Are You Really Thinking of Me?

I appreciate the many expressions of sympathy about the death of my mother. The situation is complicated by a lot of trauma at the hands of other, now dead, family members and the many family members (all of them) who enabled or denied their predatory violence. In truth, every adult in my family on both […]

Let the record show that I spoke up for Susan Kerr and said that what she endured was not okay

Sue Kerr

Content note: trauma, child abuse, generational dysfunction, childhood sexual violence So I’m not attaching or bonding with my parents, I’m developing a ridiculously unhealthy dependency on a horrific abuser. And no one talks about any of this because they don’t have the skills to do so. Welcome to 1972. “How much do you love me?” […]

50 Plus 1 To Grow On: Pandemic Birthdays, Milestones, and Community Cats

I turned 50 years old on October 22, 2020. Our big plan to celebrate with a weekend spa trip – something I would ordinarily never do – were postponed. And I was bummed, but resigned. I had hoped to ‘make it up’ this year before 50 slipped further away from me, but that’s not going […]

Asking People About Their Vaccination Status Makes Me Anxious

Social Media Face Mask Shares

Recently, a local elected official posted photos on social media – without masks – attending a social event outside. And then supported legislation requiring masks at outdoor spaces. Now that’s a little bit of a head spin, but more importantly to me is the failure to qualify the original posts. Are the people in the […]

UpStairs Lounge, Pulse Nightclub, and 941 Saloon – Intersections of Racial Justice, Trauma, and Identity

In the summer of 2020, a group of activists protested the racist dress code of a local LGBTQ owned bar and restaurant called the 941 Saloon. It was a situation that required a response because this racist dress code disproportionately impacted QTPOC.With the closure of so many LGBTQ owned bars and restaurants, finding a comfortable […]

The Opposite of Abandonment

It was an early fall evening when the light lingered in the promise of chilly weather. My brother and I escaped the schoolbus and ran down the hill to our family home as fast as we could. I was in 3rd grade so 7 years old. My 5-year-old brother was in 1st grade. The house […]

Day One, Year Two: My Obligatory Anniversary Covid-19 Anniversary Post

Covid-19 Anniversary

On this day in 2020, Laura worked her final full day at her office with the City of Pittsburgh, came home and began to set up her home workspace in our kitchen. She’s in that workspace right now, working. This is what we consider our demarcation of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine. This is day 1, […]

A Mental Health Milestone For Me

This is more of a post for me than you, dear reader, but you can read along. Today, I had a teletherapy session and we did some EMDR targeting a difficult closing to my work with the Catholic Church in the 1990’s. It was difficult because they were just awful and terrible and immoral to […]

Of Pandemic Anniversaries: Part One

While I expected the “anniversary” of the pandemic would be sobering, I did not anticipate the emotional wall I would collide with this month. For the most part, we have had a relatively fortunate time during this horror. Our income didn’t change, we could work from home, we had lots of streaming services, access to […]

Both of my parents have COVID-19

Last week, my brother contacted me to let me know. He had authorized requesting hospice for them. They live in an assisted living facility here in Pittsburgh. They have a myriad of underlying conditions, ravages of lives hard lived and filled with tragedies. Of course, they end up both contracting an international pandemic causing virus. […]