Mommyhood

Let’s Start Being Real

by Taylor Leapley

Do I look fat? Can they see that pimple on my nose? My stomach isn’t flat enough. I
want a nose job, or maybe a boob job. Mine aren’t big enough. Will any guys think I’m pretty enough? Maybe I should eat a little less. How could I ever compare to her? I’m so bloated. Don’t forget to suck your stomach in for the picture. How does she always look so perfect? I didn’t get a lot of likes. Will they think this is weird?

Ugh, I wish I looked like her.
It is constant. A constant stream of thoughts, intrusions, cycling through young girls’
heads every day. It starts small, then it happens every time they open Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, and then it reaches the point where ten-year-olds are looking in the mirror and can’t look away without criticizing themselves first.

I want you to think about how you felt about yourself when you were ten. Did you think about how you looked? Probably not often. You most likely went about your day with mismatching socks, unbrushed hair, loud, messy, and childish. Maybe there was a Vogue magazine with a model that you couldn’t stop looking at. But the magazine was not in your pocket, following you throughout your day, glaring at you every time you opened it. Your daughter, on the other hand, faces a constant reminder. That is the difference; that is the danger.

Think about your daughter. Does she think about how she looks? Is she searching for the right ten-step skincare routine to put some unpronounceable acid on her young skin so she can be like the “clean girls” on TikTok? Is she asking for the 15-pound Stanley Cup to bring to school so she fits in with all the other girls? Is she 10 going on 25? Is she getting to be a child?

Nearly 40% of children ages 8-12 use social media (“Social Media and Youth Mental
Health” 4). These children are being exposed to an uncontrollable, foreign world on social media. That number jumps to over 90% when including teenagers, many of whom report using social media constantly. That is a constant influx of information and comparison. It is overwhelming. Social media’s emergence among preteens and even children has led to increased anxiety, depression, and distorted body image, and is changing how children are raised. And it is affecting girls disproportionately. I implore you to think about how social media is affecting your children before giving them free rein.

I understand that social media is not going anywhere; it is here to stay. I myself use social media, and I have seen the effects of it on my own life. I am worried about the next generation. If young adults, like myself, are affected, what does that mean for children? It is still new and constantly changing. I am not writing this to call anyone a bad parent or to lecture you. Instead, I am reaching out to you as a source of guidance, as someone who grew up on the cusp of reality and virtual reality. I am worried about the little girls I see who look so grown up. I see it in my cousin, who is obsessed with her iPhone, who has more Drunk Elephant skincare than I do, and who worries she is not pretty enough for the guys at school. Middle school is hard enough as is. I, myself, struggled in middle school. It is an awkward time for many girls and boys. Insecurities run rampant; finding good friends is hard; people are mean. I was lucky enough to have most of my childhood offline. And yes, the family iPad certainly drew me in, but my parents, although I hated it at the time, sent my brother and me outside for hours. Now, I am so grateful I had those experiences. The most imaginative times in my childhood were when I was outside, bored with my brother. We would make up games, create fantasy worlds, or ride our bikes. What will happen to children who do not get those experiences? I want girls to be able to discover their confidence and love themselves. As cheesy as it may sound, loving who you are can bring an immense amount of clarity and peace to your life. Being happy is such a profoundly important part of life. And it is hard to find sometimes. Happiness takes time, and it takes work. But that is all we really want, right? To be happy? To love yourself? To have meaningful relationships? Adding social media to the mix can be detrimental to our happiness, confidence, and social skills.

Now, I must recognize that social media offers so many terrific opportunities. It allows us to connect, to find community, to learn, and to explore. It is easier to reach people and make plans. We can connect with people from across the world. It even offers networks of social support and mental health services (Balamurali, sec. Methods). But it can be dangerous when not used carefully, for children and adults.

One of the biggest changes that social media brought was accessibility to other people’s lives. We can share the extravagant trip we just went on, or how we spent our Sunday apple-picking with our friends. While these highlights are great, that is just what they are, highlights. People are sharing the best parts of their lives. To a young girl, it may seem like these other people have such full and exciting lives where they are always perfectly put together and well, perfect, flawless even. This is where it gets worse for girls. Girls are exposed to “perfection” daily and are constantly comparing themselves. “They are subjected to more severe and constant judgements about their looks and their bodies, and beauty standards that are further out of reach,” and the algorithms are amplifying girls’ desires to be beautiful in socially prescribed ways (Haidt 154). The difference between a magazine and social media is that social media pulls girls in and can have them scrolling for hours on end. Algorithms are designed to keep people sucked in. A magazine does not have this capability. A magazine ends. Not only that, but these apps encourage girls to change how they look to fit certain standards. Snapchat has countless filters, TikTok has a beauty filter, Instagram has filters and editing, and Facetune can turn you into a completely unrecognizable person. These idealized images online are fake, and they are negatively affecting girls’ body image and self-esteem. As girls struggle with the pressure to fit beauty standards, they can develop depressive symptoms (Balamurali, sec. 4.2). In extreme cases, suicidal thoughts can emerge from the constant cycle of “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t deserve the same as these girls”. Can you imagine your daughter thinking that? Wanting to hurt herself because she doesn’t look like a fake image online?

Everyone has something they do not love about themselves. Insecurities are normal; however, it is not normal for an insecurity and comparison to turn into depression and anxiety. Social media is contributing to an increase in mental health problems. A UK Millennium Cohort Study conducted in 14-year-olds found that greater social media use predicted poor sleep, online harassment, poor body image, low self-esteem, and higher depressive symptom scores (Kelly et al.). Anxiety is 12% over its baseline, with depression close behind at 9% above. Why would you want to increase your child’s chances of depression and anxiety? I am on your side. We are all looking to find happiness, for ourselves and our loved ones. The Social Dilemma, a documentary about the dangers of social media, shows that US Hospital Admissions for Non-Fatal Self-Harm have gone up 189% for girls aged 10-14, and US Suicide Rates are up 151%. The increase began around 2009, when social media became available on mobile devices (Orlowski). This almost triples the percentage of girls self-harming. Think about your child when you look at these statistics. Can you even imagine?

