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Every January, we’re bombarded with the same cultural script: New year, new you. Transform yourself. Set aggressive goals. Become unrecognizable by December. The wellness industry churns out planners, challenges, and transformation programs, all insisting that the only way forward is more—more productivity, more discipline, more optimization of every waking hour. But what if the most
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Have you ever tried to solve a puzzle when you know some of the pieces are missing? Not lost temporarily—just gone. Never coming back. That’s what it feels like when someone you loved walks away without explaining why. The silence they leave behind isn’t peaceful. It’s loud with questions. And in that deafening quiet, the
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How to Navigate Life During the Shutdown You planned for emergencies. You had savings— maybe not much, but enough. You paid your bills on time, kept good credit, and did everything the “responsible adult” handbook told you to do. And then the government shut down, and suddenly all those careful plans felt like building sandcastles
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What Our Grandmothers Knew About Feeding a Family There’s a worn recipe card in my grandmother’s handwriting that simply says “Bean Soup – feeds 10.” No measurements, no cooking times, just an assumption that you’d know what to do. That whoever read this card would understand that feeding ten people wasn’t an occasional event but
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The performance of rest and what it costs us I used to think I was bad at resting. Not in the literal sense—I could sit on a couch with the best of them. However, the quality of my rest always felt inadequate, as if I were doing it wrong. I’d finally carve out time for
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There’s something disorienting about realizing the rules have changed in the middle of the game. For millions of Americans coming of age after 2008, this became a defining experience—graduating into a recession, watching “entry-level” jobs require years of experience, and discovering that doing everything “right” no longer guaranteed stability. The American Dream didn’t just become
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There’s a kind of honesty that comes after the worst has happened—when you’ve survived what you thought might kill you. It’s not the wisdom of greeting cards or the neat arc of Hollywood redemption stories. It’s messier, more complicated, and more real. This is the honesty that drives the most powerful healing narratives in women’s
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There’s a moment in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” when the narrator stops mid-sentence, unable to continue describing a particular memory. The page seems to hold its breath. As readers, we feel that pause—the weight of what cannot be said, the story that refuses to be straightforward. When we read literature that deals with
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The difference between self-acceptance and self-romance We’ve all been told we need to love ourselves more. Stand in front of the mirror and feel overwhelming affection for what you see. Write yourself love letters. Plan romantic dates with yourself. Feel the kind of warm, protective, “I would do anything for you” feeling that you have
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Why self-recognition feels impossible sometimes Have you ever looked in the mirror and felt like you were seeing a stranger? Not in the physical sense—thought that happens too—but in the deeper sense of not recognizing the person staring back at you. Like you’re wearing a life that doesn’t quite fit, playing a role you never
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Kat McAdaragh 