Honk. HONK. Honnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnk. I was pumping gas when I heard the horn. On the adjacent street a woman in a small luxury car was honking at the big sport utility vehicle in front of her. Using exaggerated gestures and wide eyes she yelled, “you CAN’T stop here!” As I watched her gestures and deciphered her words, I thought, “calm down …
You Won’t Exist Forever Do you ever get discouraged by the fact that your life isn’t bigger or more grand? Sometimes I find myself mistakenly thinking I can sort of defeat mortality if I can do something to be remembered. My father passed away recently and the grief I find myself wading through everyday makes my own mortality press in …
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 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 …
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 …