Sometimes arm’s length is a thousand miles, a new phone number, and your finger poised above the delete key.
Grieving the Living
Author: Lynn Haraldson
For more than 25 years, I've been writing about love, change, grief, and (occasionally) politics, trusting that there is more that unites than divides us. When I address weight-ish issues these days, it’s through a different lens than when I wrote my Lynn’s Weigh blog (2005-2015). May it–and my scale–rest in peace. I was 33 and blond when I started my writing career. Now, 58 and gray, I feel like (with apologies to The Carpenters) I’ve only just begun to live…and write.
I’m sorry. Wait, no I’m not. Well, maybe.
Despite what Elton John sings, “sorry” isn’t the hardest word.
Guess Who Tried to Come for Dinner?
Other than hearing a bear on our back porch a few weeks ago, we were bear-free...until yesterday afternoon.
OCD Lite
Watching a hockey game last Friday night from my comfy chair in the living room, I suddenly felt closed in, like there were too many things occupying too small a space. I wasn’t sure why at first; the living room is the same as it’s always been. But that was the feeling: There were too … Continue reading OCD Lite
Grief Talk Tuesday: Treat My Urn Like the Stanley Cup
There was a sense of urgency about the way mini waterfalls and rapids formed in the otherwise docile water. Its beauty—flowing at the foot of a bucolic green hillside dotted with dandelions—reminded me how the moments I love most are fleeting...
Grief Talk: What to Keep, What to Give Away
A friend’s husband died last weekend, and like always when I hear news like this, I think about the afterwards: All the decisions she’ll make, all the people she’ll hug, all the words she’ll hear, all the feelings she’ll feel and all the feelings she’ll tuck away for another time. Inevitably, she’ll go through his … Continue reading Grief Talk: What to Keep, What to Give Away
A Week of Grief (but not in a bad way)
It's been a week of grief, my friends. Grief talking and writing, that is. My writer friend (and genuinely amazing person), Emily Silva Hockstra, invited me to be a guest on her YouTube series, Journeys Through Grief. You can hear (and see!) me talk about grief by clicking here. The kind folks at Brevity Blog … Continue reading A Week of Grief (but not in a bad way)
Bridges
I was today years old when I learned my fear of driving over bridges has a name: gephyrophobia. * Because I live near the “City of Bridges,” gephyrophobia can be a problem since it’s hard to avoid one or more of the 446 bridges in Pittsburgh. (Although, technically, 445 because the Fern Hollow bridge collapsed … Continue reading Bridges
Grief on TV. Do They Get it Right? (Downton Abbey spoiler alert!)
I don’t “enjoy” grief, but I respect it as part of my life. I also know that grief is a result of love, and when I watch griefy things, I’m also reminded of those I love.
Going to the Movies
I haven’t been to a movie since pre-Covid, and I can’t remember what I saw last. A dinosaur movie with my grandkids, I think? Oh, but I wish I could have taken them to my very favorite, in-all-my-life-favorite, theaters that used to exist in downtown Clarion, Pennsylvania. They were… Well, you decide.
Lynn Haraldson, Author and Writing Mentor 