Furthermore, adolescents who spent more than 3 hours a day on social media faced
double the risk of poor mental health, and there have been distinct changes in parts of the brain, including the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, because they are still developing. (“Social Media and Youth Mental Health” 5). More specifically, neurological consequences have been observed related to internet/gaming addiction, language development, and processing of emotional signals (Korte, sec. Abstract). This is causing children to disengage from the world around them. Social skills are not developing. Clinical psychologist, Lisa Damour, says that regarding friendships for girls, “quality trumps quantity” and the happiest girls “aren’t the ones who have the most friendships but the ones who have strong, supportive friendships”. After being on social media, girls found themselves with unreliable, fair-weather “friends”, followers, and acquaintances (Haidt 168). In fact, many people have more surface-level friendships. During the rise of social media, the rates of high school seniors who agreed they had friends they could get together with dropped quickly since 2012 (Haidt 169). We care about the effects of alcohol and drugs on young people because they cause negative effects on their development. If social media is also showing these negative effects, why are we not regulating it, too? It starts in each household, with each parent deciding what is best for their child. Think back to dinner with your friends when you were younger. Were you all on phones? Probably not. I go out and see dates more intrigued with the new celebrity drama than the person sitting across from them, families playing games on their phones instead of playing I Spy like my brother and I used to do. Look around next time you go out to dinner; how many people are on their phones?

Not only is social media hindering meaningful connections, but it is also exposing young children to a dangerous world. Social media is not always a safe place for girls. “Almost 6 in 10 teen girls reported being contacted by strangers on social media in ways that made them feel uncomfortable” (Foundation, sec. “Negative Effects”). Do you want your daughter to be contacted by a creepy man? In many regions of the virtual world, some men prey upon teen and preteen girls. Men focus on young girls and use “coercion, trickery, and violence to get sex.” The apps “make little to no effort to restrict interactions between adults and minors” (Haidt 166). On Instagram and TikTok, people can send direct messages to anyone. If your account is public, anyone can view your pictures. This is uncomfortable, dangerous, and most likely also confusing for young girls. They could be exposed to mature topics, asked to send nudes without being aware of the consequences, or emotionally violated. Some girls learn to believe that their body is the only thing interesting about them. This can be extremely damaging to their self-esteem and future romantic relationships. I am telling you this, not to scare you into never allowing social media, but to make you aware of the dangers, so you can proceed with caution and care.

So what can we do, what can you do as parents, to ensure your children are safe on social media? Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at NYU and bestselling author of The Anxious Generation, suggests some options. First, no smartphones before high school. Secondly, social media should not be allowed before the age of 16. These first two ensure children get a chance to have a phone-free or at least phone-limited childhood. They will have time to learn how to be bored, be creative, and most importantly, be a kid. This may seem daunting in a virtual world, but reach out to other parents and create spaces for your children to be kids with their peers. Lastly, prioritize unsupervised play and in-person socialization. This is where children thrive and can explore relationships and be imaginative. In addition to Haidt’s reforms, parents can take advantage of new features like Instagram’s teen account, which “limit[s] unwanted contact, show[s] content that’s right for their age and help[s] them manage their time on Instagram” (“About Instagram”). These features can help keep your children safer and less likely to be exposed to unwanted content online.

I look strong. No one will notice that pimple. My stomach looks great. I love my nose. I am confident in my body, the way it is. Guys would be lucky to have me. Let’s go out to dinner. She is pretty, and so am I. I look healthy. Smile for the picture. Everyone has good and bad days. I’m going to turn off my likes. Who really cares? I love this, so I’m going to post it.

Wow, I really love who I am.
It’s a totally different mindset, and it is refreshing. Take the shackles off. Social media can connect us, but it can also distort what it means to be enough, especially for young girls. Don’t tie yourself to other people’s expectations, to society’s expectations, to your phone. Our self-worth should not be measured by likes and followers. Do you want your daughter to look in the mirror and critique herself, or to look in the mirror and love herself? The conversation about preteens and social media isn’t just about screen time; it’s about childhood itself. It’s about having the freedom to be a kid, to grow up without worry, to live with a carefree mindset before you are thrown into the strains of adulthood. Let your children be creative and have fun. Spend time with them without your phone. Go outside. If these problems aren’t addressed, there is a risk that relationships turn more virtual than interpersonal. And while no one is necessarily banning social media, we must find balance, restore real connection, and protect mental health and safety during the most vulnerable years of development. Let’s start being real.

