​Today I sat down to write this blog post, and almost immediately, my brain went quiet. I stared at the blinking cursor, willing an idea to float onto the screen. After five minutes of wishful thinking, I stepped away. Hours later, I tried again, only for the computer to taunt my lack of inspiration by staring blankly back at me. Finally, this evening, I settled onto the couch with the fan pointed at me and decided to dump every random thought floating through my brain into a document.
I regret to inform you that the ideas were few. However, one kept resurfacing. It was an idea that had been nagging at the back of my mind for several days, something I’ve talked about before with family and friends, though not necessarily here on my blog. It’s also something I hold near and dear, not only as an avid reader, but as a part-time extrovert.
Ironically, as I struggled to find the words, I was listening to someone read a short passage aloud. They spoke with a soft Scottish lilt, moving slowly through the words in an almost hushed cadence. The reading lasted only about five minutes, but the way they delivered it made the passage feel like more than words on a page. It made me think about the quiet, subtle power of storytelling.
Storytelling is an art that can easily be overlooked, but it can also be incredibly powerful. It’s never been limited to the words being spoken. Sometimes the truest part of a story is hidden in the pause before them, the tremble beneath them, or the soft swell of music behind them. Whatever the medium, a person’s ability to guide a reader, listener, or viewer through a story can be almost as magical as the story itself.
Earlier this week, I watched a cute miniseries called Seeking Persephone. Those of you who listen to my Billhilly Podcast, or who have spoken to me at any point this week, probably already know that. However, something about the show helped solidify this topic in my mind.
While listening to a commentary podcast featuring the cast, I learned more about several moments in which the camera focuses specifically on the male lead’s hands. When the actor portraying him was asked about that filming choice, he explained why he had chosen to lean into it and what those small movements revealed about the character.
Adam, the male lead, isn’t comfortable interacting with people, much less talking about his feelings. Though he can be harsh and even monstrous toward others, the cast and filmmakers felt it was important to show that his inability to talk about his emotions didn’t mean he lacked them. By focusing on his hands from time to time, they could reveal the turmoil he couldn’t put into words.
Sometimes, that turmoil is shown when he places a blanket over his wife and then hesitates, as though second-guessing whether he should do more to care for her. At another point, he wants to comfort her but can’t find the words, so he gently rubs her arm instead. Later, when he’s finally able to say how he feels, he softly caresses her hand, almost as though he’s using the one language that has always come more naturally to him to communicate the truth of his words.
We see that same attention to detail in other films. One of the most popular examples comes from the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Mr. Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage by offering her his hand, a small but unexpectedly intimate gesture. As he turns and walks away, the camera focuses on that hand as he flexes it slightly. The movement lasts only a moment, but it conveys so much about what the otherwise stoic character is thinking and feeling. Viewers have returned to that tiny gesture for years because it says what he cannot yet bring himself to say aloud.
Each medium has its own language for storytelling. Books allow us to step inside a character’s thoughts. In spoken storytelling, a change in pace, tone, or volume can alter the emotional temperature of a sentence. Film can linger on a hand hovering uncertainly and allow that one small movement to communicate more than an entire speech could. Each language has its place, and each does an incredible amount of work beyond the words themselves.
Maybe that’s why storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest traditions. Before we had television, podcasts, movies, or printed books, people learned the art of telling stories aloud. They preserved history, faith, family, warnings, humor, and identity by passing stories from one person to another. Our tools may have changed over the centuries, but the impulse to share hasn’t. We still gather around voices. We’ve simply replaced some of the firesides with headphones, screens, theaters, and microphones.
That same impulse is what led me to begin my Miss K’s Corner podcast during COVID. At a time when we were isolated, anxious, and separated from our ordinary routines, I reached for one of humanity’s oldest forms of connection. I sat down and read a story aloud. Since I couldn’t gather everyone into the same room, I decided to put my voice somewhere it could still reach them.
The podcast wasn’t only about the books themselves, though I began with The Chronicles of Narnia, and those stories will always hold a special place in my heart. It was also about offering companionship, continuity, and a quiet place for someone else’s mind to rest, especially for my students as they tried to navigate the enormity of that upheaval.
