey Island on MS-DOS. To beat Carla, the renowned Sword Master of Melee Island, you had to know exactly the right insults to parry hers. We eventually found a walkthrough to help us get past her, but I still to this day wonder if we could’ve figured it out ourselves.)

It’s funny how that sort of stubbornness sticks. Here are a few embarrassing things I could’ve called my dad for this past month but didn’t, because now I’m obviously the fledgling child who wants to leave the nest in this story:

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I fell off a ladder today. Luckily, I landed on my feet like Simone Biles. I was surprised that my 42-year-old knees, ankles, and hips did not buckle. As I steadied myself (mainly my heartbeat because OMG I am old and can’t be doing these things), I realized I could’ve done some serious damage to my body. I suppose I could see my death dodge as a miracle or a sign or a double rainbow or whatever, but I’d rather just wait for my gold medal.

I was on an old, rusty ladder surrounded by overgrown trumpet vines, wisteria, and weeds because I refused to spend $1200 just to have my bushes trimmed (though I’ve spent at least that much to laser an altogether different type). Instead, I got out my old hedge shears and a heavy-duty tarp, then charged up my Ryobi battery to finally try the hedge trimmer I already owned. For the last few years, I have ignored the messy mass that has surrounded a disgusting, makeshift, wasp-, mouse-, and other creature-infested greenhouse in my backyard. It hasn’t bothered me because there is something whimsical about the wildness of the wisteria or the way the trumpet vines attract hummingbirds in my otherwise highly manicured neighborhood. However, it was time to tackle the overgrown monster, because:

A) It was creeping into my neighbor’s yard

B) My goal this summer is to enjoy the crap out of my backyard

C) It was the last thing on my backyard to-do list

D) I am secretly hoping that if it’s nice, my teenagers will invite friends over instead of going to their friends’ houses. We only have a few years left with them, and instead of shoving them into summer camps, I’m finding that as they get older I want to spend as much time with them as I can. 🥹

My landscaping was going well as I shaped the huge mess into a more respectable, trimmed situation. It had the look of someone who cuts their own bangs or yanks a brush through their hair when they leave the house, versus the way a toddler's hair looks in the morning (or any time of the day, tbh). Overall, slightly improved.

However, despite falling off a ladder and sticking the landing like an absolute pro, there was a problem.

During my scissor-happy trimming session, a catbird on the fence nearby would not shut up. I could hear its constant squawking over my AirPods (I was listening to How to Read a Book, by Monica Wood), so I finally stopped and pulled them out. The freaking catbird was squawking directly at me. I looked around and realized why: I had accidentally destroyed her nest. In turn, I had also accidentally destroyed my heart as I found her cute little fledgling, bewildered and scared, in the detritus. His eyes were open, and yes, he had all his feathers, but he couldn’t fly yet. He would be easily snatched up and eaten on the ground. Now, not only was I a home wrecker, but I was also a murderer.

I ran inside the house, waving around my cheap utility gloves while covered in dirt, sweat, and green streaks, simultaneously panting and holding back tears while I confessed to my husband, who, seeing my distress, googled what to do. I needed to right my wrong. I had to get the fledgling off the ground and make him a new nest. I frantically Scotch-taped a little nest together out of cardboard, scooped the fledgling into it, and tucked it back into the dense vines.

Alas, the fledgling had tasted freedom. He refused to stay in the cardboard nest forevermore and kept popping up to the edge, then falling to the dirt, basically begging for a predator to find him. All the while, the momma catbird continued yelling at me. I deserved it. This was all my fault.

I couldn’t leave the little guy like this, so I made him an even bigger cardboard box nest, gathered him off the ground again, and gently shoved the box deeper into the vines. Again, the little rascal popped right out, but this time, he steadily latched on to the protected vines. Thank the sweet Lord he finally used his pea brain. I checked on him throughout the day, but ultimately gave up and decided there was nothing else I could do.

I call this The Frantic Repair Loop™️.

I (unknowingly or unintentionally) cause harm, then panic and try to fix it, instead of relying on my instinctual knowing of when to repair, when to help, and when to step back. Truthfully, I admit I wanted to fix things partly to relieve my own guilt. However, the more uncomfortable, honest thing to admit is that there are things I can’t fix. The fledgling did fine once I stopped handling him.

Like the momma catbird, I am in the season of teenagers. Fledglings. Mini-adults who are close, but not yet ready to be fully independent. I can’t fix everything for them, either. Ice cream or hugs or promises don’t work like they once did (although on occasion, Starbucks will).

My oldest just spent her first weekend with friends down the shore—a rite of passage if you live near the Jersey Shore. Like the fledgling, she can’t fly yet (she can’t drive or have social media), but she’s had her first taste of freedom. Now back home, everything looks different. The old rules of the nest seem small and silly and make her irritated: “Don’t eat straight out of the container of cut watermelon cubes, please. Get a bowl.” or “You aren’t allowed to get rides with new drivers.” I am giving her the cardboard box, and she’s choosing the vines.

I still want to insert myself in spaces that parenting has outgrown. I want to fix everything: my emotions, their pain, the ugly bushes, whatever. I am older, wiser, stronger, and more capable. I can still land on my two feet like an Olympic gold medalist, dammit! Despite all that awesomeness, however, I’m not always needed. UGH. Like the obnoxious momma catbird, I can’t fix everything, either.

