Halloween Crochet Vest

Every October, I feel more alive. I don’t mean to sound like a cringe, halloween obsessed person. I think, October fills me with life because it is the first wave of chilly air, and gray, rainy skies. Summer’s heat and bright sun, is great, but I feel burnt out from the stimulation by the end of August. It’s a time to reset and rest, in the spooky season and colorful leaves.

For another reason, I’ve realized this year, Halloween feels like a recharging time, because it is a holiday that is just about fun. There is no family meal, no presents, no longing or ache for those who have died. It is a holiday that does have a focus more on death but in this healthier other space.

It gives me room to breathe before Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the anniversary of my Grandma’s passing, to feel free from this heaviness. For a moment, things feel simple and joyful again.

So to honor this time, I made my first Halloween themed garment with a self-drafted pattern using granny stitches, double crochet, and treble crochet to make this pullover vest breathable.

Purple, black, and orange are colors that work with my existing wardrobe so I believe this piece will fit in all year around…aside from the summer, for obvious reasons.

This is just one of many Halloween inspired creations, I am brewing up. I excited to see those come to life soon!

As a fellow neurodivergent person, or a neurotypical, do you look to October as a time to recharge? What’s your favorite “ber” month?

October 23, 2025 0

Unmasking is Hard

The term “unmasking” was new to me when I first learned of my neurodivergence. I saw it on Pinterest and Instagram, displayed in captions and little relatable memes, but what did it mean?

I felt the full experience of what it means a few nights ago when I was invaded once again by rising anxiety, flooding through my mind, and this pressure, invisible yet firm, closing in on me. I knew deep down that I was close to having a meltdown, from environmental things that a neurotypical would brush off. I also knew that I couldn’t melt down; it wasn’t safe to be me. I couldn’t stim, that would be looked down upon with pity. I had to put on that mask, the normal-brained facade I’ve studied my whole life to become invisible and just blend into the sea of normies.

I feel this pressure to mask the most when I am interacting with my family. My mom and her side, for a brief time, my dad and his side. It’s a quagmire, being the offspring of two very domineering, neurotypical, narcissistic humans.

It’s a lot of work. Why am I sharing this? Because if you feel this way, you are not alone. I see you. I support you. I am rallying for you and I to make it through these moments holding space for us to be as we are, and to feel like we are enough. We don’t need to be fixed, we need to cope with this wild world that doesn’t understand us.

Like an ill-fitting garment, the clothes are the problem not your body. Your brain is not the problem, the world favors one way of doing things and that doesn’t make it right. Being louder doesn’t make your point more correct. There is nothing wrong with who you are and who you were created to be.

I hope wherever you are, this finds you well. That you are safe, loved, valued, and being kind to yourself. The world needs more kindness. Know that I love you and support you. Take the mask off, breathe, stim, and find peace.

Until next time ❤

May 22, 2025

#61 – Tornado Sirens and Big Emotions

Before I start, I wanted to add this disclaimer. I’m not against things that are good for the community. Even if they may not be my cup of tea in the moment. I’ve been struggling with all these big emotions swirling in my mind and these weather sirens were like my fear personified. I’m still working through coping tools for my neurodivergent traits and on the tricky days, loud noises are something I really struggle with. They scare me on a bright sunny day, even more so in the middle of impending doom. But I don’t believe for a second that the world should stop everything to address my needs. I am one person that is part of a bigger whole.

As I browsed Behr’s wall of paint colors, I picked up two paint chips one called Tornado Season and another Thundercloud. They are these two vibrant, moody blues. Bold, dark, striking. I took them home, and I even ordered Thundercloud for a project. Bold, impressive blues. Striking. I was struck by the realism on Tuesday as I was staring at the color in the sky. Coming for me. Enveloping me in the deep, dark blue. It was a blue that would permeate and color my skies longer than the storm would.

Tuesday was a complicated day. It began sunny, cooler, just fine. Mid-morning brought gentle rumbles of thunder that growled across the sky. The clouds darkened and night became day. It reminded me of the eclipse. Rain poured and the wind blew like a tropical depression that came through on our OBX vacation in 2012. The rain was endless, relentless. No big crashing thunder and no violent storms, just the relentless power of water-like waves breaking up on the coastline. You can’t control the tide and you can’t stop the rain.

