Skip to content
becominghuman

Day 19: Finding My People

  It’s Monday morning after a flawless weekend; you know the type. One of those Monday mornings where we’re texting our new friends and reliving memories and telling inside jokes and making playlists and promising to stay friends forever. It’s been the same since the first Monday morning after teen camp, back when we were in…

becominghuman

Day 18: Being Present

I’m growing to believe that being present is one of the greatest gifts we can give, to ourselves and to our fellow humans. It’s not easy, though. There are a thousand things distracting us from being present all the time — the voices spinning circles inside our heads, to-do lists begging for attention, electronic devices,…

becominghuman

Day 17: Living the Best Day of My Life

“THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” I announced this effusively over black coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice at a cafe in Little Rock this morning. Maybe I was just being dramatic. The first black coffee of the day tends to have the effect on me, especially with warm sunlight streaming through big windows…

becominghuman

Day 16: Healing

I don’t need a calendar to tell me it’s been a year. I can feel it in the air when I step outside, the crisp wind that tears leaves from trees and sends them skidding down Minneapolis sidewalks. Images crowd in at the periphery of my memory. I don’t need to glance at them to know…

becominghuman

Day 15: Roadtripping

Today I drove from Chicago to Little Rock. I want to have something profound to say, but I am so very full of pizza right now. So I’m going to sit here on my man Cory’s couch and talk to my people. (When you get a chance to hang out with your internet friends in…

becominghuman

Day 14: Looking Back

I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport, about to hop on a plane toward Chicago and a weekend with the Bedlam Family. I just got done reading a thing Melissa Hawks wrote, a story about how we became friends. It started with an interview at a pizza shop in Minneapolis last fall. It’s funny, reading it now, because…

becominghuman

Day 13: Giving Up

I did not want to get out of bed today. Everything felt grey and numb and lifeless, and I couldn’t even remember how to begin being human. Laying there on my mattress, I thought of how last week that I’d woken up and done yoga and gone running and kicked ass all day. It felt like a…

becominghuman

Day 12: Listening to Taylor Swift

I was listening to Taylor Swift before breakfast, as you do on Monday mornings. Today I found myself thinking about why. Why do so many of us Millennials find ourselves hooked on her music, singing along every time we’re in the car? /// “Everything was simpler ten years ago,” I told my therapist last week.…

becominghuman

Day 11: Embracing the Seasons

I’m scared to death of winter. Winter in Minnesota is hard — anybody who lives here will tell you that. Six months from the first snow to the last, face-numbing cold, day after day after day of grey skies. Winter is hard, but the summers make up for it. It’s just part of the deal.…

becominghuman

Day 10: Learning from My Boys

Today I’m going to tell you four lessons I’m learning from my boys. They’re three and five, and in between legos and hot dogs and Netflix, they’re teaching me about what it means to be human. /// Always run toward people you love. For these boys, life is always the third act of a romantic commedy. Every…

becominghuman

Day 09: Cooking Good Food

I just got done scraping the last few bits of a delicious supper off my plate. My stomach is about to die of happiness, but hopefully I’ll get this blog post done first. Here’s what I made: I started with brussels sprouts, set in a pot to steam. While they were cooking, I chopped two…

becominghuman

Day 08: Learning Poetry

  Today is National Poetry day, so I want to share one of my favorites with you. I first heard it from my friend Stephen, during our cross-country road trip at the start of this year. Somewhere in the Utah desert, probably. Though the winter, I had bits and pieces of this poem written on the window…

becominghuman

Day 07: Playing with Legos

I’m sitting on the floor in the boys’ bedroom next to an ocean of Legos. The three-year-old is building a monster truck, or at least an abstract impression of a monster truck. Every few minutes he lets out a roar — the sort of wordless, guttural howl of frustration that only toddlers know. “UUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!’ I…

becominghuman

Day 06: Celebrating Bandersnatch

Today we are celebrating the release of my friend Erika’s book: Bandersnatch. I wouldn’t let just anybody interrupt my #write31days series for a book release guest post, but this one seems fitting. Erika Morrison has been one of the people who has taught me the most about becoming human in the past few years: about…

becominghuman

Day 05: Taking Care of My Body

It’s mid-afternoon, and I just finished “Morning Yoga to Start Your Day.” Some days start harder than others. Especially Mondays. Some days you wake up and shower and get dressed and go downtown for breakfast and then when you come back home, your brain goes blank and you can’t remember how to think or work…