If it seems like I’ve been writing about mistakes a lot, it’s because I feel like I’m making a lot of them and am trying my best to sift through the uneven emotions felt in their aftermath. Fortunately, I’m in good company. On my post The Value of Our Mistakes, a reader wrote: My beginning...

None of us like to fail. But some of us find it especially difficult to rebound from a mistake. We beat ourselves up for months, even years, rehashing our blunder. We ruminate about what we could have done differently. We are stuck on what we lost. However, with time, we often discover that our failures...

Last week I picked up a part-time job at a dress shop in downtown Annapolis. Some would say that this gig makes absolutely no sense. It doesn’t advance my career as a mental health writer and consultant. I have no retail experience whatsoever. My compensation as a sales associate hardly matches what I was making...

I was in fifth grade when I learned the power of heavenly signs. My parents had just separated and my mother was despondent. She was praying a novena to St. Therese the Little Flower, whom I am named after. Tradition holds that on the fifth day of the novena, the person praying will receive a...

Over the weekend, my husband and I participated in a marriage retreat. We were given many writing assignments. The last one was to answer the question “Why do I want to go on living?” The following is what I wrote. Three months ago, I sat at this same desk, in a small, private room at...