The morning rain was the most intense rainstorm of the day, yet as thunder rolled again in the afternoon and the skies were brighter with lighter rain and gentler thunder, the local college in town sounded their emergency broadcast sirens. They either sound after the storm is upon us and it is too late to seek shelter or after the big storm has gone through, or my favorite after the storm has been downgraded so that you begin to question your sanity. I live ten blocks away at least from this college and I heard the siren and broadcaster over my headphones in my sewing room. These sirens are loud, intrusive, and in my opinion, are not helping when they go off at the wrong time.

As a person that is sensitive to loud noises, I struggle with these alert systems. The sirens go on and on and create a sense of panic in my brain from the cadence and noise. The storm was over but the alert kept going on. I appreciate the purpose and message of what they are trying to do with these alerts but they are so poorly managed that they are a nuisance. But the cherry on top of the cake was what came at 5 pm. My phone and older phone, which I use for music, along with my husband’s phone began to emit their own sirens. Three sirens went on and on as we had a severe storm alert, a tornado warning, and a tornado watch. Each time a small change was made to the watch or warning, being extended by 5 minutes, they would go off again.

The radar showed nothing. The skies were fine. Then the radar showed the storm clearly going in the opposite direction of our location. Yet the sirens continued from the phones. Next the warning expired and then our town’s tornado sirens began to ring out. It was over the concerning storm cell was going north, yet they carried on with the tornado siren. I held my hands to my ears and tried not to cry from the cacophony of noise that was building with no clear end. I understand they were trying to save lives, and I am not against the good of the community, but again the application of the tornado sirens after it was over, was distressing and confusing. There was so much confusion.

The sirens rang their final call and silence settled in. The sky to the north and the sky to the south were striking. The south was sunny and partly cloudy with white and silver puffy clouds. The sky to the north was a color I remembered. Thundercloud. It was dark but it was passing us by. I began to make dinner now that we were being told everything was fine. The water bubbled on the stove with pasta. Tornado Season. The sky to the north became as dark as the night with an eerie green tinge. The air was still, eerily still. I asked my husband if we were back in a tornado watch or warning. He said there was no new alert. Nothing. Nada.

No tornado sirens. Nothing. No emergency alert from my phone or the college. Tornado Season and Ocean Abyss clear as day in the clouds coming in like the tide. I began to make pesto uncertain if dinner would be served or if the alerts, the broadcasts, and the forecasting, were all about to serve us a surprise like none other. That deep gut feeling of something being wrong came. The clouds painted the sky above a color closer the Midnight Blue and the rain surged down. Thunder, lightning, wind. Power flickering. Big emotions flooding my mind. The alerts sounding in the quiet moments made everything scarier, there had been no pressure let off and instead it heightened the sensations like a horror movie frames a jump scare. The uncertainty of the sirens saying one thing and the sky another.

I’ve never experienced a day like that before. I’m so grateful that no one got hurt. No funnel touched down. Personally, I know I was overstimulated, and panicked by my own issues with the sirens, but more importantly, overwhelmed by the alarm sounds echoing throughout my personal life at the same time.

This year has been a series of big alarm bells. It started with my landlord telling us to purchase the house we were renting over appraisal price or get out of the hoops of buying a house impromptu. We’ve had some bumps along the road like car issues, a fridge dying, an air conditioner breaking, our homeowner’s insurance dropping us on the age of our house, etc. There’s been a lot of change and a lot of new financial responsibilities that are a privilege and an adjustment. But what is expressly weighing on me is my mom’s health right now. Some strange things are going on that the doctors can’t seem to prescribe a treatment plan for. Until we get to the bottom of this, I’m pretty scared. Like a constant tornado siren is hovering in the back of my mind. I’m not sleeping well because of it and all the change in general, and my fuse is short. So the well-meaning chaos of those weather alerts and emergency broadcasts ringing through the air, piled on top of the internal maelstrom I’m sailing through.

