You know what’s funny?

I think I’ve always been a little old lady.

Even when I was a little girl, there was something about me that seemed older than whatever age I happened to be. I liked listening to grown-ups talk. I noticed things. I thought about things. I probably thought about things far more than any child needed to.

I was curious and observant and a little serious. Okay, sometimes a lot serious.

So maybe what’s happening now isn’t that I’m getting old.

Maybe I’ve finally grown into the person I’ve been rehearsing for my entire life.

I’m 62 now.

And I have to tell you, I kind of love it.

That surprises me a little.

Getting older is strange because it happens so gradually that you don’t always notice yourself crossing these invisible lines. Nobody sends you a notification.

Congratulations, Melin. You have officially entered your Aunty Era.

It just happens.

One day somebody calls you Aunty.

Then somebody else does.

And eventually someone who looks suspiciously close to your own age calls you Aunty and you think:

Wait a minute.

😂

There was a time that might have bothered me.

Now?

Not really.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped hearing Aunty as a commentary on my age and started receiving it for what it often is here in Hawaiʻi: a gesture of relationship and respect.

I’ve grown into Aunty.

And then something even better happened.

I became Puna (Granny).

There are four little people in this world now who know me as their grandmother.

Four.

Sometimes I still marvel at that.

They have absolutely no interest in my professional accomplishments. They don’t care about the degrees, letters after my name, or the research, or the years I’ve spent as a clinical social worker, therapist, evaluator or leader.

They just know Puna.

The woman who holds them.

Plays with them.

Laughs with them.

Watches them do the most ordinary thing and somehow finds it fascinating.

There is something wonderfully humbling about spending decades becoming professionally accomplished and then discovering that a grandbaby is much more interested in whether you will play.

I think about that a lot lately.

Maybe because 62 has made me think differently about time.

My grandfather died at 61.

My daddy died at 50.

Fifty.

Sixty-one.

And here I am.

Sixty-two.

I have lived longer than either of them was given the chance to live.

Every once in a while that realization stops me.

Because we talk so much about aging as though it’s something happening to us.

The wrinkles.

The gray hair.

The body that suddenly has very strong opinions about things it used to tolerate without complaint.

And believe me, my body has opinions.

😂

But when I remember my grandfather and my daddy, something shifts.

I’m not simply getting older.

I’m getting time they didn’t get.

That makes 62 feel different.

It makes another birthday feel different.

It even makes some of the changes I’m not particularly thrilled about feel different.

I am here.

I get another morning.

Another sunset.

Another song that takes me somewhere.

Another ridiculous rabbit hole.

Another conversation.

Another chance to sit near the ocean.

Another ordinary afternoon with people I love.

Another year of watching my children become who they are.

Another year of watching their children become who they are.

I get to be here for it.

And lately, being here has me wondering about what comes next.

Not in a morbid way.

Quite the opposite.

I recently had an opportunity to retire early.

It was a significant opportunity, too.

I thought about it.

And ultimately, I said no.

I’m not ready yet.

I still care deeply about the work. After all these years, being a clinical social worker, researcher, evaluator, therapist and leader isn’t simply what I do. Those identities have woven themselves into who I understand myself to be.

But retirement is no longer some abstract thing happening far in the future.

I can see it from here.

Maybe five years or so.

And when I look toward it now, I notice something interesting.

I’m less afraid of it than I am curious about it.

Because I know who I am when there’s work to do.

Oh, I know that woman very well.

Give her a problem.

Give her a team.

Give her research.

Give her something complicated that needs untangling.

Give her somebody who needs support.

Give her a deadline.

She knows exactly what to do.

I know how to be useful.

I’ve had a lifetime of practice.

But lately I’ve started wondering:

Who am I when nobody needs anything from me?

Who is Melin without the meetings and titles and responsibilities?

Who am I when I don’t need to prove that I’m competent or helpful or productive?

What does she do with an ordinary Tuesday?

I’m actually looking forward to finding out.

Because I have a suspicion that retirement won’t be about discovering some entirely new version of myself.

It may be about returning to someone who has been here all along.

The girl who was always a little old lady.

The woman who notices clouds.

Who takes pictures of flowers.

Who can hear one song and disappear into a memory for half an hour.

Who loves a good rabbit hole.

Who wants to sit near the ocean.

Who talks story.

Who laughs.

Who plays.

Who can spend an unreasonable amount of time watching her grandbabies do absolutely nothing remarkable and think it is the best thing happening in the world.

Maybe that’s what feels so liberating about this age.

I don’t feel the same urgency to keep becoming someone.

I’ve spent a lifetime doing that.

Now I’m more interested in inhabiting the woman I already am.

And she has become much less interested in performing.

She doesn’t need 62 to be the new 42.

She doesn’t particularly want to be 42.

Forty-two was fine.

But I’ve already been her.

I want to be this woman.

Sixty-two.

Aunty.

Puna.

Still working.

Still learning.

Still figuring things out.

Still occasionally overthinking everything.

Still laughing at herself.

Still becoming.

But maybe becoming in a different way.

Less adding.

More uncovering.

Less proving.

More inhabiting.

Less worrying about whether I’m getting older and more gratitude that I get to.

I think about my grandfather.

I think about my daddy.

I think about those four grandbabies.

And somewhere between the people I wish had gotten more time and these little people whose lives are just beginning, here I am.

Standing in the middle of generations.

Sixty-two years behind me.

Hopefully plenty still ahead.

And deeply aware that none of it was promised.

So when somebody calls me Aunty now, even if I’m privately thinking we might actually be the same age, I smile.

I’ll take it.

I’ve earned my Aunty.

I’ve grown into my Puna.

And that little old lady who apparently showed up when I was still a little girl?

She finally looks about right.

I like her.

Actually, I love her.

And for the first time, when I think about the years ahead, I’m not particularly interested in figuring out how to stay young.

I’m much more curious about what happens when I allow myself to grow old.

Because I’m beginning to understand something I couldn’t have understood when I was younger.

Growing old isn’t something everyone gets to do.

I do.

I get to grow old.

And what an extraordinary privilege that is.

Maybe this season isn’t asking me who I used to be or even who I’m supposed to become next.

Maybe it’s asking something much more interesting:

Now that you’ve spent all these years becoming everyone you needed to be, who is the Melin underneath all of it?

