Author: Erica

My True to Life Half-Blood Prince

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As you can gather from reading my blog, I love to write autobiographical stories and snippets from my daily life. One of the main reasons I love writing is that I’m able to share deep and vulnerable parts of myself with others. I always hope to be able to connect with someone else through my writing. Stories are powerful, they allow us to get a glimpse into another person’s life and feelings, and they are an amazing way to develop empathy for people different than we are.

While I know it’s true that you get better at writing the more that you practice writing, I’ve been wanting some more concrete ideas on how to improve as a writer. This led me to check out a book from the library by Tristine Rainer titled, Your Life as Story.

I’m about 8 chapters in, and have found the book to be extremely helpful in its tips and ideas on memoir writing. I’ve been furiously taking notes, trying to capture all the things I don’t want to forget. I knew that the book would be helpful for me to read, but I didn’t expect that even just a few chapters in, it would already change they way I think about writing.

Another surprise from the book was getting to know on a personal level a man named Robert J. Hall – the previous owner of this book before it was donated to the library. His name and address are scribbled on the inside of the front cover, and he has underlined, highlighted, and made notes all throughout the book. As I continue to read, I get more and more insights into this man’s life, and why he owned a copy of this book.

It reminded me of the 6th Harry Potter book, where Harry gets an old copy of an Advanced Potion-Making textbook, and finds it rife with notes and edits from a person who calls themself the “Half-Blood Prince.” Many of the potion recipes have been improved by this Half-Blood Prince, and Harry finds himself doing exceedingly well in his Potions class due to the hints and clues left by the textbook’s previous owner.

I was excited to discover that I basically have my own version of a half-blood prince in my library book. (I’m a big Harry Potter fan! Shout out to my fellow Ravenclaws!) While not nearly as cryptic as the original half-blood prince, I do find myself getting more and more interested in the story behind Robert J. Hall.

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Would you, Could you, on a Boat?: Why You Should Try Therapy – You May Like It!

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Sorry for my convoluted and very long post title – for some reason Green Eggs and Ham is on my brain. I had a counseling session *yesterday, and each time I go, I find myself confronted with an opportunity to grow and stretch myself – and I can choose to either take it or ignore it.

I’ve been going to counseling/therapy (I will use those words interchangeably) consistently for over 4 years. But four years ago, I was very resistant to trying it. What started out as marriage counseling evolved into me seeing great value in meeting with a therapist one-on-one.

Sometimes after I’ve told people I see a therapist, they have asked me, “does it help?” And my answer is definitely, 100%, yes! But I feel like I should elaborate on what I mean when I say it helps me. Each time I go to therapy, I uncover a tiny bit more about myself – I understand myself just a little bit better, and I start to figure out why I am feeling the ways I am feeling. Let me give you an example:

*Yesterday in therapy (it was a joint session with my husband), I brought up how I had been getting really frustrated recently that he was not helping out enough with our son in the mornings. I am a morning person, and my husband is more of a night owl. So inevitably, when my son wakes up, I am usually the first person he sees because Daddy is still sleeping. This means I’m typically the one to get our three-year-old his breakfast, answer his many questions about whatever pops into his mind, set up his favorite t.v. show, etc. The feeling this brought up for me was anger – it wasn’t “fair” that I was doing this “all by myself” (which is not true, but I am good at convincing myself otherwise sometimes). At face value, it seemed like the issue was about getting help with our son – but as we dug deeper, I realized that it wasn’t really about that. It was about me needing alone time, “me” time – time to read a book, write, and do other things that bring personal fulfillment. I was struggling to figure out how to find this alone time in my schedule, and I needed to ask for help.

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Election Grief Is Real

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It’s 5:30 am (for me at least) the day after the election. Try as I might, I did end up checking the polls a few times yesterday, despite telling myself I wouldn’t. I didn’t feel like there was a reason to get excited or riled up based on results that weren’t final yet.

I was successful in avoiding Facebook, however, and plan to avoid it for at least the rest of the week. Maybe that week should turn into the next four years…

Recently I saw a post that said something to the effect of: no matter who wins the election, half of America will feel like they lost.

That has really stuck with me. Inevitably half of our country will be feeling sad, defeated, and perhaps angry or outraged. That’s 165 million people who may be grieving the results of the election.

And when I say grieving, I really mean it quite literally. I thought about the term “election grief,” and while I’m not sure if it’s a clinical term, it’s a real thing. A quick search of “election grief” led me to results such as “Grief and Loss After the Election” and “Your Post-Election Pain is Real Grief.” They were articles from 2016 and 2018, but are still obviously relevant to 2020.

Psych Central reported that their page “5 Stages of Grief and Loss” got a 210% increase in traffic the day after the 2016 election.

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