I’m thinking about my grandparents and their passing. Family history and health problems are creeping in my mind making large shadow monsters of worry. My mom and I have always been a thing. The divorce really bonded us together and the thought of her being really sick and the doctors not knowing how to fix it is freaking me out. I haven’t worried like this before. There has always been a simple explanation for any health issues she’s had. The way it makes me feel out of control and terrified. My mind is so loud right now. I miss my mind being quiet. That’s what I wish for amid those storms. To not feel impending doom from every level. It was quite a chaotic day. But who knew Behr’s paint was spot on?

August 8, 2024

To Bridget, Just As She Is: Accepting My Neurodivergence

One of my favorite scenes from Bridget Jones’ Diary is the dinner party at Bridget’s flat where she makes the blue soup and assorted congealed things. Despite the chaos and mishaps where she is authentically herself, Bridget’s friends and Mark Darcy toast her effort – “To Bridget…who we love…just as she is.”

In many ways, I identify with Bridget. I am a chaos monster who tries my hardest to not mess up, yet I do. I am a bit awkward, a bit of a goofball, I often feel out of place with who I think I should be compared to who I am if I am just myself. I spent most of my twenties trying to be someone I was not because I thought I needed to change to fit in. I wanted to succeed in life and my relationships, without getting to the root of why I felt like a weirdo.

Self-Reflection and Seeking Wise Counsel

I mentioned before that I discovered I was neurodivergent this spring because of the eclipse. I see now how poignant that timing was as my life would transform from April to July. Everything changed overnight, like everything, my relationship with my parents, my marriage, my living situation, my mental health, and the current direction of my life.

All for the better I can say with relief because life doesn’t always go that way. I see now that if I hadn’t been prepared for this season of life, things may not have changed for the better, my life could be in shambles instead.

Being unaware of my neurodivergent personality traits, caused me to feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed, and in a place of survival instead of feeling steady, relaxed, and open to the adventures life has for us. Changes seemed unbearable. Trust unthinkable. Faith was hard to find. I fought it, resisted letting go of control, and let God fully take the lead of what I was worried about.

Unbeknownst to me as to why I would need to brush up on wisdom, I felt led to study Proverbs at the beginning of 2024, and through this study, I was challenged to grow and broaden my approach to how I live life. To seek out wisdom, to prepare for things before they come in faith, to be fruitful with my time, and to guard my heart and mind from toxic patterns.

It was not an easy task, I really like wasting time and worrying about things that I can’t control. I can also be a negative person, instead of focusing on things that are positive and helpful, I’d circle down spirals of negative, snarky, toxicity. This kept me from seeing forgiveness, and being a cooperative person in my relationships, and made me too afraid to step out on faith for what God was planning for me. I needed to renew my mind!

God putting neurodivergence on my heart to look into opened so many doors, I see now, to understanding myself, my relationships, and what I truly want out of life. So as chaos descended in April, I was incredibly thankful that God went ahead of me and gave me such tools of understanding to navigate the big and scary things that were on the horizon.

Fights and Communication

A week before I learned that I was going to need a buy a house or move, my mom and I had a terrible fight. Like a really strange unavoidable fight like we were two asteroids on a crash course with each other.

At the time I was hurting and confused but through the fight, we actually accomplished huge milestones in communication. We placed new healthy boundaries and were brave enough to be honest with each other about what we needed. I was honest about my neurodivergence afterward because of the new safe space we created.

I didn’t know at the time but I had needed that safe space for a long time, over a decade, and I was going to need it immediately as my life was going to be in upheaval with the move and house-buying process.

Having my mom as my confidant, my buddy, and my raft in stormy seas, was exactly what I needed. It was incredible. From chaos to order. That’s how God works.

In the same way, understanding my neurodivergence helped me draw closer to Kyle, finally being able to communicate what I needed and how we could work together and support each other more effectively. It was something we were going to need to be able to work in sync to determine what we were going to do. If we planned to rent a new place or purchase a house, and if so, where? I can see now how all these little things were woven together to make these steps in faith easier because I sought out wisdom and prepared before the trial came.