I don’t completely know yet.

But I’m having a wonderful time meeting her.

🌺

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I need better reading glasses for the next live so I can properly interact with everyone in the chat 🤗

During the live call I referred to and (for giving me loving feedback) and (Dr. Jane Bormeister) (for helping me learn to speak with more clarity and intention).

Mahalo nui, Melin 🌺

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I used to think addiction had a name.

Mine was alcohol.

So when I stopped drinking more than 40 years ago, I thought I had identified the problem and removed it. Alcohol was the thing that was hurting me, alcohol was the thing I needed to stop, and sobriety meant I didn’t drink.

Simple enough.

Except recovery has a way of teaching you things you weren’t quite ready to learn at the beginning.

Something else can quietly apply for the position.

Food. Shopping. Work. Exercise. Relationships. Sex. Gambling. Scrolling. Achievement. Caretaking. Being needed. Staying impossibly busy.

Some of these don’t even look unhealthy from the outside. In fact, people might praise us for them.

That’s what makes this so interesting to me.

I could stop drinking. But had I learned what I was asking alcohol to do for me?

That became a much more important question.

And the research is more nuanced than the catchy phrase suggests.

A systematic review of 96 studies found evidence that addiction substitution does happen, but not everyone who stops one addictive behavior develops another. Recovery can take many paths. Behaviors can improve, disappear, coexist, intensify, or change over time. Greater substance-use severity and mental health difficulties appear to increase vulnerability to substitution. (Systematic review⁠)

That distinction matters to me because I don’t want us walking around suspicious of everything that brings us pleasure.

Not every bowl of ice cream is an addiction.

Not every shopping trip is avoidance.

Not every ambitious person is running from something.

But sometimes?

Same ache. Different medicine.

After enough years of doing this work, I became less interested in asking people, What are you doing too much of?

I’m much more curious about another question:

What is this doing for you?

Maybe it’s soothing me.

Maybe it’s numbing me.

Maybe it gives me something to look forward to.

Maybe it makes me feel wanted.

Maybe it gives me control when everything else feels uncontrollable.

Maybe it keeps me so busy that I don’t have enough quiet to hear what is going on inside me.

That last one is particularly sneaky because some compulsions get rewarded.

Working constantly can look like dedication. Perfectionism can look like excellence. Over-giving can look like generosity. Being indispensable to everyone around us can look an awful lot like love.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that long-term recovery couldn’t simply mean congratulating myself because I didn’t drink.

Sobriety was the beginning.

Recovery became the much larger work of learning how to live without constantly needing to escape myself.

I find that strangely comforting.

Because it moves us away from What is wrong with me?

And toward What is happening here?

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has similarly broadened the way it talks about recovery. Recovery isn’t defined solely by how much someone drinks. Health, quality of life, social support, spirituality and overall well-being matter too. (NIAAA⁠)

That sounds much closer to the recovery I know.

Because human beings need soothing.

We need pleasure. Connection. Rest. Belonging. Relief. Purpose. We need somewhere to put grief and anger and loneliness and fear. We need ways to regulate ourselves when life becomes too much.

Recovery can’t simply be a decades-long exercise in taking things away.

We have to build something underneath.

For me, that has meant connection, spirituality, creativity, nature, therapy, recovery community, self-reflection, and learning that an uncomfortable feeling doesn’t always require immediate action. Sometimes I can simply notice it.

There you are.

What are you trying to tell me?

But after 40 years of sobriety, I think one of the most useful tools I’ve acquired is also one of the simplest.

Curiosity.

If I notice myself repeatedly reaching for something, I don’t necessarily need to slap a label on it or immediately take it away.

I can get curious.

Am I choosing this, or does it increasingly feel like I have to do it?

Can I comfortably stop?

Do I reach for it especially when I’m lonely, anxious, angry, bored, ashamed or overwhelmed?

Is it costing me sleep, money, health, relationships or peace?

And the question underneath all the others:

What am I asking this behavior to do for me?

That question has become much more useful to me than Is this my new addiction?

Because once I know what I’m actually seeking, I have choices.

Maybe what I need isn’t the food or purchase or scrolling or another accomplishment.

Maybe I need comfort.

Rest.

Connection.

Reassurance.

A good cry.

A walk outside.

A conversation with somebody who knows me well.

Maybe I need to admit that something hurts.

And maybe I can begin giving myself some of what I was unconsciously asking something else to provide.

That’s the part of recovery I couldn’t have understood when I first stopped drinking.

I thought recovery meant becoming a person who didn’t need alcohol.

Forty years later, I think it has been much more about becoming a person who can recognize what she needs.

Earlier.

More honestly.

Without shame.

And increasingly, meeting those needs in ways that don’t require abandoning myself.

Maybe that is one of the quieter freedoms of recovery.

The medicine isn’t finding another substance, behavior, achievement or person to make the feeling disappear.

The medicine is learning how to stay with yourself.

And if you’ve never struggled with alcohol or another substance, I still think there may be something here for you.

The next time you find yourself automatically reaching for something, you don’t have to judge it.

Just get curious.

What am I asking this to do for me?

Then listen for the answer.

No shame. No diagnosis. Just information.

Because sometimes information is where freedom begins.

A few places to turn

If this brings up questions about your own relationship with alcohol or other substances, the NIAAA Alcohol Treatment Navigator⁠ can help you locate evidence-based care. SAMHSA⁠ also provides treatment and recovery resources, and NIAAA offers information about mutual-support options, including 12-step and secular recovery communities.

And if you already have a therapist, sponsor, recovery group, trusted healthcare professional or safe person in your life, maybe bring this question along:

When I need relief, where do I automatically go?

You might be surprised by what you learn.

Aloha,
Melin 🌺

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I’m still learning to comfort myself without food. Work in progress.

Walking into my son’s home in Tokyo felt strangely familiar.

Not because I’d been there before.

Because I’d already visited it every Saturday morning as a kid.

The Jetsons.

I grew up watching George, Jane, Judy, Elroy, Astro, and Rosie the Robot living in what seemed like an impossible future. Everything was automatic. Machines anticipated your needs. Buttons replaced chores. The whole thing felt whimsical, futuristic, and just a little ridiculous.

