On My Reason to Pursue Counselling
So here goes. I’m anxious. I have always been an anxious person – emotional, high-strung, and a full-time worrier. I often laid awake at night, hating myself over some offhand comment I made fifteen years before. Once, on my morning drive to work, a man blared his horn at me for driving too slowly, and […]
On COVID Burnout
The last week in February, just as we felt the early promise of spring, my symptoms began. I could not concentrate. I would sleep a solid 9 hours only to wake up drained, dragging myself out of bed. Sitting in front of my laptop in my living room, where my makeshift desk had been since […]
On Lucid Dreaming
(Warning: one of my favourite topics. This will likely be the first post of many on dreams) Dreams. Usually fuzzy, otherworldly manifestations, where it is equally likely I turn into a frog, a cat, or a cheesecake. Time flashes along or stays still, and the only constant is that nothing makes sense. But what if […]
On the Mandela Effect
Have you ever remembered something different that what it is in reality? Your memory of it is so vivid, and others remember it too, yet there’s concrete proof that you are wrong? You just might be experiencing the Mandela Effect, a collective false memory phenomenon. I first heard of the concept in 2017 when a […]
On Extroverts and Introverts in a Pandemic
Full disclosure: I am an out and proud extrovert. As much as I love to cuddle up away from the world (with a good book and hot coffee), I desperately need people. When taken away (say, for example, when a global pandemic hits), I suffer. A lot. First off, let us talk about the misconceptions […]
On Child Anxiety
(Readers: I debated sharing this very personal story, but my daughter requested that it be told. She is my most dedicated and faithful blog reader, and her courage inspires me). Only weeks into the quarantine we noticed the early signs. Our bright, school-loving 8-year-old started struggling with online learning. Most mornings, only minutes after powering […]
On our Angry Facebook Friends
Last week, someone very close to me was attacked on Facebook. His “friend,” unsatisfied with his behaviour post-vaccination, publicly admonished him in what felt like a vicious, unwarranted, and incoherent way. He responded with his usual aplomb – obscurely and sarcastically – handling the situation with grace, and admittedly, far better than me. Another Facebook […]
On Pregnancy Loss
(Warning – this article may be triggering. Please proceed with caution) I have always followed a plan. Two years after my husband and I married and a year after we bought our home, it was time for a baby. I immediately got to readying us: prenatal vitamins, googling all the right paths to pregnancy, and […]
On Generational Trauma
My friend Sam is an easy-going guy who loves to crack Borat jokes and smoke cannabis. In the four years that we’ve worked together, he is who I call when I need a laugh or a sympathetic ear, and often he’ll break out his guitar over Zoom to play my favourite 90s tune (Counting Crows’ […]
On the Benefits (yep) of Video Games
(This blog post was written at the request of my 11-year-old son, in the hopes that he’ll actually read a blog post of mine) The year was 2019. Pre-pandemic but at the height of his Fortnite obsession, my 9-year-old was logging about 20+ hours of gaming per week. Troubling for his parents? Why yes. He […]