Works Cited
About Instagram Teen Accounts | Instagram Help Center.
https://help.instagram.com/995996839195964. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
Balamurali, R. The Role of Social Media in Shaping Adolescent Mental Well-Being: A
Comprehensive Review on Its Pros and Cons – Wake Forest University.
https://wfu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
El Nahas, Rania Abdel Hai Ibrahim, and Shaimaa Zoelfakar Hamed Zoghaib. “The
Teenagers’ Exposure of Instagram and Its Relationship with Their Body Acceptance.”
The Scientific Journal of Radio and TV Research, no. 30, 2024, pp. 65–79.
wfu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com.
Foundation, The Annie E. Casey. “Social Media and Teen Mental Health.” The Annie E.
Casey Foundation, 10 Aug. 2023,
https://www.aecf.org/blog/social-medias-concerning-effect-on-teen-mental-health.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing
an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press, 2024.
Kelly, Yvonne, et al. “Social Media Use and Adolescent Mental Health: Findings From the
UK Millennium Cohort Study.” EClinicalMedicine, vol. 6, Dec. 2018, pp. 59–68.
ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2018.12.005.
Korte, Martin. “The Impact of the Digital Revolution on Human Brain and Behavior:
Where Do We Stand?” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, vol. 22, no. 2, June 2020,
pp. 101–11. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2020.22.2/mkorte.
“Social Media and Youth Mental Health.” The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, 2023, p.
25.
The Social Dilemma. Documentary. Directed by JEFF ORLOWSKI, Netflix, 2020.
Tibber, Marc S., and Emma Silver. “A Trans-Diagnostic Cognitive Behavioural
Conceptualisation of the Positive and Negative Roles of Social Media Use in
Adolescents’ Mental Health and Wellbeing.” The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, vol.
15, Jan. 2022, p. e7. Cambridge University Press,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X22000034.
“U.S. Teens Threats to Mental Health 2024.” Statista,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1612286/us-teens-threats-mental-health/. Accessed 2
Oct. 2025.
Watson, Joshua C., et al. “Distress among Adolescents: An Exploration of Mattering, Social
Media Addiction, and School Connectedness.” Journal of Psychoeducational
Assessment, vol. 40, no. 1, Feb. 2022, 2022-20181-005, pp. 95–107. EBSCOhost,
https://doi.org/10.1177/07342829211050536.

Why I’m Quitting Facebook

I joined Facebook in 2008. Back then it was fun. Dare I say even heartwarming? I reconnected with so many childhood friends that I hadn’t seen in decades. Some lived across the country. Others across the world. I got to see what they were up to and how so many of them achieved their dreams. That was really nice. We exchanged many “Remember when?” types of messages. I loved scrolling through pictures of their children and loved ones. When former students found me on Facebook, well that was the absolute best. It made my teacher heart so incredibly happy. What a gift it was to see who they became as adults! Back then, Facebook felt like a nice place to be.

For me, Facebook doesn’t feel like that anymore and it hasn’t in a very long time. The switch from a reverse chronological feed (where we got to see all of our friends’ posts with the most recent posts at the top of our feed) to an algorithm-based feed designed to generate ridiculous amounts of wealth for Facebook changed everything in all the worst ways. The algorithm got better and better at exploiting our emotions and distorting our exposure to other people’s opinions. Our Facebook experience became a virtual echo chamber where an algorithm sized us up and only fed us what it thought we already believed. We became more and more polarized and started demonizing each other in the process. Facts and the truth no longer mattered. Sure, friends’ and families’ back to school, prom, and vacation pictures were sprinkled into our feeds, but I started to wonder at what cost. Is our mental health and our children’s mental health a reasonable price to pay for doomscrolling? Is it all worth it as long as we can find cheap stuff to buy on Facebook Marketplace? Facebook/Meta has certainly made more money, but has it made the world a better place? For me, the answer is no.

I joined Facebook in 2008. Back then it was fun. It’s not anymore, so I’m done. I know quitting Facebook won’t change the world, but it will change my world. So, I’m off. Hope to see you in the real world, folks!

The Kind of Parent All Kids Deserve

I met Carol 30 plus years ago. She was my high school social studies teacher. While she expected a lot of her students, Carol embodied what a strong work ethic and determination looked like every single day. Carol made us better students and better people. At the same time, it was abundantly clear how much Carol cared about her students. Honestly, she was all heart on the inside. Little did I know back then how much that combination of strength and heart would serve Carol in life.

When I became a social studies teacher a handful of years later, I found myself teaching alongside Carol. Transitioning from Carol’s student to her colleague and friend afforded me the opportunity to see a whole new side of her—the side with a hilarious sense of humor and an occasional potty-mouth (thank heavens, because I have one too!). I also had a chance to witness the many challenges Carol had to face. I doubt when Carol and her husband adopted their two daughters from a Russian orphanage in 2001 they imagined the trials ahead of them. It turned out that their youngest daughter, Lera, had a significant form of epilepsy—one that would require numerous brain surgeries and leave her with cognitive challenges. Carol received many calls from her daughter’s school alerting her that Lera had yet another seizure. Quickly, Carol had to alter her lessons, leave substitute plans, pack up her things, and go to Lera. As I watched Carol do this time and time again, I felt so helpless. I wanted to make things better, but I didn’t know how. When Lera needed not one, but multiple brain surgeries, Carol tried to make the fact her daughter had to have her head shaved fun by distracting Lera with hat or scarf headdress options. Even when Carol smiled and tried to use her sense of humor to cope, I saw the fear in her eyes. How could any parent faced with their child’s impending brain surgery not feel terrified? Brain surgery. Multiple times. Carol’s well of strength ran incredibly deep. Oceans don’t even run that deep.

Epilepsy, brain surgeries, ensuing cognitive challenges…that would leave any parent worried about their child’s future. Parenting can make every mother or father worried at times, but parenting a special needs child can bring that worry to a whole other level. As the mother of one neurotypical and one neuroatypical child, I can personally attest to this. Worry can quickly devolve into anguish in the sleepless hours of the night when the parents of special needs children can go to some pretty dark places—asking questions like…Will my child be able to survive on their own when my time on this earth is done?