Back then, it was pure imagination.

Now I’m standing in my son’s house thinking…

Wait a minute.

The Jetsons were onto something.

Every evening, the bathtub quietly fills itself to the perfect temperature. When it’s ready, it politely announces that bath time is prepared for my granddaughter.

No checking the water.

No waiting.

No guessing.

Just…ready.

The trash can opens when you approach it.

A little robot vacuum silently cruises around the house while everyone goes about their day.

The toilet? Let’s just say it has more features than my first computer.

The washer and dryer somehow work together in one sleek machine that seems to do everything except fold the clothes.

Even the shower and bath system looks like something designed for a spaceship rather than a family home.

Then there’s the baby gear.

Every gadget seems thoughtfully engineered, quietly doing work behind the scenes so parents can spend more time simply being with their baby.

It’s technology in service of everyday life.

As someone who raised children decades ago, I couldn’t help laughing.

I remember bottle warmers that barely worked, giant strollers that fought you every step of the way, cloth diapers with safety pins, and baby monitors that crackled with more static than sound.

Today, a bathtub sends notifications.

What a time to be alive.

But the funniest part is realizing that none of this feels futuristic to my son.

It’s just…home.

That’s what every generation does.

The extraordinary becomes ordinary.

What once looked like science fiction simply becomes Tuesday.

Standing there, I felt an unexpected wave of nostalgia.

Not just for The Jetsons, but for the child I once was who believed the future would be filled with wonder.

She wasn’t wrong.

It just took a little longer than a 22-minute cartoon episode.

The older I get, the more I notice that the future doesn’t arrive all at once with flying cars and robot maids.

It slips quietly into our lives.

One automatic bathtub.

One Roomba.

One impossibly smart toilet.

One delighted grandmother standing in her son’s home in Tokyo, smiling because a cartoon from the 1960s suddenly makes perfect sense.

Sometimes the future isn’t something we wait for.

Sometimes we discover we’ve already been living in it.

And somewhere, I like to think Rosie the Robot is smiling.

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Stinking Thinking

I had been sober for about fifteen years when I first heard someone in a meeting talk about “stinking thinking.”

I remember smiling because it sounded so…ordinary. Not clinical. Not profound. Just plain language for something I’d been living with for years.

Until then, I thought recovery was mostly about not drinking. If I could make it through the day without alcohol, I was winning. And in many ways, I was.

But inside my own head? That was another story.My mind could still convince me that I wasn’t enough.That one mistake erased ten successes. That if someone was disappointed in me, I had somehow failed as a human being. That everyone else had life figured out except me.

I was sober. But my thinking wasn’t. I was a dry drunk. No one had ever explained that alcohol wasn’t my only problem. The stories I told myself were. Recovery gave me the opportunity to notice those stories instead of automatically believing them. That changed everything.

One of the greatest gifts of long-term sobriety hasn’t been the absence of alcohol. It’s been learning that my thoughts are not always telling me the truth. Some thoughts deserve compassion. Some deserve curiosity. Some deserve a polite, “Thank you for trying to protect me…but I’ve got it from here.”

That shift didn’t happen overnight. It happened one practice at a time.

Years later, while facilitating Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha, I learned something that fit perfectly alongside recovery. Forgiveness isn’t saying what happened was okay. It’s releasing myself from carrying the weight of the story forever.

Sometimes the person I needed to forgive was someone else. Sometimes it was me. Especially me. Many of us stay trapped not because of what happened, but because we replay the same painful narrative until it feels like our identity. Forgiveness loosens that grip.

Then came Molly Davis Moon’s Beautiful Boundaries Bootcamp. Another lightbulb. For most of my life, I believed honoring myself meant disappointing someone else.

That was classic stinking thinking. The old story said:

“If you’re a good person, you’ll always put everyone else first.”

The healthier story says:

“I can honor myself while honoring you.”

One tiny word changed my life.

And.

Not or. That single shift transformed the way I parented, led, loved, cared for my mom through dementia, and showed up in my own recovery.

Today, after more than forty years of sobriety, I still experience stinking thinking. The difference is that I recognize it much sooner. Instead of arguing with every painful thought, I get curious.

Where did this story come from?

Is it true?

Is it helpful?

Is it kind?

Would I ever say this to someone I love?

Usually, the answer tells me everything I need to know.

Researchers have found that self-compassion and self-forgiveness are associated with healthier recovery outcomes, lower shame, better emotional regulation, and a lower likelihood of relapse. Mindfulness-based approaches similarly help people recognize thoughts without automatically reacting to them, creating space between a thought and an action. In other words, recovery isn’t simply about changing behavior. It’s also about changing our relationship with our own minds.

You don’t have to be sober to recognize stinking thinking.

Maybe yours says you’re behind.

Maybe it tells you you’re too much.

Or not enough.

Maybe it insists you have to earn rest, prove your worth, or keep everyone happy before you’re allowed to take care of yourself.

Different story.

Same stinking thinking.

The details may be different, but the invitation is the same.

Notice the story.

Question it with compassion instead of shame.

Choose the next thought with intention.

If there’s one thing recovery has taught me, it’s this:

Not every thought deserves a seat at your table.

Some thoughts are simply old survival strategies that have outlived their usefulness.

Thank them.

Bless them.

Then let them keep walking.

That’s freedom.

And whether you’re recovering from alcohol, perfectionism, people-pleasing, trauma, anxiety, grief, or simply being human…

Freedom is available to you, too.

A Few Practices That Help Me When Stinking Thinking Shows Up

When my mind starts telling old stories, these are the practices I return to.

Pause before believing the thought.

Ask yourself, Is this a fact, or is it a fear?

Name the story.

Saying, “I’m having the thought that…” creates enough distance to respond instead of react.

Practice self-forgiveness.

You can take responsibility for yesterday without living there forever.

Honor both people.

Beautiful boundaries remind us that caring for ourselves and caring for others can exist at the same time.

Return to your body.

Notice your breath. Feel your feet on the ground. Recovery happens in the present moment, not in yesterday’s replay.

Talk to yourself like someone you love.

If you wouldn’t say it to your best friend, don’t let your inner critic say it to you unchecked.

Recovery has taught me that changing my life didn’t begin when I put down the drink.