In the years since, I’ve allowed the podcast to take a back seat to other adventures in my life, but I’ve finally returned to it. This belief in storytelling, and in the connection it creates, has helped fuel that decision. The world may not be exactly as it was during COVID, thankfully, but my need for storytelling has never disappeared.
Every day, we’re surrounded by content designed to be consumed quickly, but stories often ask something different of us. They ask us to sit still long enough to notice the hands, hear the breath between sentences, and allow the atmosphere to gather instead of demanding that everything explain itself immediately.
I think that’s why storytelling still matters. It reminds us that not everything meaningful arrives loudly or quickly. Sometimes, understanding a person, a character, or even ourselves requires us to slow down, listen past the words, and notice what the story has been quietly showing us all along.

I have officially survived the first week of summer vacation, though I’m not quite sure I’ve hit the “vacation” portion of it yet.
So far, my introduction to summer vacation has included a large farmers’ market, my first online tutoring gig, a power outage, and the last stubborn pieces of the school year still trailing along behind me as I try to leave it behind. It has been a good start to vacation, but it has also been full and had plenty of equally chaotic moments.
The end of the school year feels a lot like stepping off a moving treadmill. Your body knows you’re allowed to slow down, but your brain hasn’t quite gotten the message yet. There are still emails to answer, things to pack up, plans to make, and leftover tasks from the year that don’t magically disappear just because the calendar says summer has arrived.
However, in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, I’ve been trying to pay attention to the small joys.
I’ve finished two books… IN A WEEK! From February/March 2025 to April 2026, I was lucky if I read three books, and even that was very half-heartedly. I’ve been journaling and writing again after months of writerly famine. I’ve also started learning macrame, which has been a surprisingly lovely little craft to settle into. There’s something calming about working with your hands, making knots, untangling yarn and cord, and slowly watching something you pictured take shape. It’s simple, but not mindless. Productive, but not frantic. Honestly, I think my brain needed that more than I realized.
And maybe that’s the thing I’m RElearning right now.
Joy doesn’t always arrive as some grand, glowing moment. Sometimes it’s just a quiet page at the end of the day. A few minutes with a pen in hand. A new knot finally making sense. A good conversation. A funny little moment at the market. A sentence that lands just right. One small thing that makes you smile before the day runs away with itself.
So that’s what I’m clinging to this week.
Not perfect rest. Not a perfectly peaceful summer, because who am I kidding? Not even some magical reset where everything slows down exactly when I need it to.
Just one or two small joys a day.

Last week, my best friend texted me about a show she’d watched and thought I’d like. Naturally, being the dutiful friend that I am, I found it and binge-watched the entire thing in one day.
As one does.
Almost immediately, we decided we needed to find and read the books the show was based on, which led to a week full of rants, outbursts, dramatic reactions, and randomly “yelled” texts that probably made perfect sense to absolutely no one else. I even ended up writing an entire compare-and-contrast review of the book versus the first season over on my Patreon, because apparently this is who I am now.
But somewhere between the show, the books, and the mildly unhinged commentary, I realized this little adventure had become about more than fictional hockey players and our ability to spiral over them. It became about friendship, trust, shared joy, and the strange little gift of letting someone else drag you into something wildly exciting without needing to be productive or profound first.
As I’ve fallen down this wonderful and weird rabbit hole online, I’ve had a realization. It takes a lot of trust to let someone else take the reins. Not just to recommend a show or a book, but to have you step into it without blinking.
Okay, if Teresa is reading this, she knows there was, in fact, a lot of blinking. But none of it came from doubting that she knew I’d like the storyline.
Hockey isn’t exactly my normal thing, but we’ve been friends long enough that she knows my tropes. She knows the themes I come back to, the kind of characters I get attached to, and the stylistic choices that usually pull me in. Because I trusted her understanding of me, I was willing to step into this world. In return, I got to add several fun, engaging stories to my reading list this year.
