I imagine hospice is a bit like blowing into your hands during a blizzard. A small moment of warmth. A reprise until you let the whiteness consume you. I’m not afraid of this whiteness. I’m not even afraid of the trying-to-stay-warm part. What keeps me up at night is the grief.
Read MoreWhen I began my first full-time job, I adapted a personal daily affirmation for my journey. I began this practice after reading that the simple act of turning your palms up can drastically change your mental state. Turning your palms upward adjusts your mind and body to become more open both physically and mentally. Not only that, but it is also a nearly universal gesture of trust and willingness to listen, therefore creating a more welcoming approach to others.
Read MoreAs young post-grad writers, we often find one another invited to the same pity party. It’s an ongoing gathering, one that Facebook pesters you about seven gazillion times a day. Officially, the event is called: What On Earth Are You Gonna Write About/Fulfill Your Lifelong Dream With/While Holding Some Shred of Dignity With Your Laptop and Cappuccino, held at Location TBD from 6:30 pm through eternity. And everyone in the written world is invited. There is also a 40 percent chance of rain.
Read MoreI was in the middle of working on an assignment where I had to accompany a client home on the train. This first job after college had me crying some days over how stressful it was, on top of not being anywhere I had planned for my career to go. As the days progressed, I became more depressed, continually feeling less sane than the first day it hit me that this job had not been meant for me long term.
Read MoreToday is my 13th anniversary living in Canada. I’ve been here for exactly half of my life. From the time I arrived there has never been a morning when I did not feel grateful for the decision that my mom made when she applied for immigration. The first year in Canada was a great challenge for her, but I have never heard her complain about anything. She did not complain when an immigration officer called her diploma “garbage” or when she was coming home from a temporary job at a chocolate factory with a fever and icicles stuck in her hair.
Read MoreRemoved from the college bubble and re-planted in a new life, the field is wiped clean again. I have to again make a real, conscious decision about where I fit in and how I stack up. There seem to be metrics in place for who’s “winning” post-grad—high-power job? committed relationship? best apartment? coolest city?—but there’s no prize.
Read MoreYou should know, and you may find it ironic, that you’re reading an article on overcoming perfectionism from a Class A perfectionist.
If anything, I hope it makes you feel less alone, less crazy, more understood, and more capable of overcoming its downsides. Because perfectionists are already harder on themselves than anyone else, so when others put their flaws in the spotlight, it’s crippling. Worse than crippling, actually - it is suffocating.
Read More"I'm moving to Canada."
That's something so many of us have heard, or even said ourselves, over the past week once America's long-awaited election results stared us in the face. Canada's immigration site even crashed from too many disgruntled, scared, devastated Americans looking for a way out. Canada will be better, we thought. In Canada we can find our peace.
Read MoreHave you ever felt as if you’re always two steps behind the life you had planned? I’m tired. I’m tired of wet eyes and a dry spirit. I’m tired of the dreams that keep me awake at night. And most of all, I’m tired of the burden of the life I’m not living as I crumble under its tantalizing weight.
Read More“So Ashlee, what are your big plans for tonight?”
I was in the middle of working as a production assistant for a week-long writer’s workshop, and one of the writers tossed out the question as we were all packing up to leave the space for the evening.
It was simple small talk, but I didn’t have a good answer for it.
Read MoreI don’t know what I’m doing.
How many times in the past two years have I said this or some variation of it? How many times in the past two years have I felt like I made mistakes or I regret the decisions that I made? Too many.
Read MoreNow that I'm graduating college the stress to make all the right decisions is heightened. It feels like if I make one wrong step now people will shake their heads, because they knew I would never be able to accomplish all my lengthy list of goals. I don’t want to be known as the girl who failed because she didn’t have whatever “it” is.
Read MoreThere comes a time in every child's life when they realize that their parents might not be the "be all and end all" when it comes to opinions. There might, God forbid, be something that you question. Something that you choose, willingly, to defy. I'm not talking about curfews or rules when it comes to alcohol or boys in the house. I'm talking about the things that you believe to your core, the things that you choose to let define you, the things that you will go to bat to defend. The things that make you... you.
Read MoreThis method of measuring life changes once you graduate, and that change is hard to deal with. It’s hard to not compare yourself to your peers, scroll through social media and think, “He already has a full time job, volunteers and is getting engaged… I should be too…”
Read MoreAnd regardless of whether or not I became a nomad, I was still leaving Nashville. I was over this city with its drunken country music tourists on Broadway and lack of ocean or mountains and awful traffic and skinny-jean wearing boys who have no idea what they want.
“I’m leaving.”
That was my constant refrain to whoever asked me what I wanted to do.
Read More