It began when I stopped believing everything my frightened mind had to say.

Resources & Tools That Have Helped Me

Recovery, for me, has never been about finding a single answer. It’s been about slowly gathering practices, people, and perspectives that helped me come back to myself—again and again.

What follows are some of the communities and teachings that have shaped my own journey and the work I now share with others.

The Beginning: Finding Community

My recovery story started with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) over forty years ago. I didn’t know it then, but what I was really finding wasn’t just sobriety—it was belonging. A place where I didn’t have to pretend anymore.

https://www.aa.org

From there, I learned that recovery isn’t one-size-fits-all.

SMART Recovery introduced me to practical tools from CBT and motivational work, especially around self-compassion and behavior change.

https://smartrecovery.org

And Recovery Dharma showed me another path entirely—one rooted in mindfulness, meditation, and the understanding that suffering is something we can meet with awareness instead of shame.

https://recoverydharma.org

Learning to Be Kinder to Myself

At some point, staying sober wasn’t just about not drinking—it was about how I spoke to myself when life got hard.

That’s where Dr. Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion changed everything for me. Her research gave language to something I had only felt intuitively: we don’t heal through self-criticism—we heal through kindness.

https://self-compassion.org

Learning to Let Go

Even with sobriety, I carried a lot of weight—old stories, resentment, and things I thought I could never release.

Through Dr. Fred Luskin and the Stanford Forgiveness Project, I learned something simple but life-changing: forgiveness isn’t about saying what happened was okay. It’s about deciding we don’t have to carry it forever.

https://fredluskin.com

Learning to Set Boundaries Without Losing Love

One of the most important shifts in my life came through Beautiful Boundaries with Molly Davis Moon.

I used to think boundaries meant pushing people away. What I learned instead is that boundaries are how we stay connected to ourselves while staying connected to others. It was and continues to be transformational in my life. I’ve been a peer coach for several years, I believe living healthy boundaries was essential to my wellbeing.

Becoming Boundaried™ affiliate link

What the Research Confirms

Over time, I also became curious about what science was saying about all of this.

Research on self-compassion and recovery shows that when we treat ourselves with more kindness, shame decreases, emotional regulation improves, and long-term recovery becomes more sustainable.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11360266/

The broader field of Mindful Self-Compassion, developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, continues to bridge ancient wisdom with modern psychology.

https://self-compassion.org

My Invitation to You

Whether you’re recovering from alcohol, people-pleasing, perfectionism, grief, trauma, or simply the weight of being human, you are not alone in this.

You don’t have to believe every thought your mind offers you.

And you don’t have to carry everything forever.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is pause…

Notice the story.

Thank it for trying to protect us.

And gently choose a different one.

Aloha, Melin 🌺

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Have you ever walked away from a sunrise gathering, a canoe paddle, a concert, a church service, or even a meaningful conversation feeling lighter than when you arrived?

Not because anything in your life had changed.

But because you had changed.

There’s a name for that feeling: collective effervescence.

French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term over a century ago to describe the energy and sense of transcendence that emerge when people gather around something meaningful. In those moments, our ordinary sense of being separate softens. For a little while, I becomes we.

I think our kūpuna understood this long before sociology gave it a name.

We feel it while talking story. We feel it paddling in rhythm. We feel it singing together, dancing hula, sharing a meal, standing in silence at a vigil, or watching the first light of dawn rise over the ocean.

These moments remind us that we were never meant to navigate life entirely alone.

While philosopher Immanuel Kant did not write about collective effervescence, his belief that every human being possesses inherent dignity complements the idea beautifully. When we truly see one another, not as objects or competitors but as people worthy of respect, something profound happens. Connection becomes more than pleasant. It becomes deeply human.

Modern research supports what many of us intuitively know. Shared experiences increase feelings of belonging, strengthen trust, improve emotional well-being, and foster cooperation. In a world where loneliness has become a growing public health concern, gathering with purpose isn’t simply enjoyable. It can be healing.

Maybe that’s why loneliness aches so deeply.

And maybe that’s why aloha heals.

Collective effervescence isn’t magic.

It’s what happens when we choose presence over performance, connection over comparison, and love over fear.

Perhaps the moments that shape us most aren’t the ones when we stand apart.

They’re the ones when we stand together.

One love. One heart. 🌺

References

Durkheim, É. (1912/1995). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen E. Fields. New York: Free Press.

Kant, I. (1785/1997). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge University Press.

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster.

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.

World Health Organization. (2023). Commission on Social Connection. Recognizes social connection as a major determinant of health and well-being.

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What If Boundaries Are One of the Most Loving Things We Can Do?

What if the healthiest relationships in your life depend on learning where you end and another person begins?

What if honoring yourself is not selfish at all?

What if boundaries are one of the deepest expressions of love?

A few years ago, if you had asked me about boundaries, I probably would have described them as something you set with difficult people. What I did not understand was that boundaries become most important with the people we love the most.

I learned that lesson while caring for my mother as dementia slowly changed both of our lives.

One of the greatest gifts I received during that time came through the teachings of my friend and mentor, Molly Davis Moon. Through her Becoming Boundaried work, Molly teaches that boundaries are not walls. They are living edges that allow us to honor ourselves while remaining connected to others. They help compassionate people stop abandoning themselves and start showing up from a place of groundedness, clarity, and self-respect. (Boundaried)

That lesson became essential as my mother’s dementia progressed into its later stages.

For much of my life, I believed love meant doing more, trying harder, and carrying whatever burden needed carrying. Then dementia entered our lives and became a relentless teacher. As my mother’s disease advanced, there were moments of confusion, accusations, aggression, and even physical violence. The woman who had once protected me sometimes no longer recognized me. Some days felt like navigating a storm without a compass.

What Becoming Boundaried helped me understand was that I could love my mother deeply without losing myself in the process.

I could acknowledge her fear without absorbing it as my own. I could recognize that the disease was speaking, not her heart. I could step back when situations became unsafe. I could ask for help. I could allow professionals, caregivers, hospice workers, physicians, and family members to carry pieces of the load. I could grieve what was happening without believing it was my responsibility to fix the unfixable.

Most importantly, I learned that honoring myself did not mean abandoning my mother.

It meant recognizing that there were two human beings in the room whose needs mattered.