Carol is a different kind of parent though. Carol is the kind of parent all kids deserve. She didn’t wallow and she didn’t waste time. Instead, Carol took fate into her own hands. When Lera graduated from school, Carol retired from teaching and created a business to give her daughter and other adults with special needs meaningful work, a sense of pride, and the opportunity to live out their dreams. Thus, the Love, Lera Bakery was born. With a mission of preparing quality baked goods and providing adults with special needs lasting employment, a meaningful wage, and the chance to operate a successful business, the Love, Lera Bakery is unique and heartwarmingly beautiful. Today was the Love, Lera Bakery’s opening day. With delectable baked goods and a soothing atmosphere adorned with the family photos of its employees, the Love, Lera Bakery is perfect. While you can get yummy treats at many a bakery, the baked goods at Love, Lera have a special secret ingredient…I think it just might be a mixture of strength and heart. It’s palpable and it’s something you won’t find anywhere else. It’s Carol. And Lera. And all of the other adults with special needs that have lived the bakery’s mantra… “NEVER GIVE UP!” Stop by and check them out at 344 Washington Avenue in North Haven, Connecticut or online at https://love-lera-bakery.myshopify.com/

You won’t regret it.

Opening day with the employees of the Love, Lera Bakery, *photo credit L.B.*

Family photos of the Love, Lera Bakery employees, *photo credit L.B.*

Ten Years Learning How to Say Goodbye

My big brother died unexpectedly ten years ago. He was 39 years old, my only sibling, and someone who always had my back. I’ve spent the past ten years learning how to say goodbye to him.

Like most siblings, our relationship was complicated. My brother Jerry was my first and best friend when we were little. As we grew older, our relationship deteriorated. Down-right obnoxious is probably the best way to characterize how Jerry acted toward me through our middle and high school years. He’d likely say the same about me. Yet, Jerry was also fiercely protective of me. I pitied the guys who asked me out because they had to brave the relentless hallway wrath of my brother (and many of his friends), which usually culminated in being slammed into a locker. While such displays of male bravado were unnecessary at best, they did have a way of quickly weeding out jerks. If a guy was willing to endure my brother, he had to really like me. I guess I took some comfort in that even though I knew I didn’t need my brother’s protection. When we entered our 20s and 30s, a renewed friendship developed between my brother and I. We ended up buying houses a few miles apart and were only minutes away when one of us needed help or advice. Sure, we still annoyed each other, but we figured out how to be friends again. And then my brother died.

Navigating the initial shock of Jerry’s death and the ensuing funeral services felt surreal and crawl-out-of-my-skin intolerable. There are snippets of horrific memories that are permanently seared into my brain. Watching my mother say her last goodbye to her son was the absolute worst. I thought she might actually crawl into the casket and demand to be buried with him. Listening to my grandmother wail and plead uncontrollably “Sono vecchia! Please, God, take me instead!” over and over again for the entire half hour car ride from the funeral home to the church was pretty atrocious too. Then there was the moment when my oldest son, only nine years old at the time, emptied his pants pocket to reveal two rose pedals he had taken from the flowers on my brother’s casket. After sobbing for most of the day, I knew he was just trying to hold onto whatever he could of his uncle and the poor kid thought he had done something wrong. Horrible, ugly memories. One tiny sliver of joy managed to find us on what would have been my brother’s 40th birthday though. A group of us released 40 wish balloons to honor him that night and, in doing so, accidentally caused a UFO scare. Oops. We certainly didn’t mean to, but it ended up being pretty comical. If you knew my brother and his smart-ass ways, you might find it humorous too. For the first time in months, we laughed. I found tremendous comfort in that…that laughter was actually possible again.

In the initial years after Jerry’s death, I tried to grieve in the ways I thought I was supposed to. I visited his grave. I brought him flowers. I brought him black jelly beans (his favorite) on Easter. And I hated every minute of it. It’s not that visiting my brother’s grave made his death more real. I drive by the turn-off to his road nearly every day and am reminded of his death each and every time. I hated visiting my brother’s grave because I just couldn’t bear thinking about him lying in darkness. When we were little, my brother was petrified of the dark. Petrified. As ridiculous as it may sound, I just didn’t want to think about my brother engulfed in darkness for all of eternity. That thought tortured me. So much so that as the years passed I substituted visiting Jerry’s grave with driving to his house (which my family still owns) and sitting in his driveway. When I did, a tiny part of me tried to pretend Jerry could walk out of his house at any moment and greet me with some sarcastic remark. Most of me just wanted to feel close to him again.

I spent many a night sitting in my brother’s driveway crying and wanting what can never be…to see him again and to hear his bellowing laugh just one more time. I do that rarely now though. Is that a sign of healing? Perhaps. I still think about my brother every day. I still miss my brother every day. I wish I had more pictures of him. I wish I had more memories, but I don’t. I accept that. After ten years, I also accept that I will never be done saying goodbye to my brother. And I’ve learned to be okay with that.

My brother and I circa 1975. *Photo credit, V.P.*

Unquiet Earth

By Allyson WuerthContinue reading “Unquiet Earth”

Some Words are Worth a Thousand Pictures*

By Melissa Beck

*This post first appeared on Melissa’s blog, thebookbindersdaughter.com

What a difference a day makes. Isn’t that how the song goes?

On July 1st I was in the garden reading poetry, lots and lots of poetry and Esther Kinsky’s book Grove which is newly translated into English by Caroline Schmidt and thinking about a review of it for Music & Literature; I had finally just gotten my hair done since the moratorium on such things because of Covid had lifted. And I stopped at the pet food store to buy more (a lot more) food for the birds and chipmunks I’ve been feeding on our deck.

On the afternoon of July 2nd my daughter and I were just about to go swimming when we noticed a car in our driveway which startled both of us. We live in the country, out in the woods, and have a quarter mile long driveway so random, unannounced visitors are a rare occurrence. It was my daughter who first said, “That’s a state police car” and my heart started beating even faster. Different things began to go through my mind as to what the police could possibly want with us. Was I speeding somewhere? But I hadn’t driven on the highway, or much at all really, because of Covid. Did I go into a business without wearing a mask? But, once again, I had barely left the house since the pandemic. When I think back on all of the petty and ridiculous scenarios going through my head I feel silly and naive. When the officer asked me to identify myself and to speak to me alone without my daughter I was still clueless.

