Category: Personal Essays
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Sit Down. Stay.
What does it feel like to live in the middle of grief? A personal essay on losing Jude, the Swamp of Sadness, and why the best thing you can do for someone grieving is simply sit down and stay.
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Worth Waiting
He stood at the door for two minutes. No one was watching. That’s the story that actually lasts.
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Reliable When She Can’t Be
Four days in the last two weeks. I’ve spent hours inside the Versa, sunglasses on, air conditioning running, waiting for one participant who has zero regard for timing, schedules, rules, or even other people. I have to keep telling myself that greatness isn’t built from magical, life-changing moments. It’s the small acts. Ones showing others…
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250 Years Later
They fought a war to escape a king who held too much power. Then they built a government almost afraid of itself. 250 years later, here’s what changed — and what they’d think of it now.
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The Quiet Ones
Some days the drive is forty-five minutes of small talk. Some days it’s forty-five minutes of nothing at all — and it took a lit cigarette and a quiet “thank you” to teach me the second one matters more.
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Baseball. Hot dogs. Apple pie. And Chevrolet.
A jingle once meant everybody. No explanation needed. Did we lose that? Or forget? A Fourth of July essay on freedom, division, and showing up.
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Twenty-seven Times
Celebrating twenty-seven years while watching the corn pop up every summer. 2020 tried to take it all. Now it’s all growing back.
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Get To
I noticed I was living in have to when I could have been living in get to. Weird. Two little words. Everything changed.
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Nolan Hanratty and the 1998 NBA Playoffs – What’s Not There
Nolan Hanratty stopped in for a beer before his bus. He ended up calling 911. And somewhere across the city, a cop sat on a curb next to a scared kid who remembered his face.
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Worth It
Rules. Alarms. White-knuckle willpower. That’s what we think discipline is. It’s not. The discipline that stays with you comes from somewhere else entirely.
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Running. Again.
After two years away, I laced up at 4:50 a.m. and ran 2.09 miles. Fourteen weeks stand between the City of Roses and me. Here’s what starting over actually looks like.
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Overheard at Brood & Barley
We weren’t trying to listen. But Gina and Shelly had no volume control — and Margie had no idea what was waiting for her at the next table.
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After “Weird Al”
Nobody fits. But we all belong. We’re all weird. And it’s totally okay. Five Minute Observations.
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What You Don’t Notice
You take a thousand left turns without thinking. Today might be a good day to think about one.
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Called, Not Qualified
Solomon built his Temple with the finest cedar in the world. God builds His with something even more remarkable — and you’re already in it.
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Name It
The average adult knows 20,000 words. But the one you learn today? What if that’s exactly the one someone in your life is waiting for?
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Believing is Seeing
She asked me a question I couldn’t answer. Not quickly, anyway. “Why follow the rules when rich folks don’t?” Gloria deserved better than a bumper sticker. So I tried.
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Love Pursues
Our truck slid off a jungle bridge, plunging us into the river. Tires blew. But the frame? It held. Our story doesn’t start at the bridge. Find out more. Read Love Pursues. Five Minute Observations.
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Acceptance
You either accept or quit. I had to accept I might never love again. Then I stopped fighting. This is the result.