Her dignity mattered.

Mine did too.

Research consistently shows that caregivers who practice healthy boundaries and self-compassion experience less burnout, depression, and chronic stress. Healthy boundaries help sustain caregiving because they allow us to offer care from a place of capacity rather than depletion. They support connection without requiring self-sacrifice. (Boundaried)

Looking back now, I think of boundaries less as fences and more as guardrails. They kept me from driving off the cliffs of exhaustion, resentment, and despair. They allowed me to remain present for my mother during one of the most difficult chapters of both our lives. Not perfectly. Not gracefully every day. But honestly. Compassionately. Humanly.

The irony is that boundaries did not make me love my mother less.

They allowed me to love her longer.

What’s In It For You?

• Learn how to care deeply without carrying everything.

• Stay connected to the people you love without abandoning yourself.

• Create relationships rooted in respect, dignity, and sustainability rather than guilt and obligation.

Resource

Much of what I learned about healthy, pro-relational boundaries came through the work of Molly Davis Moon, therapist, author, and founder of the Becoming Boundaried Method™, which helps compassionate people discover the inner architecture of healthy boundaries and learn how to honor themselves while remaining deeply connected to others. (Boundaried)

To learn more, visit:

Becoming Boundaried with Molly Davis Moon

You can also access her free Boundaries Breakthrough Mini-Course, designed specifically for compassionate people who struggle with overgiving, guilt, people-pleasing, and burnout. (Boundaried)

“Boundaries are not the distance between people. They are the conditions that allow love, respect, and connection to grow.”

— Melinda Lloyd as inspired by Molly Davis Moon

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What I Believed

I remember sitting in my car after a painful conversation, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my hands ached. I kept replaying the same thought: If I forgive, doesn’t that mean I’m saying what happened was okay? At the time, forgiveness felt like surrendering my hurt, minimizing my experience, or letting someone else off the hook.

For a long time, I thought forgiveness was something you did for someone else.

I thought it meant saying, “It’s okay.”

I thought it required reconciliation.

I thought it meant forgetting.

I was wrong.

What Changed

Several years ago, I began studying Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha, a process grounded in the work of Dr. Fred Luskin with the Stanford Forgiveness Project, while also honoring our Hawaiian values of aloha, compassion, humility, and interconnectedness.

It changed my life.

One of the hardest forgiveness letters I have ever written was to my mother.

By then, dementia had already rearranged the landscape of our relationship. The woman who had raised me was still physically present, yet disappearing in ways that felt impossible to explain to people who hadn’t lived it. I carried resentment. Grief. Exhaustion. Guilt. Anger at how unfair it all felt. Sorrow for what had been lost.

And underneath all of it was love.

The forgiveness process didn’t magically erase the complexity of those feelings. It didn’t change the reality of caregiving or the heartbreak of ambiguous loss.

What it did change was me.

What Forgiveness Is

I began to understand that forgiveness isn’t about approving of what happened or pretending it didn’t hurt. It doesn’t depend on another person’s apology, understanding, or willingness to change.

Forgiveness was about no longer allowing the injury to occupy permanent residence in my heart.

Dr. Luskin describes forgiveness as making peace with the fact that life did not go the way we wanted it to go. We wanted a different ending, a different childhood, a different conversation, a different diagnosis, a different outcome.

Sometimes the answer is no.

The practice of forgiveness asks: What do I want to do with my life now?

What the Research Shows

Research from the Stanford Forgiveness Project found that people who practiced forgiveness reported less anger, less stress, fewer symptoms of depression, greater optimism, and improved overall well-being. Participants often experienced physical changes too, including reductions in stress-related symptoms. Forgiveness, it turns out, isn’t just good for the soul. It’s good for the body. (Stanford Medicine)

Forgiveness is not easy, nor is it something that should be rushed or forced. It does not eliminate the importance of justice or require us to return to unsafe situations.

What it offers is an opportunity to ask ourselves whether carrying the grievance is serving us.

The Practice of Letting Go

In my own journey, forgiveness became less about the other person and more about coming home to myself.

Aloha became my teacher.

Aloha did not ask me to erase what hurt.

Aloha asked me to loosen my grip on the suffering I was recreating every time I replayed the story.

The other person didn’t even have to know.

There were forgiveness letters I never sent.

Conversations that happened only in my journal.

Tears shed privately.

Moments of release witnessed only by me.

And yet, something shifted.

The heaviness became lighter.

The story lost some of its sharp edges.

I could remember without reliving.

I could grieve without drowning.

I could love without carrying quite so much resentment.

A Truth I Keep Returning To

I keep coming back to this truth:

Forgiveness is not saying what happened was okay.

Forgiveness is saying that what happened will no longer determine how I live the rest of my life.

If you’re holding something heavy today, perhaps start gently.

You don’t have to force forgiveness.

You don’t have to perform it.

You don’t even have to be ready.

Maybe the first step is simply becoming curious:

“What might become possible if I didn’t have to carry this forever?”

Forgiveness is choosing your own peace while honoring your pain, your boundaries, and your truth.

And sometimes, that peace begins with a letter no one else will ever read.

Resources

If you’d like to learn more about evidence-based forgiveness practices, I highly recommend Dr. Fred Luskin’s book, Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness. Dr. Luskin is the founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, whose work has demonstrated that forgiveness can be learned and practiced as a skill that supports emotional and physical well-being.

You can also explore resources through the Stanford Forgiveness Project and the Forgive for Good book by Dr. Luskin, which offer practical tools for moving from grievance toward greater freedom, hope, and peace. (Stanford Graduate School of Business)

Closing Reflection

As we say here in Hawaiʻi, aloha is both a greeting and a way of being.

Perhaps forgiveness is one way we practice aloha with ourselves.

One breath.

One story.

One release at a time.

Sharing a free Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha interactive app (I created) if you want to get a taste of the process:

Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha

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Me ke aloha pumehana (with much love),

Melin 🌺

Forty years is a long time.

It’s long enough to raise children into adults. Long enough to build a career, lose people you love, become a grandmother, and collect enough stories to fill several lifetimes. Forty years is also how long I have been sober from alcohol and drugs. Sometimes when people hear that, they look at me with a kind of awe, as though I have unlocked some secret level of being human that makes me immune to struggle. I always want to laugh a little because if there is one thing recovery has taught me, it is humility.