“Your husband was riding his motorcycle on US-24 east in Indiana ma’am and there was an accident.”

And desperately, “Well where is he now?”

“At the coroner’s in Wabash County, ma’am. You’ll have to contact the Indiana state police.”

Alan had left on June 20th for what would be his third cross country trip from our home in New England to Montana. On that horrible day, July 2nd, a Thursday, he was on his way back home to us and was expected to arrive on Friday. He was a serious and avid motorcyclist and camper and enjoyed every minute of planning his trips and taking them. Locally he would meet with his friends from the Connecticut Rockers to ride and talk bikes but he also had a wonderful network of friends he met through Adventure Rider that were scattered across the US and Canada. A tough, stoic, yet gentle and kind group of men, their meet up in Montana had become a yearly tradition that they enthusiastically looked forward to. Alan considered them brothers—as an only child he always said that friendships were particularly important to him.

I met Alan in 1997 when we were both graduate students in the PhD program for Classics at the University at Buffalo. We liked each other instantly and like quickly grew into love. He had a bike, a Honda CX 500, when I met him so his passion for this hobby is something he had for more than 20 years. He learned everything he could about motorcycles and was meticulous about maintenance and repairs. He was also obsessed with safety, researching and discussing with his friends the most up-to-date safety gear. On the day he was killed it was 90 degrees f. and he had on a brand new, full-face helmet, a custom made Aerostich riding suit, and the highest quality gloves and boots he could find. He had certain rules about riding as well: he never went over the speed limit, he didn’t ride with other groups of bikes, and he didn’t ride at night. To say that he was careful would be a gross understatement.

But he was killed anyway. Yes, killed. He didn’t just die. He didn’t have bad luck, it was not an “accident”—I hate that word. The driver of the truck that killed him went through a yield sign and pulled across the highway–yes, the highway since such things are allowed in Indiana—directly into Alan’s path. A “failure to yield the right of way.” Negligence, stupidity, carelessness.

Two broken legs, two broken arms, a fractured pelvis, a fractured skull, broken ribs, fractured vertebrae, internal bleeding, lacerated organs and a complete atlanto occipital dislocation. A destroyed Triumph Tiger and all of his carefully packed belongings broken and strewn across the highway. And in that moment my life—our life together—was shattered as well.

November 18th of this year would have been our 20th wedding anniversary. We were happy, very happy. Our relationship wasn’t perfect. No relationship is, especially if it lasts 20 years. We both made mistakes. But there was a lot of kindness, and patience and forgiveness and love. A lot of love. We both taught Latin in secondary schools in New England which is where we decided to move after our days in Buffalo. I always thought it was hilarious that we did well for ourselves as teachers of what people call a “dead language.” But Latin, and sometimes Ancient Greek, sustained our household quite adequately and, more importantly, we both loved what we did. In 2006, after suffering an initial miscarriage, we had a daughter who is the best of both of us. She is kind and funny and smart and adorable.

And now my 14 year-old daughter asks me questions like, “Is daddy in heaven?” “Are we going to be poor?” “Will we ever be happy again?” “Are kids going to treat me differently at school because I don’t have a dad anymore?”

A failure to yield the right of way….

I keep having these conversations with him in my head about what happened to his precious bike and his camping things and what paperwork I have to file and who I have to call and how his students and colleagues and motorcycle friends have all been stricken with such grief by his sudden death and how to carry on now. But there is no “we” anymore. Just a mountain of paperwork and chores and decisions that need to be made on my own. The little routines we had are what I miss most—going to bed together, him making me coffee in the morning, watching silly TV, sharing bad jokes, debating over who Henry our tuxedo cat liked better. The loneliness and the emptiness without him is the worst pain I’ve ever suffered. Truly unbearable.

Now that our daughter is about to begin high school we had had many discussions about what we wanted to do when we retired. Various ideas about moving farther north in New England or closer to where our daughter might attend college were always tossed around. But no matter what we decided to do, it would be together—just the two of us, empty-nesters.

But these plans, too, were shattered on that highway in Indiana.

Alan really had a dislike for social media—the only place he really engaged with people in a meaningful way was on his Adventurer Rider motorcycle forum. So out of respect I never posted about him or shared photos. But since he was killed it has felt cathartic and therapeutic for me to post photos and memories and anecdotes—a small glimpse into the man he was and our happy life together. His quick and sardonic wit were unmatched—one of the qualities that attracted me to him the most. He wore bow ties to work (when we were at work) nearly every day; he was a gifted teacher who connected with students and prided himself on his ability to lecture and engage kids at every level (he was voted faculty member who is most quotable three years in a row); he loved notebooks and fountain pens; even in winter he would work on, improve, and maintain his two motorcycles and camp in the woods on our property. And more recently he took up blacksmithing and set up a makeshift forge in the yard. I’m still not sure what to do with the anvil and giant bag of coal I have sitting in his workshop.

Alan’s belongings, scattered across that highway, have been respectfully and lovingly packed and returned to me by one of his motorcycle friends—the last person to see him alive—who happens to live in Indiana. Today his travel journal arrived and I began reading it and looking through his various notebooks. He had an obsession with notebooks and today, alone, I found a dozen of them around the house and in his workshop. They are mostly filled with to-do lists, travel plans, travel descriptions, packing lists and notes for teaching. His wit, his talent as a teacher, and our everyday life together–those little routines I mentioned—are all present in these notebooks. I felt closer to him reading these than I have since he was killed—as he wrote in one of them, “Some words are worth a thousand pictures.” And a passage he composed for a lecture to first year Latin students felt like he was speaking to me now:

“The Greeks and Romans thought of the universe by picturing it as a tapestry—one that was constantly being woven, but never to be completed. Three divine weavers called the Fates created the tapestry of the universe—Lachesis, Clotho, & Atropos—who spin the wool, measure the thread, and cut it. Each thread is a human life. And all of these threads interconnect. You cannot tamper with one without unraveling the others. Although individual life-threads come to an end, they still have their place and interact with others.”

