People often ask me what it’s like being a mom. When I tell them it’s like living with a low level depression, those who don’t have kids are kindly worried. Those who have kids, solemnly nod their head. I don’t worry about it, though it surprises me sometimes (okay, so I guess we are crying when she stands up on her own for the first time). But it’s true. The sadness is deep and it’s there and I don’t imagine it leaving anytime soon. I’ve never felt so comfortable being so sad. And extremely, deeply, happy. The term, bittersweet, really is such a poignant one.

“Insight is the booby trap of therapy,” Lori Gottlieb writes in her beautiful memoir, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Ironically, this is what feels so good in therapy. We love finding new connections and connecting the dots in our own stories. We love discovering the reason why we’ve responded to our kids and husbands in anger. We want to unpack and share the information. But oftentimes we don’t know where to go with the information.

The worst introduction you’ve ever heard

The last time I wrote was in May 2016, for my class called “Writing for Publication.” I sashayed after class into the warm sunset of my approaching DTS graduation and surely thought, “I’ll write tomorrow.” I was twenty-four years old. What a sweet idiot. (Thank you for everything, Dr. Glahn.)

So over eight years later, here we are.