Pleasant emotions = good Painful emotions = bad These two equations summarize American society’s approach to emotions. We’re taught to strive for emotions that feel good as if seeking higher ground in a tsunami and to run like hell from ones that hurt. I wrote…
Grief barged in at 3:18 a.m. It wasn’t too surprising—I’ve been slamming the door in its face for a week. Facebook shows me Spanish tortilla with red peppers and peas. I want to read how the Cook’s Illustrated staff iterated to create the perfect dish,…
“This is not what they signed up for, not at all. . . . Redefinition is a nightmare — we think we’ve arrived, in our nice Pottery Barn boxes, and that this or that is true. Then something happens that totally sucks, and we are…
Being in Seattle this summer has brought emotional turmoil. I love it here and am grateful to get to spend time away from the Phoenix storms. But, I love it here and am angry that migraine is the reason I don’t live here. The grief…
When my chronic migraine was at its worst, I did not feel like I was living a life, but was barely clinging on to survival. Now that I’m coming out of more than a decade of severe chronic migraine, I see not only how much…