That thread, Alan’s thread, cut too soon on that highway in Indiana. And my thread and my daughter’s so interconnected with his own. And all of the wonderful people interconnected with me—friends, and colleagues and Twitter people and readers of this blog who have reached out with love and support. Proof that his theory of those interconnected life threads is so true.

Teacher, friend, colleague, husband, father.

July 2nd.

A failure to yield the right of way.

More Time for Being

By Allyson Wuerth

So many days have I wished for a slower pace—even just one day where I could breathe in and breathe out, a day when I didn’t run out of my house at exactly 6:21 every morning, dart off to Starbucks for my Venti English Breakfast hot tea, and then to school (usually arriving by 6:40) to start my work day. It was only just a month ago that I’d stand outside my classroom door, arms loaded with all the trappings of a long week ahead: books, papers to grade, lesson planner, snacks for my club meetings, gym clothes for the end of the work day, etc. I’d stand there frozen, knowing that to shift my arm and grab the door key from my coat pocket would upset the delicate balance of all that I held in my arms, angry with myself for *yet again* forgetting to wrap the lanyard around my wrist. Sometimes, I’d carefully squat down and place each bag, each item, gently onto the hallway floor. Drop all of it—tea, books, purse, snacks, bags—and just luxuriate in the moment of all those lost things, all that heaviness left to the side while I unlock my door and walk, unencumbered, inside the dark room behind it. Only then, after I turned on the lights, switched on my computer, would I go back for that stuff and bring it into my classroom in small, manageable batches. Other days, I risked it all—too rushed even to take that one moment of weightlessness. I’d position my Starbucks against my chest, force my chest against the classroom door (gently, so as not to squish the cup and burn myself on all that hot tea), while with my left hand (bags still saddled to my wrists) I fished around my right coat pocket until the key could be procured and jammed in the door. Then I’d leave the key in the lock so I could reclaim the Starbucks cup and carefully use my right thumb and index finger to twist the knob just enough to crack the door open. Those mornings I’d burst into the room, exasperated by all the things I held. I’d plop it all down in a big scrambled pile on my desk chair. Then I’d sort through the bags, items, everything and organize accordingly. By 9:36am, my FitBit had already logged nearly 4,000 steps—from home, to car, to Starbucks, to school, to copier, to a working copier, okay ONE more copier (for the love of god, this one better work), to mailbox, bathroom, class, copies, bathroom. You get it. When the school day ended at 2:49 pm, I’d either advise a club until 3:15 or work out in the school gym. This is when my FitBit would send me a congratulatory vibration for hitting my 10,000 steps. What next? Pick your day. Do I have a doctor’s appointment (diabetics always do)? Do my kids have sports (kids always do)? Can I squeeze in an errand anywhere in my day? Needless to say, by 9 pm, I’m showered and comatose in bed, ready to start it all over tomorrow. Every day a gauzy blur bleeding into the next.

But not anymore.

Now, my life is a stopped clock, a suspended thought bubble waiting to be filled once again. The entire world is this same clock, this same empty thought. We all lie in wait for someone to hit the buzzer, shoot the gun, plug us in again. It occurred to me the other day, I didn’t think I’d feel this level of awareness ever again—the kind of hyper-awareness you feel as a teenager, only without the hype. But now, I’m noticing it all—the birds surrounding our bird feeder aren’t just birds; they’re grackles, Eastern blue-jays, female cardinals, goldfinches. I know this because my 10yr old and I look them up in the Field Guide of Birds of North America book we never had time to open before.

The framed cross-stitch and embroidery I collect from thrift stores and hang up all over my house isn’t just someone’s discarded ephemera that I happen to love the look of—it was crafted by a grandmother, a child or a mother—a pattern followed with precision and grace, given as a gift or as a very tangible imploration “Please never forget who I was or how much I loved you.” Some initialed. Others left anonymous as any mystery is, but professionally matted and framed by stores in New Haven or Boonton, New Jersey that went out of business fifty years prior. A floral piece in my living room has a pink note attached to it, dated August 13, 1972. It’s from a girl named Marylou and gifted to her (friend? Teacher? Neighbor?) Mrs. Meyers. How did I hang this picture without noticing the letter taped rather conspicuously to the back of it? Did I see the letter but just not bother to read it? Marylou wanted to do something special for Mrs. Meyers, something “unusual but original.” She thought about it long and hard before putting needle to fabric. The gift had to be handmade, because Mrs. Meyers was that special to Marylou.

One by one, I take them down from my walls, checking each for messages, incommunicable feelings unraveled into flowers and small animals.

Another piece hangs above the French doors in my kitchen: a cat blowing bubbles. It was a Christmas gift from a great-grandmother to her “new” great-grand daughter. The year is once again, 1972. Already, she loves this baby girl, creates her something lasting and tagged with the initials of a forgotten old woman. As I begin my very first embroidery project (the simplest pattern I could find on Amazon), I think about finishing it and then being proud enough of my effort to get it framed, and prouder still to give it to a loved one. And then, fifty years later, there it is at Goodwill for $2.99. And no one is left alive to remember how very much one person loved another, how wholly love could endure in such stitches and seams.

