First, January. Bringing in the New Year with family friends, tossing sparklers through warm, muggy South Carolina air. Then back to Boone, freezing cold in the snow, new classes and freelancing and warm, ridiculous, snowed-in nights. Feeling more and more social, realizing that even when my life was a mess my friends were just…there. Uncomplicated.

Then, February. Happiness. Changing my major to Public Relations, staring at those words on a piece of paper and feeling thrilled and scared. Possibility. Valentine’s Day, unattached, perfectly content. Cold air and a quiet, comfortable heart. Continue reading →

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore says the following words, which have refused to leave me alone lately:

We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.

I’m realizing more and more, as I continue to grapple with depression, that this is exactly what I have to do.  Continue reading →

I just read this blog post, and it inspired me so much. It’s funny though, because it’s really just a collection of small lessons – they’re astonishingly true because they’re so simple. I decided I wanted to do something similar. Presented here is a small, humble collection of my own rules for life, and all the little things I’ve picked up along the way. Continue reading →

There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle of who I am.

I am ambitious, organized, and persistent. I’m social and somewhat artistic and I’m open, I think, to adventures. I am entirely too candid with other people. I am ready to love and reluctant to trust. I forget everything and I’m absolutely incapable of math.

While we’re talking about who I am – I’m also clinically depressed.

No, like for real. I have a psychiatrist. And every night before I go to bed, I swallow a tiny blue tablet that’s supposed to smooth out all the parts of my brain that are tangled and bent.

It’s a fact I’ve kept under wraps for most of my life. Only recently, I’ve realized that there’s no reason to do that – there’s no reason I can’t talk about it.

I want to tell you what it’s like. Continue reading →

It hasn’t been easy to be my friend lately.

Sometimes life is stormy – mine has been. And I’ve never really been the kind of person who weathers storms well. My lack of weathering skills…sometimes it becomes a storm in itself.

I’m picturing a storm on the ocean, all wind-tossed waves and rain-splattered sand. I’ve witnessed a lot of those storms in the muggy, magic South Carolina lowcountry where I spent my childhood. And there’s this weird thing that happens during beach storms: during every single one, there are the slightest glimpses and flashes of sunlight, glinting across the waves.

Life is like that too. Continue reading →