But yes, the bushes definitely needed to be trimmed.

I had a friend I stopped hanging out with because I couldn’t believe her stories.

I couldn’t match them up to the things I knew to be true. The more I listened to her tell stories—stories that involved me—to other people, the more obvious it became. I was fascinated by how she twisted, manipulated, and embellished the truth into a tapestry for entertainment. Pieces of the event were accurate; the rest, dramatized. To me, it was an entirely different, wild story that I was now complicit in. A lie.

Honesty sits in my top three values, and that’s probably why this bothered me more than it would have bothered other people. We all operate from different realities and tell different versions of the same event. I get that. But sitting next to someone while they perform a version of your shared life to strangers is a particular kind of disorientation. You become a prop in someone else’s story. You might even question the reality of the relationship.

Here’s the thing about stories, though: we usually agree to be fooled.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “suspension of disbelief” in 1817, asking readers of fantastical tales to offer “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” His argument was that if a writer could infuse enough emotional truth and “human interest” into a story, audiences would accept the impossible—dragons, ghosts, time travel—for the sake of the narrative. The key word is willing. We opt in when we buy a ticket to a magic show or comedy special, crack open a fiction novel, or perhaps even when we walk into a church, or turn on the WWE (I kid, I kid 😂). The contract is clear. We know the deal.

No such contract exists in casual conversation. There’s no formal way to ask a friend to suspend disbelief before they launch into a story, no clear moment where you agree to set aside logic so they can entertain you. That’s why my friend’s stories felt like being tricked. I hadn’t opted in.

It happens everywhere now, thanks to social media and the way people portray their lives there. The posts look real. They’re based in reality. But are they the truth?

Picture your spouse taking selfies while cooking. In the photos they take, they look neat, clean, and professional, while only you can see that the rest of the kitchen, not in the photos, is a disaster. Is it a lie? Not exactly. Not directly. That one corner really is clean. They really are cooking. But what is the post actually about? Their cooking? How composed and together they look while doing it? Both? It’s unclear. It’s vague. And that’s the point. And the problem.

No one likes unclear stories with no plot or thesis, and yet we subject ourselves to them, scrolling and watching stories for seconds at a time, over and over, until it becomes normal. Portrayal and context are missing from these snapshots, which starts to look a lot like lying by omission.

If, over the course of months, I only post selfies from the one clean corner of my house, you’d arrive one day expecting the whole place to look like that. When it didn’t, you’d be a bit confused. You could work past it, sure, but it would plant seeds. You’d wonder what else was staged. You’d start to question whether you really knew me at all.

While I opted to change my friendship, I realize I can’t unfollow reality, and I can’t opt out of the people I love performing curated versions of themselves. However, it doesn’t erase the fact that dramatized, embellished, and manipulated stories can erode relationships. For me, as someone who values honesty, these types of stories, when used in real life, destroy the assumption that what we’re seeing is real and that the people in our lives are who they say they are.

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I want to write a book like Harry Potter. I feel like I'm not allowed to say that (and not only for the obvious reason about its author).

I’m working on the second draft of my debut novel with the help of a coach. I hired Katarina because I’ve never done this before, and every time I try on my own, I get overwhelmed and give up. My manuscript and I need a lot of help.

After our first session, Katarina gave me homework: nail down my theme, characters, world-building, and plot, and write a page on each so she can understand my choices and how they connect. I also owe her three comps (books comparable to mine) so we can pin down the tone.

The hardest part, she told me, is “being 100% certain about all of these things.” Who knew that kind of confidence was a job requirement? Ugh. It makes sense. If I don’t know what the book is for, the reader won’t either. But every time I sit down to commit, I hear myself going well, sort of, but also—like someone on a first date being asked what they're looking for.

Theme is the worst of it for me right now. Plot I can fix. Characters I can revise. Comps I can fudge. But theme is me standing up and announcing what I actually think about being alive, on the page, in a book a kid might one day read under the covers with a flashlight. That’s the whole thing about Harry Potter, isn’t it? It’s not the wands. It’s that Rowling knew exactly what her book was about (love, death, choice, the difference between what’s easy and what’s right) and she was certain. You can feel it on every page.

Do we ever feel 100% certain about anything?

Small decisions happen on instinct. No Mexican food tonight for me because I had it yesterday and my stomach hasn’t forgiven me. Yes to ice cream, because it’s hot out. No to going out, because I’m tired. Big decisions get more runway. I can date someone for years before deciding to move in or get married. I can make an offer on a house before I actually buy it.

For me, doubt creeps in later at night, when I’m tired and don’t have the wherewithal to fight it. (My husband and I have a rule about not making big decisions after dark since the answer is almost always no when we’re tired, and sometimes yes the next morning.) The choices that stick are the ones I’ve put through my own scientific method: weigh the options, check my gut, test-drive it if I can, sleep on it, and only then call it the right one.

And even then, the work isn’t done. There are always moments after making the choice when I have to tell my doubting brain: remember, I did the work. I made the best decision I could.

But none of my usual tricks work for this. I can’t test-drive a theme. I can’t sleep on whether my book is about grief, growing up, or the cost of being chosen. At some point, I just have to decide and say it out loud to myself, to Katarina, and to my future readers…and live with it.

