Sharing Your Problem May Be Better Than Solving It As soon as I walked in, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, allowing the funky old-house smell to fill my pores. “I love the way your house smells,” I told my friend Becky. She stared at me like she was waiting for a punchline. I continued, “Really, I do.” Seeing …

“If only!” I cried at my husband. “You say you support my ideas, but you don’t really want to help me.” I was frustrated with my husband over a project we were working on together — this blog, actually. Since my husband is a computer-programmer-genius who runs a tech company, I expected him to wave a magic wand and make …

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to giving and receiving help, I tend to think, “‘tis better to give than to receive.” Accepting help sounds easy—who doesn’t want a lighter load, right? But the truth is, I’d rather be thought of as “competent” than “needy.” Wouldn’t you?

“Sometimes I feel small and insignificant.” Susan’s eyes looked off at some point far beyond me. Her words made me feel sad, but I could definitely relate. My friend was head-over-heels in love with her children, but she was frustrated by her parenting mistakes. I recalled coming to terms with my own mommy anger. I remembered the angry outbursts that made me …

Do you ever look in the mirror and feel a little baffled by what you see? Putting physicality aside, do you ever look at your reflection and think, “Woah crazy! Where’d you come from?” No? Me neither. But, I have this friend …

Have you ever seen God? Like, with your eyes? I think maybe I have. There is a superbly wrinkled Asian grandfather who walks in my neighborhood everyday. I see him at 3:00 p.m. when I clock-in for my shift as driver of the mom-taxi. As I’m leaving the neighborhood to pick up my children from school and activities, I see …

By Beth Demme I sort of met a US Supreme Court Justice one time and the subject of aliens came up. When I was in law school, John Paul Stevens visited our campus. Even though Constitutional Law was my least favorite class, I understood how cool it was that he was hanging out at my school. He gave a brief lecture …

By Beth Demme I think we all have a soundtrack, or maybe a movie reel, that plays in the background of our thoughts. Sometimes mine goes negative and gets loud. Recently, the volume on my negative soundtrack spiked after a stranger went out of her way to call me a bad mom. This is kind of a long story, but …

The other day I woke up in a really bad mood. Somehow I knew I was grumpy even before my eyes opened. My eyebrows dove toward my nose and the corners of my lips dragged toward my chin. My “morning face” was even scarier than usual. I forced myself to say a silent prayer to God, thanking Him for the …