A few months ago, I had one of the strongest urges to drink that I have experienced in years. It frightened me because it seemed to come out of nowhere. I wasn’t sitting in a bar. I wasn’t with people who were drinking. In fact, I was standing in my own kitchen when I heard the familiar sound of a can opening. For years that sound had been associated with Coke Zero, my little afternoon treat. But this time, something deeper stirred. My body remembered something my mind had long ago packed away.

That moment reminded me that addiction has a long memory.

Researchers now understand addiction as a chronic but treatable condition involving changes in brain circuits related to reward, stress, motivation, and self-control. The brain learns. It adapts. And sometimes, under enough stress, it remembers old pathways that once promised relief. The beautiful thing is that the brain can also learn new pathways. Healing is possible. Recovery is possible. But it doesn’t happen because we become superhuman. It happens because we continue choosing life, sometimes over and over again in the same afternoon.

When I was younger, I thought addiction was simply about the substance. I thought alcohol was the problem. Drugs were the problem. If I could just stop using them, then I would be fine. What I eventually learned is that addiction isn’t only about what we consume. Often, it’s about what we’re trying not to feel.

What pain am I trying to avoid? What grief feels too heavy to carry? What fear feels too overwhelming to sit with? What loneliness am I trying to soothe? Those are harder questions.

You cannot simply abstain from food. There are no sobriety chips for avoiding dinner. Every single day requires another conversation, another decision, another opportunity to ask, “Am I physically hungry, or is something else happening here?” Food comforted me. It celebrated with me. It distracted me. It softened sharp edges. It became a reward after difficult days and a companion during lonely ones. Until eventually I had to acknowledge that sometimes I wasn’t feeding my body. I was trying to soothe my spirit.

Researchers refer to this phenomenon as transfer addiction or substitute addiction. It happens when the underlying needs driving one addictive behavior remain unaddressed, increasing vulnerability to another behavior that serves a similar emotional purpose. Understanding that shifted something for me. It helped me replace judgment with curiosity.

I stopped asking, “What’s wrong with me?” I started asking, “What happened to me? What do I need right now?”

I have heard people say that the opposite of addiction is sobriety. I understand the sentiment, but I wonder if the opposite of addiction might actually be connection. Not because connection magically eliminates cravings, but because addiction often flourishes in isolation. Shame thrives in secrecy. The voice that tells us we are uniquely broken grows louder when we are alone.

The research supports what many people in recovery already know intuitively. Social support significantly improves recovery outcomes. Peer support groups, counseling, medication-assisted treatment when appropriate, addressing underlying trauma and mental health concerns, and building meaningful connections all increase the likelihood of sustained recovery. There isn’t one perfect path. Recovery isn’t a formula. It’s a mosaic built from many different pieces of support.

Today, when I think about recovery, I think less about what I have given up and more about what I have gained.

I gained mornings. I gained trust. I gained relationships that might not have survived had I continued drinking. I gained the ability to sit with discomfort without immediately reaching for something to make it disappear.

I gained the extraordinary privilege of becoming a grandmother who is fully present. I get to hold my grandchildren and memorize the shape of their tiny fingers. I get to laugh until my stomach hurts. I get to be here for ordinary Tuesdays and unexpected joys.

Life didn’t become perfect because I got sober.

I still experience anxiety. I still have difficult seasons. I still catch myself wanting to numb out from time to time. But today, I have choices that I didn’t have before. I have tools. I have community. I have a deeper understanding of myself and a greater compassion for the ways I once tried to survive.

And if it isn’t, please know that there are people who understand. There are meetings. There are therapists. There are doctors. There are peer support specialists. There are friends waiting to pick up the phone. There are communities filled with people who have walked through the same darkness and are willing to carry a flashlight while you find your footing.

You don’t have to decide what forever looks like. You only have to decide about today. One conversation. One meeting. One honest moment. One small act of courage.

Forty years ago, someone offered me hope when I couldn’t imagine a different future for myself. Today, I want to offer that same hope to someone else.

Recovery doesn’t erase your story. It redeems it. It transforms pain into wisdom, shame into compassion, and isolation into connection.

And if nobody has told you this lately, I’m really glad you’re still here.

Let’s keep talking story.

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Me Ke Aloha Pumehana (with warmth and aloha), Melin

The other day I opened a can of Coke Zero.

Psssttt.

That familiar crack and hiss.

For years, that sound has signaled something simple: caffeine, refreshment, a little afternoon pick-me-up. But lately I’ve noticed something else happening.

The sound doesn’t just make me think about Coke Zero.

It takes me somewhere else entirely.

Forty years into sobriety, I still occasionally hear that sound and feel a flash of recognition from another life. Not a desire, exactly. More like my nervous system remembering. My body responding before my conscious mind catches up.

And lately, with my mother’s dementia, work transitions, uncertainty, grief, and the ordinary stresses of being human, I’ve noticed those old pathways lighting up a little more brightly.

A few months ago, I experienced one of the strongest urges to drink that I’ve felt in decades. It scared me.

Not because I drank. I didn’t.

But because it reminded me that recovery isn’t something we graduate from but, rather, something we practice.

So I did what recovery has taught me to do. I reached out. I leaned into my sober community. I joined a support group. I told the truth about what was happening instead of trying to manage it alone.

And that’s where this story becomes about more than sobriety.

Research shows that our brains create powerful associations between experiences, emotions, and sensory cues. A smell, a song, a place—or even the sound of a can opening—can activate memories and feelings years after the original experience. That’s how human brains work.

Which got me thinking.

Maybe all of us have our version of the can opening.

A song that brings back a heartbreak.

A scent that reminds us of someone we’ve lost.

A holiday that awakens grief.

A place that reminds us of who we used to be.

The goal isn’t to eliminate these triggers. The goal is to notice them with curiosity instead of shame.

To ask, “What is this memory trying to tell me?”

Because awareness creates choice.

And choice creates freedom.

That’s the part that matters to me.

Not that I heard a can open and thought about drinking.

But that I heard a can open and chose connection instead.

Everything is connected.

No, really.

A can of Coke Zero.

Forty years of sobriety.

A stressed nervous system.

The science of memory.

The kindness of friends.