This week I’m making tough decisions and saying the thing I want my book to be about and then walking around like it’s true, the way Rowling must have walked around in 1995 with a notebook and the unhinged confidence to think yep, this one’s about love.

I am going to write a book like Harry Potter.

While sequestering in the British Virgin Islands on a self-made writing residency, I am working with a writing coach. On our first call yesterday, she began by asking me about the history of my manuscript.

Here’s the story:

With our two girls attending fifth and second grade online, the lockdown days of the 2020 pandemic at home were long. My husband and I split them up so we’d both have time to ourselves and with the kids.

I chose the mornings. I got up at 5 a.m. and locked myself in our converted studio basement until noon. I made coffee and toast in the small kitchen, put on the Morning Acoustic playlist from Spotify, and ceremoniously lit a candle. I spent the first hour working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way — a 12-week course designed to help people recover their creative selves—by faithfully doing my morning pages. I spent the rest of my morning time working on my novel. I plastered 4-ft x 8-ft sticky whiteboards on the walls and covered them with plot points, character names, and brainstorm scribblings. I listened to Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, one of my favorite books on craft. With hours of dedicated, uninterrupted writing time (and literally nothing else to do thanks to the lockdown), I finished my manuscript. I celebrated by having it printed and spiral-bound, so writing the words “The End” could feel real and tangible.

All that time and work, and I was far from The End. Thanks to advice from Stephen King’s craft book, On Writing, I decided to put the manuscript away for a while and come back to it before starting revisions. I had only just begun the long journey of writing a novel.

Unfortunately, I was never able to recreate that special type of habitual, sacred writing environment (i.e., my Writing Cave™️ — I am hoping this concept sticks, as honestly, Virginia, a cave has fewer distractions than A Room of One’s Own). Over the last five years, I’ve attempted to recreate it, only to wind up line editing and rewriting the first three chapters over and over, getting frustrated, then abandoning it. I tried sharing it with my now fourteen-year-old daughter and her friends, who love reading YA (and have a book review podcast together!), and yet I still struggled. I had no idea what to do next.

Over the last year and a half, however, I’ve been actively working towards figuring that out:

• If you’ve been following along, I am back in college after 20+ years, working on my English degree with a minor in creative writing (and maybe a minor in publishing… depends on how much more college I can handle). I want to be a better writer, and being in an active learning environment has been a wild mix of fun, challenging, and rewarding. This past semester alone, I wrote over twelve papers. I have a writing portfolio thanks to my Creative Writing class; I am better at outlining thanks to my Public Speaking class; I read literature and evaluate it with different lenses thanks to my Approaches to Theory class; I believe strongly in a matriarchy and think wider and more broadly thanks to my Women’s literature class, I understand literary tools like magical realism thanks to my Latina/x Literature class, and I believe in the importance of diversity in books as mirrors, windows, and telescopes thanks to my Literature for Young Readers class. (My Statistics class? Useless. My American, British, and two World literature classes? Insightful, but hard to pull from directly in this moment other than exposure to a wide variety of early literature).

• I read 100+ books a year. It’s great research for my own book, as publishers and even readers often want comps (comparable books to mine). Though I’ve been focusing on classic literature this year, I mostly read Fantasy (dystopian, urban, etc.), YA Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Upmarket fiction, Self-help/Motivational, Craft (writing), and occasionally, Biography.

• My current BVI writing residency is my latest attempt at recreating my Writing Cave™️, except this time in the actual (well…more like inspirational) setting of my book.

• I’m working with a coach to help me figure out what to do next, too. Why not go to the experts? To start, we’re working on being 100% certain and clear on the big stuff: themes, character, world-building, plot, and pacing. I’ve only had one call, and I already feel confident in what to do next.

Telling (a shortened version of) this story out loud to my coach yesterday, I realized I'd been thinking of the past five years as wasted time. All that circling, all that starting and stopping, all that rewriting of the same three chapters. But laying it out start to finish like this has been helpful, as I now see it differently. The pandemic draft, the degree, the hundred books a year, this island adventure…none of it was a detour. It’s all part of the work. The middle of anything is the hardest place to see from.

I know as a writer I’m biased, but sometimes you have to tell the whole story before you can understand the past, see the present, and figure out your way to the end.

NOTE: You are reading this as a paid subscriber (thank you so much!) with behind-the-scenes access. Make sure you read A Tropical Room of My Own before continuing.

I sent this pitch email (below) to the contact/host of the property on VRBO. She replied quickly and suggested I reach out from their rental website (instead of VRBO, which has high fees and monitors the conversations on its platform). She spoke to the owners, who accepted my offer and mentioned they had many writers stay at the property over the years.

The villa managers reached out multiple times to offer help with car rentals, groceries for the villa, and arranging cleaning services. A friendly lady named Pinky met me at the villa to show me around. Overall, it’s been a great experience so far.

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I’m sitting on a villa balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean as it gently crashes into the rocks down below. The hills and mountains of Jost Van Dyke line the horizon, and tiny white sailboats dot its coves.

It’s day three of a losing battle with the local mosquitoes. My ankles were covered in itchy pink bumps as I walked out of the tiny Tortola airport on Tuesday. Yesterday, a sneaky mosquito bit my spine, so I ventured out in the hot afternoon and purchased a plastic floor fan. I think the tides have turned. (Though spending $80 on what feels like a dollar store fan doesn’t exactly feel like winning). Then again, a few mosquito bites are a small price to pay for an ocean view and a month of uninterrupted writing time. Which — let me back up — is why I'm here at all.

