I grew up in a household of mild to moderate hoarding. My mom has multiple scents of liquid hand soap for every season (and I’m not just talking the four main ones; I mean like tulip season and Advent). My dad’s hoarding reached its peak—I hope—during the pandemic, when supply chain issues prompted him to…
Author: Rachel Dempsey
New Kid on the Block . . . Again
Have you ever experienced such loneliness you resorted to befriending a ghost? I recently finished a short story about a girl who does just that after moving to a new high school. Granted most of us don’t have that option, but I’m hoping the story captures a feeling we’ve all known, one of being different,…
Embrace the Darkness
Five years ago, after only a few months of living in Colorado, I realized I’d been suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, probably since middle school. Growing up in North Dakota, I spent the long, dark, dangerously cold months of winter indoors reading. My asthma was much worse back then, which meant I couldn’t play outside…
How to Win Friends and Influencers
This the hardest blog post I’ve ever had to write. Not because I don’t have friends or anything. I have friends, okay? What I don’t have are two functioning hands with which to type. A bluebird day. My husband and I would usually ease into skiing with an intermediate run or two before tackling one…
The Resolution Revolution
Today marks the 20th anniversary of meeting my husband. While we hit it off immediately, there were, and still are, plenty of things upon which we do not always agree. New Year’s Resolutions were one of them back then. My husband is a big picture kind of guy; he loves proposing grand schemes and mobilizing teams…