• Essays,  General Thoughts

    Overweight in a Size 8: Thoughts on Obesity and Body Image

    What does obesity look like in America? I don’t know if you’ve seen the statistics on obesity in America, but they’re staggering. According to a CDC estimate, as of March 2020,  41.9% of adults in America were classified as obese. What does that mean? It means the people have a BMI, or Body Mass Index of 30 or above. Want to know another startling statistic? During that same period, 19.2% of children age 2 and older were considered obese. That’s not even including anyone with BMIs of 25-29.9, who are considered overweight. Well, I’m 5’1″ tall and currently weigh between 160-165 pounds, so according to the BMI charts, I exceed…

  • General Thoughts

    Living with Ulcerative Colitis

    Today, May 19, is World IBD Day. For the first 20 years of my life, I lived blissfully unaware of the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis (UC). Sure, I’d heard of stomach upset, suffered through childhood digestive woes and stomach viruses, but I didn’t know there was anything more than the ever-fleeting “nervous stomach” term I’d been assigned as a kid. Those first days of school tummy jitters, the clamminess before big tests or speaking in front of the class, the waves of nausea after making an ass of myself in front of my crush, etc. I took an acid-reducing medicine while in 11th grade and the occasional half-tablet…

  • General Thoughts

    My love history and why I never wrote about my husband until now

    Let me warn you: This post is long. Something my husband and I talked about before he helped me launch this website was the fact that I wrote a lot of material about someone I loved before I met him. I was worried that what I wrote a long time ago would hurt my husband, something I would never do intentionally. Now my husband, Jonathan, is very blunt, as anyone who knows him will tell you. He told me specifically that he is not threatened by my past because it made me who I am—the woman he loves. We talked about my past and his while we were getting to know each…