My first semester at TCNJ is complete! (Read here to catch up) After being waitlisted at Smith College for the spring semester, I was encouraged to reapply for the fall. I pushed hard to make sure that my grades at TCNJ would reflect well on the mid-term report for my reapplication to Smith. Alas, despite all my efforts the past year and a half, I did not get in. I had mixed feelings of sadness and relief when I found out in April. After about six months in limbo, unsure if I should put down roots and fully commit myself at TCNJ or do just enough to get me to Smith, I now knew for sure that I wasn’t going to upend my family and move to Massachusetts.

So now what?

During a quick, last-minute trip to St. Thomas, USVI, for my spring break in March, the inspiration stick whacked me hard. I wanted to work on my YA fantasy manuscript again. It had been a while since I felt a spark to revisit it, but being in the setting that inspired it awakened the novel writer deep inside me (and quite honestly, I was sick of the essay/paper writer I had become thanks to a year and a half of school). I was surprised by the feeling, especially as my chest tightened on our way to the airport to head home. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to sit and write and finish and get this damn book out of my brain and into the world.

I talked to my therapist about it, wondering out loud if I was a mood writer. And if so, what would it be like to honor that part of me? I don’t like putting myself in label-y boxes like that (my therapist would catch it and shred the idea to pieces, anyway), but I’ve always struggled with accepting things, like my sensitivity, stubbornness, or my desire for solitude. She was all for it, suggesting experimenting with the idea before deciding. One of my favorite takeaways from a session a long time ago I keep on a sticky note above my desk: “No conclusions without all the information.”

When I found out I wasn’t accepted to Smith, I decided I would accept myself then. (Those dum dums!) I would honor my feelings of working on my book. If I was planning on spending 100K a year at Smith (as a junior transfer, not a freshman—only two years instead of four), why not figure out how to invest that much in myself another way, like working on my book? What would it take? How could I do that? What would that look like?

For me, it looked like a month-long, self-made writing residency in the Virgin Islands.

I scoured the internet looking for the right place, one that was private, quiet, and allowed me to sit and look at the water while writing. I found a gorgeous villa in Tortola that was wildly out of my price range, but it had no bookings for the weeks I wanted to stay. I sent an email to the host asking if they’d consider giving me a steep discount. After all, some money is better than making no money, right?

The Tortola villa owners accepted my offer.

I had doubts about the whole idea. A month away from my family? Alone? Spending money I didn’t have? But then, as I wrote an email to my advisor trying to figure out my classes for the fall semester, I came across this quote from one of his favorite playwrights, Edward Albee:

“If you’re willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.”

It felt like the universe (and my amazing husband) was giving me a green light rather than a stop sign. The catch: I had to leave the minute I finished my last final exam this past Monday. Every other window was a no-go — summer is sweltering, stormy, and fully booked with families traveling, fall and spring I'm in school, and Christmas break is both too short and too expensive.

So here I am.

Today marks the start of my first semester’s spring break.

This is the first time I’ve found space to sit and write something (at my local library 😍) that isn’t required or going to be graded. I miss it.

It’s been a ride. As I waited out my waitlist status at Smith College, I started this spring semester registered at two excellent colleges: Rutgers University-New Brunswick and The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).

I couldn’t decide between them.

The more information I got about each one, the harder it became. Logical decision-making failed because there were equal numbers of pros and cons, so I resorted to emotion-based decision-making. I figured I’d go through the registration process for both, monitor how it went, and see which college felt “right.”

Rutgers University - New Brunswick* is massive. It has almost 40,000 undergraduate students and over 10,000 graduate students. I did my best to complete the numerous online registration checklist items (sign up for email, purchase a parking permit, sign waivers, accept financial aid, etc.), then I signed up for one of the (many) transfer registration days with over 300 other transfer students. Once there, we split off into our respective majors for half of the day, and then the rest was spent all together in a lecture hall, with the expectation that we wouldn’t leave until we had found and registered for all of our courses.

I crashed out. Scrambling through their archaic online system, I fretted over my schedule. Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus is about an hour and a half from me, so I wanted to smush as many classes as I could into as few days a week as possible to minimize driving. Ideally, Tuesdays and Thursdays, avoiding Mondays, Fridays, and New York traffic. I panicked and almost gave up multiple times while waiting for the super-slow system. With hundreds of us on it at once, it dragged, and every mistake of a click felt pressured and detrimental.

Three hours later (much of it spent waiting for a transfer assistant for help), I had a sharp headache and a decent schedule despite whatever had been picked over by the current students who had registered months ago. One of the transfer students angrily yelled out that what was left “resembled a carcass.” We all murmured our agreement, and the transfer advisors awkwardly laughed. Transferring in as a junior means less time to get all the classes in for your major’s requirements to graduate. It was frustrating that they only held spots for three science and tech classes.

I spent the long drive home taking deep breaths to soothe my anxious nervous system. When I checked in on how I felt during the whole process, it wasn’t good. I felt invisible. Like a number. Like I’d have to fight to be seen and heard and make connections. I was a small speck in a sea of students. Would that be the case in the huge classes of 200-300 students? How would I get my many millennial questions answered? Would I get to know my professors, or just their TAs? And if so, what is the point of getting excited about their specific classes? What were the odds I’d be picked to join the coveted 10-student courses out of thousands of students? It felt so huge, crowded, and overwhelming. And yet… solitary.

