Anticipation used to be joyful. I remember being so excited for Christmas Day that I would go to bed and try to make myself sleep at 4 p.m. and magically make Christmas come faster. It never worked, but the strategy seemed solid at the time. In middle age, anticipation is dreadful. Every unknown carries aContinue reading “Anxiety over a new job is a weird game of ‘What’s in the box?’”
Category Archives: mental health
Dead mentors leave clues as to when I feel like a real teacher
I knew my days in newspapers were almost over when I wrote the obituaries for Ken Fuson and Robert D. Woodward on the same day. Ken was the best writer any of us at the Register have ever known. He may have been the best writer in the history of the Register. He was aContinue reading “Dead mentors leave clues as to when I feel like a real teacher”
When the pain doesn’t go away
If the opioid crisis has taught us anything as humans — and there is no guarantee that it has — it’s that we need to manage pain rather than try to eliminate it. I have osteoarthritis in both my knees. I tore the meniscus in my left knee more than a year ago. I’ve notContinue reading “When the pain doesn’t go away”
The Paragraph Stacker 