Oh, and I also got a few very entertaining memories of late-night and early-morning blurted texts. 😉
The process of reading these books with someone, complete with constant commentary, was something I hadn’t done in a very long time. It reminded me a little of high school lit circles, except with books I actually wanted to read, which feels like an important distinction.
A lot of the time now, I’m running from one tech task to the next, or from one classroom to another, and friendship tends to settle into the background of adult life. My work friends are there, of course, but they’re also busy doing their jobs, managing their own lives, and trying to keep up with whatever chaos has decided to introduce itself that day.
Adult friendship just looks different than it did when we were younger. Gone are the sleepovers, the long phone calls, and the kind of constant togetherness that made friendship feel like an everyday part of life. Now it often looks more like occasional texts between workloads, quick check-ins, shared memes, or messages sent when life really decides to kick someone while they’re already down.
But reading these books with Teresa reminded me of that old familiar feeling. The shared jokes. The predictions. The favorite characters. The “just wait until you get to this part” tension. The immediate need to tell someone exactly how you feel before the thought has even fully formed. It gave me back a small piece of that always-present hum of friendship, not in the same way it existed back then, but in a way that still felt comforting, familiar, and surprisingly joyful.
At the end of the day, I didn’t just watch a good show or read an addictive series with my best friend. I was reminded of why I love reading. Reading doesn’t require a formal invitation, a schedule, an emotional debrief, or a polished “public-facing” version of yourself. It’s just there. A thread of connection woven through normal days.
And maybe that’s what made this whole thing feel so good. It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I had to organize, manage, or tun into anything impressive. It was simply a friend saying, “I think you’ll like this,” and me trusting her enough to follow.
Sometimes joy really is that simple.
A book. A show. A wildly enthusiastic friend.
And a few unhinged texts set an unreasonable hours.

This time of year always carries a strange kind of tension, like everything is hanging by a taut thread and teetering on the edge of becoming something else. School is almost out, the garden is almost planted, and summer is almost here. There’s an electric feeling in the air, one made of equal parts exhaustion and hope. Everything feels stretched thin, but somehow still full of promise, as if we’re standing right on the edge of the season we’ve been working toward.
May is a funny little month in the world of education. The calendar fills up with state testing, projects, field trips, meetings, concerts, awards, cleanup days, and all the other odds and ends that get crammed into the final stretch of the school year. Everyone is tired, the school year is glacially crawling toward the finish line, and summer feels close enough to smell, but not quite close enough to sink your teeth into yet.
Students especially feel the pull of this last full month of school. They’re itching to be free, tired of the nonstop schedule of events and deadlines, and more than ready for the slower rhythm waiting on the other side. Staff feel it too, even if we’re usually too busy juggling paperwork, schedules, end-of-year loose ends, and the general chaos of May to fully admit it. There’s a sense of excitement laced with exhaustion running through the halls, and everyone seems to be operating on that special end-of-year fuel made of caffeine, stubbornness, and the promise of sleeping in someday.
The strange thing is, “almost out” somehow feels longer than the rest of the year combined. Maybe it’s because the reward is finally visible. For some, that reward is final grades, while for others, it’s a diploma that ushers them into the next chapter of their lives. For many of us, it’s simply the hope of a different pace, a little more breathing room, and days that don’t begin and end quite so tightly bound to bells, schedules, and deadlines. Summer may not be effortless, but from this side of May, it still looks like a doorway.
School isn’t the only place where the hum of anticipation hangs in the air. Around the homestead, seeds are being planted, starts are coming up, waterlines are being laid, and the weather is being watched with the kind of intensity usually reserved for courtroom dramas and playoff games. There’s a certain kind of hope tucked into this season of preparation. The garden is not much to look at yet, at least not compared to what it might become, but the potential is there in every row, every tray of starts, and every stubborn little sprout pushing its way toward the light.
Of course, anticipation doesn’t mean stillness. While we wait for plants to break through the soil, buds to appear, and the first real signs of harvest to show themselves, the to-do list keeps growing. There’s watering to keep up with, weeds to fight, rows to finish, starts to harden off, and plans that have to adjust every time the weather decides to get dramatic. The tasks never really end, but there’s something grounding about that too. The work reminds us that waiting isn’t always passive. Sometimes waiting looks like tending what we hope will grow.