Earlier in the day, in one of the non-traditional student breakout rooms, one of the transfer advisors pulled me aside and said, “Students with kids get to choose their classes first. Send me a message next semester, so you have first pick.” It felt like the only person-to-person interaction I had that day. A tiny ray of sunshine amidst pouring rain.

Later that week, the English department’s assistant over at TCNJ sent me a few emails to set up a call. I needed to register for their spring semester classes with her. When I did, I was surprised at how pleasant it went. She listened to what I was interested in, answered all my questions, and together, we set up a decent schedule, similar to the one I created on my own at Rutgers. Two days a week, with one night class on a different day. With TCNJ being forty minutes away, this seemed manageable.

This time, after I registered, I felt excited about my classes. Even my family noticed. TCNJ has about 7,500 undergraduate students and offers small class sizes. One of my required literature classes has only 12 students. None of my classes is over 28. The shorter commute, smaller class sizes, and one-to-one attention pushed me to withdraw from Rutgers and continue at TCNJ.

It felt right.

Peaceful.

Because I gathered as much information as I could (including emotional information) before reaching a conclusion, I felt solid and confident about my decision. Despite the ongoing uncertainty about attending my number-one choice (Smith), I was excited about my new school.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on TCNJ now that I’m halfway through my semester and my status at Smith College.

*I also got into Rutgers University - Camden, but after visiting, I knew it wasn’t for me. While taking the tour, we were interrupted every few minutes by ambulances, helicopters, fire trucks, police sirens, alarms, and locals shouting... You name it. It isn’t in a good area (the number of times they referenced the low crime rate was sus), and despite its smaller size, students aren’t allowed to take classes from the other campuses. So dumb.

Last weekend, my husband and I drove into New York City for college tours at Barnard College and NYU. During the hour-and-a-half ride, we listened to a coaching call from an entrepreneurship program he joined. The coach was explaining how to build a social media presence for business owners who don’t use it regularly.

“You go live for 100 days,” he said. “Every day. You could be at the gym, on a walk, sitting at home, or here at your desk. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. The point is to let people get to know you.”

As he coached people, I found myself thinking about what I’d do if I followed his advice. What do I care about enough to show up every day and talk about?

My answer came easily.

I read over a hundred books a year. Mostly classics, fiction, fantasy, and romance, with a healthy amount of self-development, memoir, sci-fi, and YA sprinkled in. If I were to build a social media following, I’d read. I’d talk about why everyone should read more, and how they can actually do it.

Reading improves memory, focus, and critical thinking. It strengthens your ability to concentrate (without turning you into a passive screen zombie). It boosts problem-solving, lowers stress, slows your heart rate, and loosens your shoulders. It increases empathy by letting you step into someone else’s world. It sparks creativity. It offers escape. It makes you feel, think, and dream differently.

I began the 100-day challenge on Instagram (@e.j.mall) to wake up and read live on camera every morning at 6 a.m. EST.

It’s been one week.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

It’s not hard to wake up to do something you love.
The hard part is going to bed earlier. I tried negotiating this into a 90-day challenge, but my husband pointed out (correctly) that I shouldn’t start by changing the rules. Fair. Ninety days is my usual “trial period” of three months, and then I evaluate. What’s ten more days?

Sometimes no one joins me live.
And that’s okay. My original goal was to follow through, regardless of the audience. If no one watches and nothing “grows,” I haven’t lost anything other than a bit of sleep. Either way, it’s worth it: I get uninterrupted reading time, practice being uncomfortable, and a clearer sense of myself and the platform.

Reading in thirty-minute blocks feels strange for a binge reader.
I’ve never timed myself, and it took me a week to finish a normal paperback this way, as I normally inhale books in a single afternoon. It felt slow, but maybe it’s normal and just paying attention to it is what’s weird. Time will tell.

Mornings go smoother when the setup is simple.
Sweats. Auto-brew coffee. Book. That’s it. The fewer steps between me and the live button, the harder it is for my sleepy brain to argue.

I don’t talk.
I answered questions once at the end of a session, but for the most part, I just read. I’m curious whether that will shift.

I like waking up to a book instead of a scroll.
It sets the tone for my whole day.

That’s it for week one.

So far, this challenge feels less like “content creation” and more like building a tiny morning ritual in public. I’m curious to see what it turns into. Maybe nothing. Maybe something surprising. Maybe a new habit I keep long after day 100.

For now, I’m setting my alarm for tomorrow. Coffee at 5:50. Book in one hand and hitting the live button with the other at 6.

Let’s see where this goes.

My favorite people are the people who don’t know everything. They have zero problem admitting their lack of knowledge in any given area. They don’t need to respond with a fact or opinion. Here’s what they do instead:

• They wonder out loud. “I don’t know, but what if…”

• They open the conversation instead of closing it. “Tell me more about that,” or, “Say more,” or, “Interesting.”

• They ask questions. “How are you feeling about…?”

• They connect ideas. “That reminds me of…” “Oh! Just like…”

What if not knowing is the most credible stance?

