He stayed over for the first time, and I went to work the next morning like it was any other day. He was gone by the time I got home. I don't think I even noticed the sink. He's the one who told me about it. Said something offhand — that it had needed cleaning, that's all. Nothing sharp yet, nothing cruel. Just a passing comment, like he was letting me know he'd taken care of something. I said thank you. At the time, I thought it was kind. It wasn't. I just didn't have any way of knowing that...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Panama City Beach is supposed to be the good kind of memory. Sand, sun, families laughing their way through a week off. For most people, it's the vacation they dream about all year. When I think of it, my stomach still turns. We were renting a house there. A house that was never really mine, in a place that was never really ours, and I was sitting in the living room writing a letter I didn't choose to write. He stood over me while I wrote it. The letter was to my brothers. It was cruel. It...
20 days ago • 2 min read
I told you last week I'd tell you what going along with it actually cost me. I've been sitting with how to say this for days. Here's where I'll start. It was my house before he was ever part of my life. I bought it years before I ever knew his name. I had a mortgage on it, the way most people do. I made the payments myself, every month, long before he came into the picture. It wasn't paid off. But it was mine to carry, mine to decide about, mine in every way that mattered. Eddie convinced me...
27 days ago • 3 min read
It started with questions. How much do you have in investments. Why isn't more of it in the bank. What if something happened tomorrow, would you be able to get to your money fast enough. Eddie asked them gently at first, the way you'd ask someone who clearly hadn't thought it through. Not pushing. Just curious. Just looking out for me. But the questions didn't stay questions for long. Get it out of there, he told me. Put it where you can actually use it. He said it the way you'd say something...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Last week I told you about a phone call with USAA. About the first time I felt something go quiet and cold in me. If you missed it, welcome anyway. You don't need last week's letter to be here for this one. After I sent it, someone who read it asked me a question. I hadn't thought to ask it myself. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think a stranger on the phone would just cave because he got loud? No policy was going to change because a man yelled. No manager was going to hand my...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
We were still just dating that weekend. New enough that I didn't have a name yet for the feeling I had afterward. My debit card had been compromised, and USAA canceled it right away, the way they're supposed to. But USAA isn't a brick and mortar bank. There was no branch to walk into. No teller to hand me twenty dollars while a new card got sorted out. For a few days, I just didn't have easy access to my own cash. It was inconvenient. That's all it was, to me. Eddie didn't see it that way. He...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
I walked in this week and there was cake. Cupcakes too. Someone had remembered it was my birthday. I didn't expect it. I'm not sure I ever do. There is a part of me that braces. That walks into a room ready for the day to be ordinary, or hard, or both. So when the day turns soft instead, it catches me off guard. But what really got me was the small bag set off to the side. Treats for Jaycee. They didn't have to think of her. She wasn't even there. But someone did. There was a plant too. I...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
There is a workshop I have been building called Before It Happens. The name says everything about what I wish someone had done for me. Before the money was gone.Before I stopped trusting my own instincts.Before I couldn't hear the people who loved me anymore.The idea is simple.Reach people before the hard thing hits.Give them something to hold onto before they need it.But the more I sit with it, the more I think the workshop is only part of the story.Because here is what I know now.The thing...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi friend, I got the news at work. An email I'd been waiting on for a long time, sitting right there in my inbox. I read it once. Then again, slower. It was good news. The kind you brace for so long that when it finally comes, you're not quite sure what to do with your hands. I could have gone home. I could have gone to our usual park, where I throw golf balls for Jaycee until my arm gives out. But none of that felt right for this. So I did something different. I picked a trail near me. Well...
2 months ago • 1 min read