A Riptide of Anxiety
Three years ago, my journey with anxiety and depression began. Depression has been like crashing waves, loud and relentless. But anxiety is like the riptide, hiding underneath the surface, able to sweep my feet out from under me in a moment. It overwhelms and leaves me gasping for air. For the most part, I’ve been able to avoid the riptide of anxiety. I stay at the shoreline and battle the waves of depression as they come in. But this last week has overwhelmed me. Every news article, warning, and cough has me flipped over in the current, tossed about at the mercy of the riptide. I thought I had these…
Living with Fear
Winter is finally coming to a close here in Colorado. The sun is out and lighting up this colorful state with fireball sunrises and brilliant blue skies, and I am finally able to enjoy this place again. I sat outside yesterday, soaking up the warmth that I’ve missed, and listened to my boys play. I love to hear them play, their imagination and creativity at work, the sounds of fun. Over the noise of their yelling (do boys play any games without yelling?), I could hear the word ‘coronavirus’ repeated. I paused my writing to listen and figure out what in the world was going on and determined that the…
Telling Whoppers
The other night, my dad and I were driving with a car full of boys. The four boys ranged in age from 4 to 13, and their conversations were comical and varied; farts, dogs, superheroes, and all manner of randomness. Their energy was pinging around the car, a last hurrah before getting home for bedtime. I was only partially listening to their conversation when my ears picked on a whopper of a tale coming from the backseat. A story from one of the boys about how he helped a wolf in his backyard. “Fortunately” this little boy was a hero, calmly letting the wolf out and away from his dogs.…