In my Masterpieces of World Literature II class this past week, we read Michal de Montaigne’s essay “On Cannibals.” In short, Montaigne’s essay challenged European notions of superiority by comparing so-called “savages” in the New World to Europeans themselves. He argued that the Indigenous Brazilians lived more naturally and virtuously, free from the greed and corruption that plagued Europe. Montaigne concluded that what Europeans call “barbaric” often revealed more about their own moral blindness than about the people they judge. His use of cultural relativism (a novel idea at the time) invited readers to suspend judgment and examine their own society’s moral failings.

Montaigne wrote it in 1580, and although he lived in the 16th century, his writings are still accessible and relatable. Virginia Woolf’s literary husband Leonard called him “the first completely modern man.” The 19th-century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson said that when he first discovered Montaigne’s essays, he felt as if he himself had written them, despite the fact that 300 years separated the two writers.

Okay, okay. I know this old guy doesn’t sound super relatable. But hear me out (as my teens are fond of saying in monotone: WE LISTEN AND WE DON’T JUDGE).

It’s his writing style. Within these long-winded observations and critiques, he drops deep, tangential thought bombs that transcend time. He wrote them like a blogger would today, despite living over 445 years ago:

“I would like everyone to write about what he knows but only as much as he knows... For a person can have some specific knowledge of the nature of a river or a fountain and in other things know only what everyone else does. Yet to publicize his small scrap of knowledge, he will undertake to write about all of physics.”

Montaigne wanted to explore, not prove. In between his anthropological thoughts in “On Cannibals,” he called us to write and lead from curiosity, not authority. To write, speak, or share from the part of our experience that is unshakably ours. That’s the specific part that holds power, not because it’s universal, but because it’s true.

If that still feels intimidating, listen to the queen herself, Oprah Winfrey. For fifteen years, her O magazine featured a back-page column called “What I Know For Sure.” She later turned those reflections into a book, proof that even fragments of certainty can become a map for others.

Here’s what Oprah knows for sure:

“Everything I do all day, I do in preparation for my reading time... Give me a great novel or memoir, some tea, and a cozy spot to curl up in, and I’m in heaven... I love to live in another person’s thoughts... I not only feel I know these people, but I also recognize more of myself.”

Maybe that’s the real art of conversation, and of living: to stand comfortably in the space between knowing and not knowing. The best people, like Montaigne and Oprah, don’t rush to fill silence with certainty. They wonder out loud. They offer what they’ve learned, no more and no less, trusting that honesty speaks louder than expertise. In a world addicted to answers, they remind us that curiosity is a kind of grace.

Admitting what we don’t know might just be the truest thing we ever share.

I am hot and angry. I’ve bounced back and forth all day like the balls I hit at tennis tonight.

Awake at five (for no reason).
Kids out the door by seven.
Coffee. Food. Shower.
Class at nine. Homework at eleven.
Lunch (and an episode of Dickinson) at noon.
Vet at one. Kid number two at three.
Pick up dog and rotisserie chicken at four.
Kid number one from field hockey.
Make Dinner. Eat. Change. Tennis. Dishes. Clean up.
Turn the AC back on after changing it to heat last night.

Some of the items on this list could’ve been avoided… Most of them were just creative ways to avoid what I didn’t want to do: a character analysis essay, college applications, emails, phone calls. Busywork disguised as productivity. My favorite genre.

Why didn’t anyone put away the dishes before I got home—before they invaded my bed, my private sanctuary—with their stinky feet and heads? Why is there dog poo just sitting there like it pays rent? Why did I have to ask someone to take out the trash again?

As my irritation grew, I checked myself on a few things:

Earlier, my husband offered to take over dinner for me tonight. I said no. (I couldn’t tell you why. Probably guilt over avoiding things). Then, he planned on picking up kid number one from practice, but when it was close to five and he was still on a phone call, I got anxious she’d be waiting. I went and got her. Unknown to me, they had already agreed that she’d be okay if he picked her up a few minutes late.

Things like this make me realize: I am both the victim and the villain here.

I am the perpetrator of my nonsense.

The wild contrast that makes me realize this: on my way home from tennis lessons—minutes before this hot and angry moment—I was giddy. I drove twenty-five miles an hour with the windows down. In the October dark, I breathed in the warm air. I savored the post-play adrenaline and joy bubbling inside me like soda in a shaken can.

The excitement caught me off guard. I haven’t experienced this flavor of fun in a while. It reminded me of when I first learned to play racquetball after having my first kid. A retired NJ motorcycle cop caught me watching from a treadmill at LA Fitness. “Hey kid, you wanna play?” He was tough, stingy with praise, but one of the best teachers I ever had. It gave me purpose beyond just keeping an infant alive. Now, I play a few times a year since we moved away from that area. It’s usually with my husband since I don’t know many people who play here. Still, I get so excited to play and feel so happy afterward.

Thus, I am loving playing tennis right now. I love learning new things, especially when combined with using my body. Also, I was gassed because afterwards, I courageously asked the coach if she had any recommendations for how I could play more often. With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “I have some ideas. Let me think on it. I have your number.” 😜 I don’t know what that means, but I’m excited. Hopefully, it means I can play more than once a week and not with my eleven-year-old, who hits balls everywhere except to me.

Hitting a ball with strength and purpose feels powerful. I want to run. I want to get better. I want to win. I want to focus on what’s right in front of me—this swing, this breath, this moment. The past and future disappear. I lock in. All that’s left is what I need to do in this and this and this and this moment.