That’s part of the beauty of this season. Everything feels unfinished, but nothing feels empty. School isn’t quite over, the garden isn’t quite planted, and the days haven’t quite shifted into their next rhythm. We’re standing in the tension of almost, waiting for all the things we’ve worked toward to finally arrive.
While we wait, we find little things to tide us over.
For me, that often looks like reading a series alongside my best friend, trading thoughts and reactions as we work our way through the same fictional world. There’s something comforting about having a story to return to at the end of a long day, especially when someone else is wandering through it with you. It gives the waiting a little shape and gives us something to look forward to that doesn’t require a giant amount of energy or a perfectly cleared schedule.
It can also look like binge-watching a show that lets my brain step out of the noise for a while. Not everything that grounds us has to be impressive or productive. Sometimes the thing that keeps us steady is a familiar storyline, a favorite character, or the simple relief of letting someone else’s drama take center stage for an hour instead of our own.
Other times, it looks like planning small projects that feel manageable rather than overwhelming. Not the kind that requires seventeen steps, three trips to town, and a version of myself with far more energy than I currently possess, but the small things that still offer a sense of progress. A corner to clean up, a chapter to write, a few plants to get in the ground, or a little creative idea that can actually be finished. There’s a quiet kind of pride in completing something small when so many bigger things are still hanging in the air.
Those little things don’t erase the tension of waiting, but they do soften it. They remind us that progress can happen in small pieces, rest can be found in ordinary places, and joy doesn’t always wait until everything is finished and settled before it shows up.
Maybe that’s what carries us through the almost-there seasons: the people who share the waiting with us, the stories that give us somewhere to rest, and the small, attainable things that remind us we’re still moving forward.

​I have been in a reading Sahara for over six months, and I don’t use that description lightly. This wasn’t just a short dry spell where I got busy or forgot to pick up a book for a week or two. This was months of trying to read and having absolutely nothing scratch that itch in the back of my mind.
The last book I completed was back in October, and honestly, I don’t even know if I want to count it. It was an audiobook novella by an author I usually enjoy, but it was weird. Not bad, necessarily, just not my cup of tea. Before that, I finished a reread of the first book in the Throne of Glass series back in August.
After that, nothing worked.
I tried books I thought I should enjoy. I tried books that had been sitting on my TBR. I tried waiting it out. Eventually, I just stopped trying because nothing seemed to fix the slump I’d found myself in. There comes a point where picking up another book and putting it back down starts to feel personal, like the book is judging you and your bookshelf has formed a committee about your failures.
Then I did something unthinkable. I turned to AI.
I loaded up ChatGPT, described the mood I was in, listed the kinds of books I usually enjoy, and asked it to help me find something that might pull me out of my reading slump. It gave me several cute romance recommendations. Some I had heard of. Others were completely new to me. But one shorter book caught my attention: Better Than the Movies.
I picked it up, not expecting much, and five hours later, I had finished the whole thing.
After months of barely reading, I somehow fell into a weird little binge session. It was light, sweet, nostalgic, and hopeful in a way I apparently needed more than I realized. It had that first-love feeling, the childhood neighbor dynamic, and the kind of sweetness that reminds you people can be ridiculous and still worth rooting for.
That led me to another recommendation, Love and Other Words, which had already been sitting on my TBR list. I had tried reading it before and couldn’t seem to sink my teeth into it, but this time it hit differently. It was still about love, but in a more aching, complicated way. It dealt with childhood best friends, years of separation, mistakes, grief, and that strange pull that can still exist between people who once knew each other deeply.
That’s when I started noticing the pattern.
Both books were different, but they carried a similar emotional thread. They circled around history, familiarity, first love, missed chances, and the ache of being known by someone from another season of life. I thought I was simply trying to find something good to read, but looking back, I think I was craving something softer than I realized.
Maybe my reading slump wasn’t just about being busy, tired, distracted, or emotionally attached to my phone like the rest of modern civilization. Maybe I had been reaching for the wrong kind of story.