Bridget, Just as She is

When things got tough, chaotic, and tricky for me to navigate as a highly sensitive person, neurodivergent, and struggling to navigate the change without feeling overstimulated and scared, I didn’t have to explain how I was feeling. Kyle, my mom, and Scott my dad were one step ahead and ready to catch me as I stumbled. Most importantly God was with me every step of the way, and it was incredible to feel His love through the people around me.

As we moved through the process, the move, the closing, the navigating the weird limbo between renting and buying, the move-in, etc. This wonderful, gentle landing place was there for me through the love of my family and friends and around me, the sensitivity toward what I needed. They made me feel loved and worthy through my vulnerable moments, encouraged me when I was feeling low, and comforted me when this world felt too big and too much for me.

I am forever grateful for this journey because I feel secure like I’m on solid ground again. I don’t feel like a weirdo anymore that needs to change to succeed. I feel ready for this world. Okay with who I am and not afraid to be myself because I am a little different.

I have accepted myself for who God created me to be, differences and all. My loved ones have reinforced this. I see this came together so seamlessly because I first sought wisdom, which helped me figure out what I needed from my relationships, and most importantly I learned to give my loved ones a chance to be there for me.

Letting people in is hard. It can also be incredibly rewarding. So is taking the time to encourage, accept, and support people who you love. When a community comes together, amazing things truly do happen, even on the smallest scale.

I challenge you to seek out wise counsel, self-reflection, and healthy boundaries, and find the people who love you just as you are. Be brave and let people see the real you. Be even more brave and support others, a random act of kindness goes a long way! For example on Saturday, my mom reached out and held my hand when we were in a big crowd. That small gesture reminded me that all the overstimulation I was feeling, was temporary and it was going to be okay.

Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me today. ❤

July 2, 2024

It’s Not Busy Work, it’s Motivation in the Chaos

When I was a kid and honestly, into adulthood, I thought studying the Bible and understanding the entire story, the nooks and crannies of the book that get skipped over, well I thought it was a lot of busy work that I wanted no part of. Especially after those four years of academia, no thanks.

But then I saw people in my life, who did spend all that time being consistent in the Word have much less stress and worry, despite stressful and difficult things. It didn’t make sense to me. I just thought they were more mature than me or could handle life better, as each stress and challenge KO-ed me into a tailspin of anxiety. Maybe they were lucky? Tougher?

They might be, but honestly, since I decided to try their method and read the entire Bible from 2020-2021, I felt like I had a new well of examples to draw on when life got hairy. A reminder of God’s promises to think about instead of comparing my circumstances to others and questioning why this bad lot was happening to me. It sparked the faith and hope for a tomorrow that sustained me through the past two months.

It wasn’t an instantaneous change. I didn’t realize I had made progress until I put work in. Like with everything in life, building faith, learning to hope, and having a scriptural reminder to lean on during the tough days took effort and consistency. Like a workout plan, a garden, language learning, etc. It all takes time and practice. I think that is why there is such an emphasis on perseverance and courage in the Bible because in those moments that test us faith, hope, and peace arrive because you have taken the time to immerse yourself in the manner in which God does things.

It’s motivation in the chaos when nothing makes sense and even you are second-guessing your own choices. For example, the eclipse, which I mentioned before I wasn’t a fan of, but in the moment of the totality, unless you have the knowledge of astronomy to understand that the sun isn’t actually disappearing, it just appears blocked because of the orbit of the earth around the sun perfectly lining up with the orbit of the moon at the right time. Although I knew that was happening, the eerie feeling of the sun ceasing to shine in the middle of the day was bizarre! I knew it would come back and the eclipse would only last a few minutes, there was that little voice in the back of my head that was whispering doubt that everything wouldn’t be okay and the sun would get lost back there, maybe take a wrong turn.

That little voice of doubt lives in all of us. It comes out at the most inconvenient times! It has arrived and set up camp in my head through this whole house debacle. Through all the chaos, I was spending time in prayer but I was struggling to find time to sit down with God’s word and find new motivation. As a believer, reading the Bible is a source of refreshment, it feels like listening to a song which amps you up, I also do that too. (My current favorite is WORK by Ateez). I was worried through all the chaos that not spending time in God’s word would lead to me running out of gas and losing my heart to carry on.