I am also the perpetrator of my joy.

There’s the FAFSA application, all the letters of recommendation you need to ask for and then manage, then high school and college transcripts and current mid-term reports that need to be sent from each school to each college you’re applying to. And on top of that, each college has its own questions, essay prompts, and personal statements for you to write. So far, of the ten schools I decided to apply to, I’ve managed to apply to three.

Buying a house during the pandemic was easier.

Another rainbow in all of this is that I got invited to the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society!🏅I didn’t realize how proud I’d feel about it. It’s the perfect validation of my hard work this year. Yes, I bought the graduation package of honor cords, stole, and medallion. And the hoodie. They got me good.

The final three courses I’m taking before I graduate mid-December with my associate’s degree are all literature classes: Masterpieces of World Literature II (online), British Literature (online - but my professor is always available at the college, and I’ve visited his office at least twice already), and Women’s Literature.

Unfortunately, the one I looked forward to the most, Women’s Lit, is getting my goat.

My professor just finished his Ph.D. in literary theory, and it shows. His class is nearly impossible to follow. It’s like he’s still living in that super elite, high-brow world. Every sentence is a run-on packed with three competing ideas, as if he’s afraid some invisible committee is still grading his every thought. He has extraordinary emotional intelligence, but is way too locked in. I even tried having AI record and summarize his brief lectures, and they were still incoherent.

Assignments aren’t any better. Even after reviewing them in class, no one knows what’s expected. All five of our projects this semester are presentations, and it feels like we’re supposed to conjure Ph.D.-level themes and tensions from women’s poetry just to barely scrape an A. Since he hasn’t shown us how to do that, none of us has managed it yet. It’s frustrating.

Regardless of him, I’m still enjoying the class. Especially my classmates. There’s only one boy enrolled, but he’s…odd. He asks questions meant to sound profound, like, “So what is the philosophy of this?” that land as pure nonsense. When he tried to join my presentation group, I declined. With transfer applications looming and my GPA on the line, I couldn’t afford the dead weight. My group was capped anyway, so I used that as my excuse. It felt a little harsh at the time, but I don’t regret it. All the girls in the class pulled me into an Instagram group chat* (more on that later) where they roast his bizarre antics.

The girls are obsessed with me. They crowd around as I pack up, trailing me into the hallway until I shepherd them toward the lounge or a study room where they can yap to their hearts’ content. It’s flattering. I have no friends on purpose right now since I’m still in my peri-menopause/I-hate-everyone stage of life. So. I soak up their energy like a baby-eating witch until I realize I’m bored by their conversations and head home. Like any good witch, though, I feel compelled to feed them. I bring snacks, make sure they’re brimming with confidence, and remind them about boundaries. I’m impressed by this generation (one girl announces her bisexuality at every hangout), yet not surprised that they wrestle with many of the same struggles I faced at their age.

My oldest daughter, Sidda, came to class with me yesterday. She had the day off from high school, and as a freshman, she’s wildly curious about college. Since we’re on the “motherhood” section of the syllabus, I hoped my professor wouldn’t mind. I felt anxious about it, worried it might cost me precious points (did I mention I’m a little obsessive about my GPA these days?).

The girls adored Sidda, though at first, they didn’t even realize she was mine. We don’t look much alike. Sidda thought it was hilarious how they hovered around me, dubbing them my “shadows.” I had to stifle a laugh.

Funny words from the girl who woke up early on her day off to come with me to my college class.

For now, though, my shadows are exactly what I need: living proof that I’m in the right place, doing the right thing. Every application I submit, every grade I fight for, every late night spent wrestling with literature is not just for me. It’s for them, too. It’s a reminder that women can keep learning, keep pushing forward, no matter the season of life. I’m not only shaping my own path, but also clearing a little more of the way for the women who will come after us.

*After class, I took Sidda to Starbucks. One of my classmates sent me a message in the Instagram chat with a link to something we had talked about two weeks prior (a silicone ring brand her mom likes). I replied: I always appreciate a good rec!

I thought my reply was cool. I showed Sidda, and she spat out her Starbucks Acai Refresher in barely contained laughter. She continued to mock me while I proudly defended my big vocabulary and ability to use proper punctuation like a good millennial.

You guys. She said I sounded like a founding father.

😱😵💀

I did it! I finished my first semester back in college with a straight A’s and a 4.0 GPA. I’m on the Dean’s List. 🤓

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I did it. I got up at 5am and made my way downstairs to show up and write. The dogs are looking at me from their crates in the next room, but it’s too early and too dark to let them out. They know it, too, and are quietly watching me.

I light my little TJMaxx candle on the coffee table. The scent will probably trigger a headache, but there’s just something sacred and special about candles.

Every Friday night my family would have “vespers” to start the Sabbath. After dinner, we’d sit in the family room of whatever parsonage we were living in, and light a candle. My dad would read passages from a Seventh-day Adventist book, a page in a devotional book, or sometimes, straight from the Bible. The three of us kids would sit around the coffee table and stare at the candle’s flame as we zoned out. Our primary focus was to be the first to blow the candle out after we prayed. The word “amen” was the signal: get close and blow it out as fast as you can. There was such a satisfaction to it, knowing your invisible breath put it out.

