What happens when you are carrying today’s responsibility and tomorrow’s fear at the same time? There is a moment in Disney’s Finding Nemo that has stayed with me since the first time I saw it. Marlin tells Dory, “I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.” And Dory answers, “Huh. That’s a funny…
There is a question near the beginning of Surface Pressure from Disney’s Encanto that tells us exactly what’s underneath all of Luisa’s strength: “Who am I if I can’t carry it all? If I falter…” The song then spends the rest of its time showing us why that question matters. Luisa carries weight. Expectations. Responsibility….
Some stories become more interesting when you revisit them as an adult. Because a Little Bug Went Ka-CHOO! is one of those stories for me. I loved this book when I was a child. I grew up surrounded by Dr. Seuss books and the wonderfully strange worlds that came with them. Looking back now, I’m…
Which role have you learned to play? Shakespeare gave us this familiar image in As You Like It: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. Centuries later, Rush echoed that familiar image in…
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin, “As Much Truth as One Can Bear” But what does it actually mean to face something? We often picture facing a situation as immediate action: making the call, having the conversation, choosing the path, setting the…
Some songs ask questions that refuse to age. Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” begins in childhood, in a world experienced as beautiful, magical, and full of possibility. Then education begins. Expectations arrive. The child is taught how to become sensible, practical, dependable, acceptable, and appropriately defined. But beneath all that learning, a more troubling question survives:…
Have you ever been sincerely cared for and still felt misunderstood? Being cared for isn’t always the same as being understood. What might change if we replaced certainty with curiosity and listened before translating?
When you have a child with special needs, it’s easy to only see how different your child is from “normal” children. While they are young and developing, the usual milestones missed are glaringly obvious. I have come to realize, though, that there are actually some areas in which our special children follow the norm. Usually,…
We all have points in our lives where we feel down or sad. It’s part of the human existence. There’s no getting around it. True depression, however, is different. It is a mental health condition that can wreak havoc on the mind and body. There are many kinds of depression that vary in intensity from…
Self-doubt is one of those things that can cripple you to the point of inaction. Self-doubt can cause you to give up on looking for the good in yourself. If you read my last post, I’ve Lost Myself, you know that I have hit a pretty hard rock bottom. I have come to the point…
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