Marylou’s letter taped to the back of her framed embroidery

Please don’t misread this. Covid-19 is changing lives in terrible ways. I live in terror of the people I love, or any people, really, contracting this awful illness. For as much as I loathe Covid, I love being a teacher and having the resources and support from my administration where I can still communicate effectively with my students every day despite our physical separation. Unlike other public servants, I can still do my job without putting my life in danger. For that, I am endlessly grateful.

As hectic as life can be, most of us, including myself, would not change ours for the world! But buildings and stores are closed. The baseball season is cancelled. Gymnastics—cancelled. Routine doctor visits—rescheduled. So, I’m going to use this time to open myself to my senses, to learn more about my children, to watch them—even smack dab in the middle of a brisk, sunny Tuesday—play basketball together in the yard: a moody teenager and his exhaustively energetic little sister, together for the first time in longer than I can remember. The thought of it catches in my throat, pools in my eyes. Their laughter cutting into the blustery day around them as the wind blows their ball off course yet again. It’s a collage of moments I harvest and sink deep inside me: the woven laughter of my children, the mid-day sun, the wind knotting up my daughter’s long hair—all of it fastened to my heart no matter how fast I need to go.

Why I Won’t Complain

These are hard times. Who can argue otherwise? A third of the world’s population is in lockdown because of coronvirus. With that comes massive unemployment rates and business decline. Close to two million people have contracted coronavirus. Over 100,000 have died of COVID-19. The days, weeks, and months ahead look bleak, but I’m not going to complain.

Why? I’ll start with the MOST important reason–my family is healthy. Not everyone can say that, so I choose to be thankful. While my husband is furloughed, I am still working. Because of this we have health insurance and a steady, albeit reduced, income. We’ll get by. Not everyone can say that, so I’ll count my blessings. We have a roof over our heads and plenty to eat. After he left his dorm in Boston because his college shifted to online classes nearly a month ago, my oldest son sat at the dinner table and said “We really live a privileged life. We are eating steak for dinner in the midst of a global pandemic.” He wasn’t wrong. I instantly thought back to stories my grandfather told me about growing up in Italy during World War II. I remember him telling me how hungry he was and because there was nothing else to eat, he ate acorns. Acorns. He said they gave him terrible stomach aches, but he ate them because he had no other choice. My grandfather ate acorns and I am eating steak. I’m pretty sure, I’ve got nothing to complain about.

I am a teacher and, like many teachers, I am learning oodles of new technology to make distance learning bearable for my students. That’s right, bearable. I understand that my students are going through a lot right now. They are emotionally adjusting to this screwball ‘new normal,’ missing out on seminal high school moments, and some have increased responsibilities like cooking and caring for younger siblings because their parents are health care or other essential workers putting in crazy hours. Some have inconsistent online access. Some are struggling financially because their parents are no longer working. Some have family members with the coronavirus, which means they will likely become infected too. So, I think bearable is a reasonable bar for distance learning. I am simultaneously helping my youngest son with his distance learning work. He’s eight with an uncommon medical condition. It’s a challenge to balance it all and most nights I am up until 1 a.m. I’m exhausted, I’m not going to lie. I’m also not going to complain about it because it’s not going to make the situation any better. In fact, it’s going to make it worse by placing the magnifying glass over all that is wrong instead of all that is right. I’m not a health care worker putting my life on the line to care for those infected with coronavirus without adequate protective gear. I’m tired. They are putting themselves in harm’s way for the greater good. There is NO comparison.

I keep reminding myself that this isn’t forever. This is for now. I can do this for a few months. I can do hard things. We all can do hard things. My all time favorite quote is from Paulo Coelho–“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” We fell. The world fell. We will get up though. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow…but eventually we will get up. I’m trying my best to be patient until then. I’m also trying to find as much beauty as I can…and I see it everywhere. It’s in the daily walks I take with my family…a trilling bird, violet and golden budding flowers, the warm sunshine. They are all medicinal. I see pictures of my friends’ children frolicking in nature. Beautiful. Tyler Perry is paying for senior citizens’ groceries. Dolly Parton is reading books to children online. Americans are sewing protective masks for health care workers and the Patriots sent their plane to China to pick up more disposable masks. Neil Diamond and Dennis DeYoung are singing to us from their living rooms. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Did you happen to catch the Hamilton cast Zoom-bomb John Krasinski’s SGN (or the Hamilton sing along!)? Beautiful. I just watched Andrea Bocelli’s live concert from il Duomo di Milano and when he sang “Amazing Grace,” I wept. They weren’t tears of joy or tears of pain. His gorgeous tenor voice resounded “was blind, but now I see” and I couldn’t help but think about how much adversity Bocelli had to overcome in his life. My tears were of admiration and of hope. They were tears of resilience. If Bocelli can theoretically overcome blindness in his music, then we can overcome this insidious, unrelenting virus. I refuse to let it break my spirit. Refuse. For now, I’m going to immerse myself in the beauty of nature, the arts, and random acts of kindness. For now, I’m going to take each day one by one until the time comes for us to get up again. And in the meantime, I’m not going to complain about it.

We can do hard things. *Photo credit, L.B.*

A new kind of village

I’m an extrovert. My cup gets filled by spending time with my people. I need them to laugh with, to cry with, to tell stories with, and mostly, to raise my kids with. I am a village person. My ideal living situation would be to join up with three or four other families whom I love and buy one big house together.

I have always been this way because this is how I grew up. My parents’ friends became our aunts and uncles, and their children our cousins. We ate big taco dinners together on Sunday nights, played together all weekend long, and relied on each other for everything. If my parents were away, I slept at Aunt Cinda’s house. If I needed to go home sick from school and couldn’t find my mom, I called Aunt Terri. Uncle Jimmy was the only person I let pull my teeth out when they were loose. We were a tribe, a family.