In a recent post, I spoke to where I’ve been but all the chaos of our landlord’s decision to sell the house we lived in and offer us a sketchy deal on it was just the half of it, as we were looking for peace from her lack of boundaries and decorum, we were also looking for a new place to live. There were days when my landlord would dump a whole bunch of stress on my shoulders and then personally the details for our new house would throw down hurdles of chaos. Endless paperwork, the possibility of it not being possible at all, and having to find a new plan, it was a lot and I was surprised in those moments how scripture passages of encouragement from Psalms and Proverbs or stories of struggle by real people in the Bible would find their way into my mind. It would reinvigorate my drive to keep going. It kept me from quitting in frustration.

As a kid, things with my dad leaving us at an early age reinforced this narrative in my head that I didn’t deserve happiness or that the other shoe would always drop. Even though God provided a better life than I would have ever had with my narcissistic and verbally abusive dad, instead of focusing on the good, my brain has fixed on the bad. I have given up on so many hard things in life because I hit a bump in the road and just thought it was what I deserved. It sounds so silly to say it out loud. By digging into the Word over the past four years, that time of study has assisted me in pushing that voice down, in order to reframe what God has in store for me.

Things will probably get bad, over and over again. This world is fallen and can really suck sometimes. There will be jerks but there will also be good people. In life there will be times of joy and sadness, there will also be times of hardship. One setback is just a setback, not a lifestyle. I wish I had pursued studying the Bible sooner because I think there was a lot of peace available in my life that I refused to acknowledge. I did it the hard way, alone. It didn’t need to be like that.

Even if you are not a person of faith, I hope this encourages you to prioritize your mental health so that you will have a deep well to draw from on those hard days. You are not alone. I think you are awesome. ❤

June 7, 2024

#53 – Lemon Curd

In Portal 2, Cave Johnson has an iconic rant about lemons that may have been the inspiration for my Saturday plan – to make dairy-free lemon curd from scratch.

To clarify, no lemons were exploded. But they were zested, juiced, and combined into a luscious lemon sauce and baked into lemon bars. Tart, sweet, buttery, lemon bars.

“All right, I’ve been thinking, when life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager!
Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man whose gonna burn your house down – with the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”
-Cave Johnson, Aperture Laboratories

But why did Cave Johnson speak so deeply to my mood on Saturday morning, one of the best times of the week? Well my dysfunctional family, of course. Communication is truly an art form, and for some relationships, healthy communication seems as easy as replicating a Michelangelo masterpiece with a butter knife. I am a member of that club. I feel like sometimes a conversation with my mom is doomed from the start. I call her and there is something in the air. A mistaken tone she finds in me, a lack of matching her extroverted, neurotypical energy.

The inability to recognize drama or harshness in her tone. My anxiety and frustration at being accosted by questions, picking remarks, or in general still not living up to whatever I was supposed to. It’s a mess, a mess that continues to respawn after numerous attempts to get rid of this and live a drama-free life with the mom that I do deeply love even if sometimes I get exasperated at her. This was one of those conversations, I did something and the verbal missiles were locking on me, which was really disappointing because it was supposed to be a simple conversation – what time are you coming up to celebrate my husband’s birthday?

Instead, there was chaos, my confusion at why there was chaos with questions followed by accusations of trying to fight and being told I was being a problem, gaslit into the aggressor when I held my temper in check and just asked questions. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. I was being baited into a fight and it sucked. It was a conversational sucker punch. Some weeks I don’t even want to pick up the phone, I yearn to move far away from the possibility of hanging out with her, because I just want to be loved not picked at. Being lonely but happy feels better than being close and miserable. I feel like she brings all the drama-ma-ma-ma-ma and then runs away from me after her work is done.

In the screaming silence that followed the nasty encounter, I felt confusion, anger, hurt, sadness, failure, shame, disappointment, a building pressure of anxiety and depression, and the complex childhood trauma memories flooding back of her gaslighting me into thinking I was a kid with an un-teachable spirit, a stubborn child who spirit needed to be broken because seeing things differently from her was a sin.

I feel sorry for my mom because none of those things are true, and keeping me at arm’s length hurts both of us. We only have so much time on this earth, wouldn’t it be better to be laughing instead of arguing, smiling instead of crying?