The wisdom of recovery.

The courage to ask for help.

What started as a simple sound turned into a reminder that healing is knowing what to do when struggle shows up.

And sometimes, the most important thing we can do is remember that we were never meant to carry it alone 🌺

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Me ke aloha pumehana,

Photo caption: Mom at 14 years old.

My mom is still here.

And yet, in many ways, I’ve been grieving her for years.

If you’ve never cared for someone with advanced dementia, it’s difficult to explain. People often think grief begins when someone dies. Dementia taught me that grief can begin long before death arrives.

You lose pieces of the person over time.

A memory here.

A story there.

A shared joke.

A familiar expression.

A recognition in their eyes.

Each loss is small enough to survive. But together, they add up to a thousand tiny heartbreaks.

Over the past several years, I’ve shared stories about caring for my mom through advanced dementia. There were emergency room visits, crises, difficult decisions, placement in care homes, hospice, and the constant uncertainty of what would come next. There were moments of tenderness and moments of exhaustion. Moments of guilt and moments of relief.

And here’s the truth that many caregivers are afraid to say out loud:

You can deeply love someone and still find caregiving incredibly traumatic.

Both things can be true.

In fact, they often are.

Photo Caption: Mom in her 30ʻs

Researchers have found that dementia caregivers experience significantly higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, and social isolation than non-caregivers. One large study found that 58% of dementia caregivers reported extreme stress, while many reported feeling isolated, overwhelmed, and sleep deprived. (PMC)

Another body of research suggests that roughly one-third to 40% of dementia caregivers experience symptoms of depression, while anxiety rates may exceed 40%. (Journal of Aging and Disease)

When I first read those numbers, I didn’t feel discouraged.

I felt seen.

Because for years I thought I was somehow doing caregiving wrong.

I wasn’t.

The journey is hard.

The disease is hard.

The grief is hard.

The constant uncertainty is hard.

Photo caption: Mom last year before going into hospice

Many dementia caregivers live in a state psychologists call “ambiguous loss.” The person is physically present but psychologically or cognitively changing. They are here, but they are also leaving. That creates a unique kind of grief that doesn’t have a clear beginning or ending.

I know that grief intimately.

There were days when my mom no longer remembered details of our shared history.

Days when she was frightened.

Days when she was angry.

Days when she didn’t recognize what was happening around her.

And there were days when I would leave her room, sit in my car, and cry.

Not because I didn’t love her.

Because I did.

Love is what made it hurt.

Photo caption: Mom on her 80th birthday

One of the biggest lessons this journey taught me is that caregiving is not simply an act of service.

It is an act of witnessing.

We witness decline.

We witness dignity.

We witness suffering.

We witness courage.

We witness our own limitations.

And if we’re paying attention, we witness our own humanity.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to be the perfect caregiver.

I started trying to be a present one.

That shift changed everything.

I learned that I couldn’t control the disease.

I couldn’t cure dementia.

I couldn’t prevent every difficult moment.

But I could offer presence.

I could offer kindness.

I could hold my mother’s hand.

I could advocate for her.

I could tell her she was loved.

And sometimes, that was enough.

If you are currently caring for someone with dementia, I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me years ago:

You are allowed to be tired.

You are allowed to be angry.

You are allowed to feel relief when help arrives.

You are allowed to laugh.

You are allowed to have a life outside of caregiving.

You are allowed to need support.

You are allowed to grieve before the funeral.

None of those things mean you love them less.

They mean you’re human.

Photo caption: Mom, my daughter Ali, and me (2013)

What This Means for You

Whether you are caring for a parent, spouse, partner, sibling, or friend, dementia caregiving asks us to practice something our culture rarely teaches:

How to stay present when we cannot fix the problem.

Many of us were taught that love means solving.

Dementia taught me that love often means accompanying.

Showing up.

Bearing witness.

Remaining connected.

Offering aloha when there are no easy answers.

The takeaway is simple but not easy:

You do not have to carry this alone.

Connection matters.

Support matters.

Rest matters.

Your wellbeing matters.

In fact, caring for yourself is part of caring for your loved one.

Everything is connected. No, really.

Including the caregiver.

Resources for Dementia Caregivers

If this journey is part of your life, these resources may help:

• The Alzheimer’s Association

• 24/7 Helpline: 800-272-3900

• Support groups

• Education programs

• Caregiver resources

• Family Caregiver Alliance

• Caregiver education

• Support resources

• Practical caregiving guidance

• Alzheimer’s Foundation of America

• Caregiver support

• Educational webinars

• Helpline resources

• Talk story with someone who understands.

• A friend.

• A therapist.

• A support group.

• A fellow caregiver.

Sometimes the most healing words in the world are:

“Me too.”

Aloha kāua,

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I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working with artificial intelligence.

That sentence still makes me chuckle.

If you had told me twenty years ago that I’d be collaborating with a machine to brainstorm ideas, refine my writing, create graphics, and help me untangle complex thoughts, I would have thought you were watching too much science fiction.

Yet here we are.

AI has been one of the most useful tools I’ve encountered in a long time.

But the more I use it, the more I’ve come to realize that AI is not nearly as interesting as the humans using it.

I know that’s probably not the hot take people expect.

For real, I understand all three reactions.

What I’ve discovered, though, is that AI is neither the hero nor the villain of this story.

People are.

As a Hawaiʻi girl, the metaphor that keeps coming to mind is a canoe.

AI is the canoe.

Humans are still the navigators.

The canoe can be beautifully crafted. It can be fast, efficient, and capable of traveling great distances. But the canoe itself doesn’t know where it’s going. It doesn’t know why the voyage matters. It doesn’t know what is sacred, what is worth protecting, or what destination is worth pursuing.

The navigator knows.

That’s us.

And maybe that’s why this conversation feels so connected to everything I write about.

How we heal.

How we connect.

How we belong.

How we make meaning from our lives.

How we find our way back to ourselves and each other.

AI can help me write about those things. It can help me organize my thoughts. It can help me see patterns and make connections. Sometimes it helps me express an idea more clearly than I could have on my own.

But it cannot supply the heart.

That still comes from lived experience.

When I write about my mother’s dementia journey, the meaning doesn’t come from a machine. It comes from sitting beside her during the long goodbye of this disease.