And it wasn’t until I had my own children that I realized how important this is to me, how necessary to my own survival. With both of my girls, I suffered from postpartum depression. With my second, it was much less intense because the second time I had a tribe.

I was the first of my girlfriends to have a baby, so with my first daughter, I was alone a lot of the time. Friends who visit, but no one really understood what I was going through, and the loneliness mixed with the depression nearly destroyed me. The second time around, two of my best friends had babies within weeks of my daughter’s birth, and each day we would rotate whose house we would spend time in. Mostly, we sat around feeding babies and crying and laughing and sharing our deepest, darkest feelings. Sometimes, my best friend Amy would force me to leave the house even when my anxiety was at its highest. One day, she called me and said, “Today we are taking the babies to the movies. I don’t care what we are going to see, but we are going. Get dressed.” We ended up seeing the Entourage movie with our two month old babies strapped to our chests. It was just what I needed.

And this is why the last three weeks have been so challenging for me. Because everything I need in order to nourish my soul right now has been stripped from me. While I need physical connection to heal, the world needs just the opposite. As a good citizen of the world, I will do my part, but it’s killing me.

And I know that I am lucky. I am in a privileged position: I still have a job and so does my husband. We have internet access to do our work, food security, a house. No one in my home is immunocompromised. We can weather this storm more easily than many other people. But knowing all of that doesn’t stop me from inching closer and closer to the kind of sadness I have experienced many times before. Only this time, my medicine is out of reach.

There have been some dark and hopeless moments in the past three weeks, but there have been other moments, too. And I am trying desperately to cling to those ones more than the others.

Like last week, when both of my girls had to celebrate their birthdays in quarantine, but their friends still drove by and beeped and left presents on our doorstep. Like when my daughter had trouble with her math homework, and my colleague Facetimed to help her with it. Like when I took an online yoga class with my favorite teacher whom I haven’t practiced with in months, or when I had a girl’s night on Zoom with some of my very best friends, and we toasted each other and thanked God for the ability to see each other’s faces. Like today, when I will join my school friends for lunch from the safety of our own homes but where we can still laugh at each other’s terrible jokes.

I am reminded in those moments that I am not alone, that we are not alone, and that in some ways, we are even more connected to each other than ever through this shared experience of fear, and loneliness, and uncertainty. We can find new ways to lean on and connect to each other. The village is still there. Just a little further away, just waiting for you to reach out and say, “I’m here.”

Find the Silver Linings

I’ve been staring at this page pretty much for the past few days and I’m struggling, hard. I just cannot come up with something to write about. Well correction, I suppose what I mean is, something that is uplifting or enlightening or hopeful. It’s a strange time. Usually my life is going 100mph, and truthfully has been for years, although a little more insanely since mid-January. I’ve also been fighting colds since mid-January and honestly still am. Can’t say I haven’t questioned all of it at this point given our current state of the world and not had to talk myself off the ledge. My life and my family’s lives have come to a grinding halt. I overthink everything and with every cough, sneeze, ache, pain, headache, and so on…Thankfully I’m able to work from home and have been for a while now but there is no shortage of worry. My folks live with us, schools are closed, my husband is not working, making my girls quit their jobs and seeing friends and businesses struggle. The last month has made me question everything in this life to try to figure out what is “right”.

I have found myself emotionally distraught in all the spectrums of emotion one can encounter. Much like the stages of grief but all at once and sometimes multiple times a day. We have all lost something or had a dream shattered in some way and feel like we are continuing to lose. They say only 2 things are certain in this life, death and taxes…..well dammit, not really even sure on the taxes part now. But the death part…I’m not ready, for any of it, for anyone. It has forced me to take stock of where I have been, what I have done and what I have yet to experience in this life. I’m not even close to fulfilling my purpose. I want more. I want more for my parents, my husband, my kids, my brothers, my whole family, and my sweet friends. And by more I mean, more joy, more love, more experiences, more memories, more laughing and crying, more time. I want my heart to feel more and theirs too.

I find myself afraid, anxious, and concerned. I’ve decided it’s ok to feel all of this. We need to feel all of this. But we also need to find the silver lining in the fear. I need to find the hope. That involves making some tough decisions. Changing our lifestyles for a while. Moving to a simpler time in a complicated world. At the end of the day, I believe we all choose life and family. This time is going to test many things. Our resilience, our patience, our commitments, our love, our energy our willingness to put aside criticism and bolster our ability to lift each other up because god only knows NONE of us were meant to spend THIS much time together in one place. But god, we get to spend THIS much time together in one place! In the end, we only have each other. The goal would be to find “emotional correctness” in how we respond to one another. Let the best parts of ourselves shine brightly to keep out the dark. Procuring the best parts of humanity like what we are seeing in our first responders, our nurses and doctors who give all they have. It comes in many forms and that is what I’m choosing to focus on.

I choose to be purposeful with my words. I choose to check in and reach out to as many of you that I can each day to make sure you are doing alright and to offer what I can. Whether it is to listen, to find an alternative, share food, share a laugh, fill your soul with music, anything I can do to lift a burden or ease anxiety. I will share all that I have. And I hope you will do the same with me. The biggest gift, yes I’m going to say gift, with our current reality is that for better or worse, we have to trust that we will be there for each other in ways we have not been before. The world is stopping to take a breath and we are all forced to take that breath together. Don’t let it be for naught. Take it as the opportunity for the “more” I mentioned above. Make good decisions. Protect your families. Protect my family. Be your best selfless version. Share your gifts and your gratitude abundantly. Let your tears and your fears flow out and breathe in a higher vibration of life and love. We will need this in order to hold on.

I choose to find hope in the corners. I hope you will join me. Big love to all your hearts today and every day.