the soft pause

Once I had a recurring vision of myself free-falling through a deep, endless, dark well—a vortex pulling me down. I sensed cold water swirling beneath me, and panic rose in my chest like rising floodwater. I felt certain the well went on forever, that I would be continually drawn into it with nothing to hold on to. This feeling, this image, returned whenever I felt untethered or alone, as if I were falling headfirst through my own life. I carried that image for years. It haun

When I first quit drinking, I often joked with myself that I’d picked a fine time to get sober—there was so much I could cry into my bourbon about. But isn’t there always? I didn’t talk about it at first. I wasn’t sure how I felt, and I didn’t want to make a big declaration in case I quietly slipped back into old habits. There was no rock-bottom moment. Just a quiet morning, another sluggish wake-up after a nightly glass of wine, when I decided: that’s it. I’m setting this d

I’ve been mulling over this blogging thing for quite some time now, starting and stopping posts one after the other…This has given my...