I’ve learned there is nothing wrong with me. I’m neuro-divergent and God made me this way for a reason. There is beauty in being different, but she can’t see that. She sees me as difficult, and I in turn see her as small-minded.

Recently, I’ve turned to baking when I feel down in the dumps. For a while, baking was quite painful for me, after Grandma passed away in 2020. She was the one who taught me how to bake and that void made baking a chore. Since watching the Great British Bake Off, I’ve found my baking delight once again. We had a bunch of lemons on hand for a separate recipe, and since the rest needed to be used, I decided to make something I’d never made from scratch before. Lemon curd.

They make it on Bake-Off and I used to love eating lemon bars and lemon meringue pie as a kid, it was Papa’s favorite pie. We had it each year on his birthday. It was the bomb. The tart, lemony sharpness of the filling with the pillowy sweet clouds of meringue on top, slightly browned like a marshmallow with a flakey crust. Scrumptious.

Fun fact: My grandma dressed, acted, and looked a lot like Mary Berry. Watching Bake Off is like a hug.

And you know what, baking helped. I felt the tension melt from my shoulders as I zested the lemons and squeezed the juice into the bowl. The delicacy of separating yolks from egg whites required me to slow down, to breathe through the emotional stress. I made a cup of herbal tea and began work on the sugar and butter. After combining it came time to use the bain-marie to slowly temper the eggs and cook until thickened. The result was a dreamy curd that I was hoping for!

Out of pain, something beautiful came, and the next day I made shortbread for the lemon bars and layered the golden yellow lemon sauce into the pan for a delight I hadn’t had since childhood. Next time we’ll make that lemon meringue pie.

I’m glad I’ve learned coping mechanisms like baking, cleaning, stimming, etc so that I am not tempted to rage at my mom, clench my jaw, get drunk, or go on a shopping spree to fill the pain with stuff. It’s been a journey but through my tumultuous twenties, I learned that the dysfunction is never going away but who I am and how I respond to it are not beholden to other people and their poor behavior. And that is true freedom.

Have you ever made lemon curd? Do you like lemon meringue pie or lemon bars? What’s your go-to way to calm down after a stressful encounter? Thank you, dear reader, for coming along on this blogging journey with me. I’m incredibly thankful for you.

April 23, 2024

#52 – Eight

This week has been a whirlwind, and it’s only Wednesday. It’s funny how some days can feel like an eternity to come and some feel long in a way that you don’t want the moment to end. Some events feel like an impending, hurtling, thing that you are on a collision course with and some feel like a sweet treasure, a thing you wished for and hope that it comes true. Duality is such a wild and wonderful thing to experience. It makes me appreciate the differences and the journey.

The Eighth of April 2024

In North America, April 8, 2024, created quite a stir. Somehow I managed to avoid the details of the eclipse until mid-March when the realization crashed down upon me that we were in the path of totality – 99.2% in my hometown. North of us on the shore of Lake Erie they were set to experience 100%. I was flabbergasted. This was going to be my first eclipse with totality and I was pretty uncertain about the experience. It was such an extraordinary event, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The enormity of that took time to process in my mind and while I came to terms with it I was filled with anxiety at the unknown.

I know that I was incredibly privileged to be right in the path and I am grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime experience even though I was nervous about it. I want to be genuine on this blog and hiding the amount of anxiety this experience gave me would be dishonest, especially because I know there were other people out there who were nervous about it too. Once I learned about the eclipse, it was like a constant bombardment of information. There was a lot of hype around this thing. As the days drew closer, it felt as though it was all that anyone was talking about.

Because there was no escape I had a choice – let the anxiety and the fear take the lead or let this experience teach me something about life and myself. At first, the fear had absolute control and I felt stuck. But I didn’t want to live my life in fear, so just as Kevin McCallister faces his fear of the furnace and the burglars, to prove that he is not afraid anymore, I decided to face my fear.