Candles are lit in catholic churches for services, prayers, the dead, and at weddings. They’re lit in our homes to celebrate birthdays and when there is an emergency. They are lit to set moods: sexual, spiritual, or calming.

I am working on the paradox of my YA Fantasy story today. So far, I think it has to do with hiding: emotions, secrets, true-self, wants and desires. Whatever is kept in the dark always comes to light…or something along those lines. I think there might even a Biblical verse about it. Fitting.

Originally, I thought it was more about belonging: fitting in, found family, growing up and discovering who you are. While those are still themes, I think the hiding paradox is much more interesting, especially to the young adult audience. We shall see.

In my writing, it’s so easy to use experiences and influences from my life. I know that it’s normal for authors to do, but this being my first book, I’m uncertain how much is too much of yourself to put on the page. All of me? Half? A quarter? None? What is the danger?

I also have this question for parenting. Like, how much of how I was parented do I bring to my own parenting? None? All? Some? Only the good parts? Sometimes the bad parts?

I don’t have Friday night vespers with my kids. I don’t pray with them on Friday nights and take them to church Saturday mornings. However, every Friday night we have our own ritual of welcoming the weekend by picking up dinner (usually poke bowls). We don’t light candles or read the Bible, but we do talk, laugh, and watch something from Disney.

(An excerpt from my morning pages)

Every time I watch the Olympics, I’m awed, amazed, and desperately want to do whatever the athletes are doing. Rugby? Yes, please. Synchronized diving? Sign me up! The uneven bars? Let me at ‘em. I volunteer as tribute! I’d likely injure myself, but I can’t help but enjoy the burst of curiosity and excitement I get when watching the athletes perform. Can I do that? Can anyone do that? I love the meme that says something like “I’d pay to see an average person do each of the olympic sports just so the rest of us have some perspective.”

Watching someone use their body in a way that’s better than anyone else in the world is incredible. The dedication. The investment. The patience, practice, and the passion!

This year the Olympics is especially compelling to me as 50% of the participants are women. As a mom of two girls ages 10 and 13, it’s perfect timing for them to see these excellent, extraordinary women KILL IT in their fields.

Here are my favorite reasons why:

• The ability to watch women do things that they previously weren’t allowed to do.

• Seeing evidence that their bodies are capable of more than just making babies and catching the eye of a partner.

• Learning from watching athletes (that train their whole lives to perform for a few seconds) make mistakes and keep going.

• Learning that stepping down, taking a break, or resting is a part of life.

• Knowing that anything can give your life meaning, bring you purpose, or be your life’s work, even if it’s jumping into water, sliding down a hill, or wrestling another person.

My girls are in the throes of puberty and becoming more aware of how they present in the world. They’re noticing how they are different, whether it’s in looks, skills, talent, interests, lifestyle (they both still don’t have cell phones and hate it), etc. Instead of spending their hard-earned money on toys, they’re buying skin care and makeup.

While it’s fun to watch them grow up, it’s tough! I remember being their age and feeling awkward in my rapidly changing body. Back then, I remember glossy magazines touting unhealthy diets, tiny waists, and ways to keep your man. Now, thankfully, women of all shapes, sizes, races, and genders grace the covers and spreads. The articles are more empowering, inclusive, and talk about women who are changing the world.

This is a difficult thing to navigate with girls right now in the digital age. Even with all our advancements, more and more studies are showing how dangerous social media is for kids and their self-esteem (my kids aren’t on it at all). Regardless of the new difficulties this era has brought, I’m thankful my girls are growing up in this time where they are exposed to so much more than just one type and way of being a woman!

And with the possibility of a woman president in a few months? How amazing for my kids to see that woman are truly capable of anything! They are seeing that we are not limited by our sex. That we are able to have a dream and make it happen. That all bodies are normal and fantastic just the way they are. That women are more than how they look.

And yet, how do I answer their questions when they ask if they can do and be anything they want, too? Can they be an olympic athlete in a field where there have previously been no women? Can they have the freedom to manage their own bodies the way they want to and have access to care like men? Can they become president of the USA? My hope is that the answer is leaning further away from no, and closer to yes.

The Olympics and the upcoming election are exposing me to a grander sense of hope for them I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Also, it’s all a good reminder for me as a woman, too. After learning to scuba dive a few months ago, I’ve kept the momentum going of seeing what else I can do and am capable of…and joined a kickboxing club! It’s not scary, but it’s fun, new, challenging, and pushes my body in a way that feels good. I’m even considering MMA training as my next scary thing (#4!?) and seeing what it’s like to be in a fight! 😝 I’ll keep ya’ll updated on that one.

I’m grateful that at least the whole world is in agreement that fun, challenging events like in the Olympics are important and worth celebrating every once in a while.

And also, that women are amazing.

USA! USA! USA!

Scary Thing #1: Traveling Solo.

Scary Thing #2: Conquering my number one fear of all time: Scuba Diving.

If you haven’t read those two, go read them now and come back here for your exclusive access to the grand finale: my raw, unedited, real-time reaction video I recorded right after I completed my last dive.

In this exclusive-to-you (yes, you, my very appreciated and loved supporters!) video, I am talking about the last two open water dives (#3 and #4) where I was out on the boat all morning until about 1pm. Both of these dives were about an hour long, and sixty feet deep. Enjoy (and feel free to let the happy tears flow right along with me. I cry every time I watch this video)!

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