Day 220 – There is something about the first day of a month that makes people behave as though the universe has handed us a fresh notebook. New month. New goals. New habits. New me. Meanwhile I woke up as the exact same woman with the exact same laundry. So much for transformation. But July…

Day 219 – June is ending, which seems rude because I am pretty sure it started approximately six minutes ago. Time has been doing that lately. Crawling when I want it to move and sprinting whenever I look away. Tomorrow is July. That means this journal has now followed me through winter, spring, and into…

Day 215 – I have been thinking a lot about rooms lately. Who gets invited into them. Who controls them. Who feels comfortable once they are there. Who is expected to prove they belong. Who gets to speak. Who gets ignored. Maybe I am thinking about this because Wild Poise is starting to feel less…

Day 213 – There are days now when I forget to be afraid. Not all day. Let us not get carried away. But for stretches of time. Hours sometimes. I will be working, writing, talking to someone, walking Roger, doing something completely ordinary, and then later realize fear never showed up for its shift. Nobody…

Day 212 – There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly trying not to be too much. Too loud. Too ambitious. Too emotional. Too opinionated. Too visible. Too interested. Too sure of yourself. Too unsure of yourself. Basically the assignment is impossible, but women have been handed it for generations and apparently…

Day 211 – I think I used to expect opportunity to arrive with more fanfare. A phone call. A dramatic email. Somebody appearing out of nowhere and saying, congratulations, your life is about to become significantly more interesting. Maybe balloons. Possibly a tasteful floral arrangement. Instead, most of the doors opening lately have been weirdly…

Day 208 – There are people reading this. I realize that is technically the entire point of publishing things on the internet, but somehow I remain surprised. I think part of me still imagines Wild Poise as this strange little corner I built for myself where I can wander around talking about life, beauty, trauma,…

Day 206 – Today I was looking around my apartment and thinking about how much evidence a person leaves behind just by being alive. There are shoes by the door. Dog toys in places dog toys absolutely do not belong. Half finished ideas on my laptop. Coffee cups. Chargers that somehow migrate through the apartment…

Day 205 – I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about wanting things. Not needing things. I am very good at needing things. Food. Rent. Safety. Sleep. Coffee. Roger apparently needs seventeen separate outdoor excursions every day because the same patch of grass may have developed important new information since forty minutes ago.…

Day 204 – There is something almost rude about the way life keeps happening when you are still trying to recover from something. You can be sitting there attempting to process the largest emotional catastrophe of your existence and life is like, great, anyway, there are emails to answer, a dog that would like to…