Now this is where I had to do some internal work and make some distinctions for myself, living in fear is not the same as experiencing moments of being afraid or anxious. We can’t control what we feel all the time, but we can make plans and develop coping tools to help us in times of fear and anxiety. I had to give myself grace that I wasn’t going to be perfect at this and I might get scared or overwhelmed but that it is a feeling not a guiding force. It was important to me that I made a plan of ways to help myself through the feelings I was having to get more comfortable and distract myself if it became overwhelming because deep down I was ashamed of my fear of the unknown, but also I didn’t want to ruin this for my husband who was quite excited to experience this from our yard.

I searched for videos of former eclipses to understand what it was going to look like and how it might feel to experience it. I mainly wanted to understand how dark it would get and for how long, as well as how long this process was going to take from start to finish. My husband had a great idea which was to have exit strategies such as going into my workroom and closing the blackout curtains to be in a sensory bubble with the light on. The eclipse’s totality was estimated at 3 min and 45 seconds here so he suggested I find a favorite K-pop song to listen to through the totality to bring me joy in a moment of overload. It was great grounding by him.

Three days before I started setting a timer for the length of the totality and going about my daily tasks to help my brain remember that it wasn’t long at all and it would be over soon if I didn’t like it. The best thing I found was a resource guide for neurodivergent kids that overviewed the whole process from start to finish. I know that I am a Highly Sensitive Person, but now I wonder if I should find out if I am neurodivergent because what I was struggling with had crossed over with this guide. It was the first resource that truly helped me prepare and feel at ease. I also prayed for God to help me shift my focus from fear to appreciation for this amazing event I was going to see and to see His majesty in the moment instead of my fear.

On the day of the eclipse, I could feel the butterflies in my stomach, it felt like the day I got married, something big and life-changing was on the horizon, not impending doom but something bigger than myself. A big moment for us all, like the morning of my college graduation, it was a big step into the unknown. This is where I could start to feel things falling into place. I realized my next-door neighbors who feel like family were going to be home for it and that felt so comforting.

When it began the neighbors who I clicked with all came outside and we experienced the eclipse start together. We then settled in and watched with the friends who feel like family and it was such an amazing bonding experience that I won’t forget. That being said, I did not make it through the event without having a panic attack which I know God helped me pull myself out of. At totality the light was so weird, the shadows disorienting, and the air too still and cold. It felt like a low-pressure system coming through and I felt overwhelmed by the oddness.

I’m glad I experienced it once, but I do not wish to see another one anytime soon. Once was enough, I’m sorry to say, it was too eerie for me. It was an incredible display of creation’s beauty but it was overstimulating and straight up uncomfortable for me to love it. I’m thrilled though for all the people who got to experience it and absolutely loved it. I want to be more like you!

Eight Years of Marriage

As the sun moved quickly, faster than the speed of sound through the eclipse path my world returned to normal my mind shifted from that place of anxiety to a restful contentment. April 8th was over, which meant April 9th was coming, my eighth wedding anniversary, and a whole day to spend with my husband. Another year in the books with my best friend! Another year passed, eight in total, a dream I hoped would happen when it got difficult and when life seemed stacked against us. We’re out of the honeymoon period, the newlywed haze, the seven-year itch, and all those weird qualifications our society puts on marriage. When it’s really about every day and choosing the other person each day. Committing to the team and playing for the good of the team.

We’ve had so many weird anniversaries where it felt like our world was barely holding on. We’ve had tough years where it felt like a fight to stay together because outside forces like family, finances, childhood trauma, grief, the pandemic, the recession, etc were stacked against us. It felt good to get up and have a normal day of spending time together with my best friend.

In the morning we ran errands and got Kyle a fishing license and me some trail shoes, we went to a used bookstore and grabbed some boba tea. We ate stir fry with noodles for lunch and sprayed for ants around the perimeter inside and out, later we went to the driving range, got Domino’s for dinner, soaked in the beauty of shooting stars and cherry blossoms on ACNH, and finally ended the evening with two of our favorite channels – Matt and Julia and Coupy Camper.

Normal, steady, friendship, connection, contentment, affection, I think this is what we all yearn for more than the flashy moments. Especially after a day of a once-in-a-lifetime event, being “boring” with my best friend in the normal sunshine in a place that feels familiar doing my favorite things, and preparing for more adventures, just felt right. It was the balance being restored in my world, something I am sure to hold dear for years to come.