When I write about recovery, the substance comes from forty years of sobriety, one day at a time.

When I write about boundaries, nervous system regulation, grief, forgiveness, or resilience, the wisdom comes from living through hard things and learning from them.

AI can help shape the words.

But it cannot live the story.

It knows about grief.

It has never grieved.

It knows about love.

It has never loved.

It knows about aloha.

It has never practiced aloha.

That’s a difference worth paying attention to.

In fact, research keeps pointing us toward the same conclusion. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Connection identified loneliness and isolation as significant threats to health and well-being, with health impacts comparable to smoking up to fifteen cigarettes a day. At the same time, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of human flourishing ever conducted, found that strong relationships are among the strongest predictors of happiness, health, and longevity.

Not productivity.

Not efficiency.

Not information.

Relationships.

Connection.

Belonging.

In other words, the things that make us human.

And maybe that’s the irony of this moment we’re living in.

The more advanced our technology becomes, the more valuable our humanity becomes.

The machine can process information faster than we can.

The machine can summarize articles faster than we can.

The machine can organize data faster than we can.

But it cannot sit beside a friend who is suffering.

It cannot hold a grandchild.

It cannot reconcile with a sibling.

It cannot forgive.

It cannot grieve.

It cannot laugh until tears run down its face.

It cannot sit on a lanai, talking story as the sun goes down, and suddenly realize that life is both heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.

Only people can do that.

Which brings me to those who are wary of AI, nay, even disgusted by it.

I get it.

Human creativity.

Human wisdom.

Human compassion.

Human experience.

The source is still us.

If anything, AI has reminded me how much I value the things that cannot be automated.

Presence.

Relationship.

Story.

Meaning.

Aloha.

The reason I write isn’t because I have information to share. The reason I write is because stories help us recognize ourselves in one another.

Stories remind us we’re not alone.

Stories help us heal.

Stories build beloved community.

That’s what I’m trying to do across all three of my publications.

Not create content.

Create connection.

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Me ke aloha pumehana (with much aloha)…

Aloha, Melin

There’s something deeply human about sitting together and talking story.

Not debating.
Not branding ourselves.
Not trying to “win” the conversation.

Just sharing stories.
Listening.
Laughing.
Remembering.
Learning each other.

Growing up in Hawaiʻi, talking story was never just small talk.

It was how people connected.
How values were passed down.
How people taught without lecturing.
How you learned who someone was beyond their title, job, status, or social mask.

You learned through stories.

You learned through sitting at kitchen tables, lingering after gatherings, hearing aunties laugh so hard they cried, listening to uncles remember old days, hearing people speak honestly about hardship, resilience, family, mistakes, heartbreak, joy, survival, and love.

Talking story is relational.

Actually, I’d go further:
it’s pro-relational.

It creates connection instead of transaction.

And I think many of us are starving for that right now.

We live in a world increasingly organized around performance, productivity, algorithms, outrage, image management, and extracting value from one another.

But human beings don’t flourish through transaction alone.

We flourish through connection.

Through being seen.
Through being known.
Through feeling safe enough to exhale and tell the truth.

That’s part of why I created these spaces:
Melin Talks Story,
Living Aloha (Rooted and Regulated) with Melin,
and Everything is Connected (No, Really).

They may sound like separate publications, but they are all connected through the same thread:

There’s a Hawaiian proverb I think about often:

“Aʻo aku, aʻo mai.”

I teach you, you teach me.
I enlighten you, you enlighten me.

That proverb holds such deep wisdom because it reminds us that learning is relational.

Not hierarchical.
Relational.

No one person holds all the wisdom.
No one person is the permanent teacher.
No one person is beyond learning.

We shape each other through relationship.

That’s why I don’t want this space to feel like a pedestal.

I’m not here pretending I have life mastered.

I’m still learning too.

Still healing.
Still grieving.
Still growing.
Still trying to regulate my nervous system before my morning coffee kicks in.

But maybe that’s the point.

Maybe beloved community, the kind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned, does not begin through grand gestures alone.

Maybe it begins in smaller, quieter ways.

People choosing connection over performance.
Curiosity over contempt.
Presence over perfection.

People listening long enough to recognize themselves in each other.

Talking story is one way we practice that.
Sometimes the most healing moments happen when someone says:
“Me too.”

Me too, I’ve struggled.
Me too, I’ve felt lonely.
Me too, I’m tired.
Me too, I’m trying to figure life out.
Me too, I thought I was the only one.

That moment changes people.

Because shame survives in isolation.
But connection interrupts it.

I think many of us are walking around carrying invisible stories.
Invisible grief.
Invisible exhaustion.
Invisible hope.

And yet when we begin sharing honestly, we realize how connected we actually are.

That’s the heart of Everything is Connected (No, Really).

Not in some abstract spiritual bypassing way.

But in a deeply practical human way.

Your story affects people.
Your kindness affects people.
Your presence affects people.
Your healing affects people.

And so does your silence.
Your disconnection.
Your unhealed pain.

Everything ripples outward.

So what’s in it for you here, as a reader?

Hopefully this:

A place where you feel less alone.

A place where you can laugh, reflect, grieve, remember, soften, heal, and reconnect to yourself and other people without needing to perform.

A place rooted in aloha, honesty, humanity, nervous system safety, humor, storytelling, and belonging.

A place where your story matters too.

Not because it’s polished.
Not because it’s impressive.
But because it’s human.

And maybe that’s enough.

Actually…
maybe that’s everything.

Sharing our light in beloved community.

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I don’t want this space to be performative.

There’s already enough of that online.

People curating themselves.
Selling themselves.
Branding every human moment into content.

I’m more interested in something real.

Talking story.
Human to human.
No masks.
No pretending we have it all figured out.

Just people trying to make sense of life together.

I think a lot of us are hungry for that right now.

A place where you can laugh, grieve, reflect, remember, heal, or simply exhale without feeling like you have to impress anybody.

That’s what I hope this becomes.

A safe little corner of the internet rooted in aloha, honesty, humor, and connection.

Not perfection.
Connection.

Because sometimes healing starts the moment somebody says:
“Me too.”

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Not polished.
Just real people talking story and remembering we’re not alone.

Subscribe and pull up a chair.

Let’s talk story together.