AUTUMN RAYE ARTHUR

So I guess it's national daughter day. I don't have a daughter, but I am a daughter. Both my parents are gone now, and today I received my inheritance from my dad's estate. Since I found out it was coming this week, I've had a lot of emotions about it that I didn't expect. When I saw the number on the check I found it oddly sad. Not because of what the number was, but because that's what my parents measured out to in the end, on paper. It's the legal finish to their story. I

I wanted to write about my week on Cape Cod, how I swam with moon jellies and a harbor seal popped up a few feet away from me one afternoon. Instead I decided to do a stupid, self-destructive thing. I was worried about Toni. I wanted to see if they were okay. I looked up their Instagram. "You ruined everything, you stupid bitch." I'm quoting a song, but that's how I feel about myself and how I've obliterated the sense of calm and perspective I'd managed to nest into in the la

Today's Triumph: I muted Toni's posts on Instagram. They haven't been posting much, but when they do it messes with my head, so I think...

Today's Triumph: I'm going to save that for the end. It's a lesson learned from everything in the last post and this one. This is the...

Today's Triumph: I have reached a certain level of calm and acceptance about the situation that has been causing me the most pain. To...

Today's Triumph: Getting out of bed. I fought that battle twice. The atmosphere just felt too heavy for me to push it up so I could get...

Today's Triumph: When I got home after taking the kids to camp, I fought the temptation to go back to bed and instead cleaned my kitchen...

Today's Triumph: I slept through the night. Most nights lately, I lay awake for hours with my brain stomping all over any potential peace...

I am going to start all of my entries with triumphs, no matter how small. This morning's triumph, after dropping off the kids I nanny at...

"I want to die." Don't worry, I'm not suicidal. Not really. Those are just the words that keep surfacing in my mind. I don't actually...