To Empathize with Someone’s Experience
From Loss to Hope: How I Found Joy Again
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller
The phone call arrived like a silent explosion, shattering the ordinary hum of a Tuesday morning. My uncle was gone, suddenly, unexpectedly. Just a few months later, before the raw edges of that loss could even begin to soften, my mom followed. Her passing felt like a cruel echo, ripping open wounds that had barely begun to form scabs.
I remember those months as a blur of black clothes, hushed voices, and an aching emptiness that permeated every corner of my life. …
Coming Out at 50: Love, Loss, and Living My Truth
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung
We all had a wild ride during the pandemic, am I right? Mine included falling in love with a woman. At fifty years old.
That’s not something I expected. But isn’t that how life goes?
One day you’re baking sourdough and trying not to touch your face, and the next you’re coming out to the world and losing half your family in the process.
I’d been single for over two decades—twenty-five years of bad dates, some good therapy, and quiet Friday nights. I’d survived abuse, betrayal, …
What Would Make the Better Story? (Why I Chose the Rain)
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” ~Mark Twain
Let me set the scene.
It’s a blistering summer day in Miami—the kind where the humidity hugs you tighter than your ex at a high school reunion, and the air feels like you’re swimming through warm soup. Not exactly the kind of weather that makes you want to move, let alone sweat through a surprise death-match workout on Muscle Beach.
But there I was.
The trainer—clearly a drill sergeant in a past life—barks out: “One more …
Vulnerability Is Powerful But Not Always Safe
“Vulnerability is not oversharing. It’s sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our story.” ~Brené Brown
Earlier this year, I found myself in a place I never imagined: locked in a psychiatric emergency room, wearing a paper wristband, surrounded by strangers in visible distress. I wasn’t suicidal. I hadn’t harmed anyone. I’d simply told the truth—and it led me there.
What happened began, in a way, with writing.
I’m in my seventies, and I’ve lived a full life as a filmmaker, teacher, father, and now a caregiver for my ninety-six-year-old mother. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve …
The Questions That Helped Me Reclaim My Life
“You can rewrite the story. You just have to pick up the pen.” ~Unknown
I remember the exact moment I started disappearing.
It was my wedding day. Just before I walked down the aisle, my mother gently reached for my hand and said, “Your hands are freezing!”
She was right. I was ice-cold.
At first, I laughed it off—after all, it was February in Connecticut. Cold hands made sense, right? But that day, something didn’t add up.
We were in the middle of an unusual Indian summer. The air was warm, the sun soft and golden. People were sipping champagne …
The Child I Lost and the Inner Child I’m Now Learning to Love
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Jack Kornfield
Her absence lingers in the stillness of early mornings, in the moments between tasks, in the hush of evening when the day exhales. I’ve gotten good at moving. At staying busy. At producing. But sometimes, especially lately, the quiet catches me—and I fall in.
Grief doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s a whisper, one you barely hear until it’s grown into a wind that bends your bones.
It’s been nearly three years since my daughter passed. People told me time would help. That the firsts—first holidays, …
Why I Learned to Stay Quiet to Be “Good”
“Your silence will not protect you.” ~Audre Lorde
When I was little, I learned that being “good” meant being quiet.
Not just with my voice, but with my needs. My emotions. Even the space I took up.
I don’t remember anyone sitting me down and saying, “Don’t speak unless spoken to.” But I felt it—in the flinches when I was too loud, the tension when I cried, the subtle praise when I stayed calm, agreeable, small. I felt it in the way adults sighed with relief when I didn’t make a fuss. I felt it in the way I stopped …
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