Maybe I didn’t need something dense or complicated or impressive right then. Maybe I didn’t even need another massive fantasy world, even though fantasy is usually my bread and butter. Maybe I needed something hopeful. Something familiar. Something that reminded me of younger versions of myself and the tender, complicated ways people grow up, grow apart, and sometimes circle back around.
Sometimes my books know what I need before I do.
Romance isn’t the only genre that does that for me, though. If I’m honest, most of my reading life tends to circle around three main moods: romance, fantasy, and classics. Every now and then, another kind of book sneaks in and satisfies some oddly specific craving, but those three are the ones I return to most often. The more I think about it, the more I realize they each meet a different need.
Romance finds me when I need hope. Not necessarily grand, sweeping, dramatic hope, but the quieter kind. The kind that says people can still choose each other. That tenderness still matters. That even after misunderstandings, bad timing, stubbornness, heartbreak, or general emotional stupidity, there can still be healing.
I know romance sometimes gets dismissed as fluffy, and sure, some of it is. But sometimes that’s the point. Not every book needs to emotionally body-slam me into next Tuesday. Sometimes I want the literary equivalent of a blanket, a warm drink, and a reminder that love is still worth rooting for.
Fantasy comforts me in a completely different way.
Fantasy is my bread and butter. Those are the stories I sink into most naturally. Give me ancient magic, impossible odds, hidden heirs, terrifying creatures, complicated kingdoms, and a heroine who probably needs a nap but saves the world anyway, and I’m usually happy.
There’s comfort in those stories, but it isn’t always soft comfort. Sometimes it’s battle-worn comfort, the kind that comes with dirt on its face and a sword in its hand. In books like Throne of Glass or Fourth Wing, the world may still be complicated, but the stakes often feel clearer than they do in real life. There is good and evil. Right and wrong. Courage and cowardice. Loyalty and betrayal.
We get to watch characters face impossible things and still choose to stand, fight, protect, love, and keep going. Maybe that’s why I return to those stories so often. They make courage feel grand again. They remind me that hardship can have meaning, that broken people can still be brave, and that sometimes the smallest or most underestimated person in the room is carrying the thing that might change everything.
When real life feels messy, exhausting, or full of problems that don’t resolve neatly, fantasy gives struggle a shape. The monsters may be bigger, but at least you can usually see them coming. There’s something comforting about stepping into a world where the danger has a name, the battle has a purpose, and courage still matters.
Then there are classics, which comfort me in a quieter way.
Even when I pick up a classic I’ve never read before, there’s something familiar about it. It feels a little like stepping into an old house. The floors might creak, the furniture might not be arranged the way I’m used to, and the language might ask me to slow down and pay attention, but there’s something solid about it.
I remember the first time I read Pride and Prejudice and The Count of Monte Cristo. They were new to me, but they didn’t feel completely unfamiliar. I had already seen pieces of them everywhere. Their stories had been retold, reshaped, borrowed from, winked at, and woven into so many other books, movies, and shows that reading them felt like finally meeting the original version of someone I had heard about for years.
That’s part of the beauty of classics. They last because they understand people. They deal with love and loss, grief and revenge, pride and forgiveness, ambition and regret. They remind us that even though the world changes, people are still wrestling with many of the same things we have always wrestled with. Different clothes, different manners, different social rules, but same stubborn humanity.
Classics feel comforting because they have endured. They’re proof that stories can outlast trends, generations, and all the noise of the moment. There’s something steadying about that, especially in a world that always seems desperate to move on to the next thing.
So maybe my genre seasons aren’t random after all.
Maybe romance finds me when I need hope. Maybe fantasy finds me when I need courage. Maybe classics find me when I need to remember that people have always been people, and that stories last when they tell the truth about us.
And maybe that’s why reading slumps can be so frustrating. Sometimes we think we need to force ourselves back into the habit. We think we need discipline, a better routine, or the right book everyone else is talking about. We think if we just keep trying, eventually something will click.
Maybe sometimes that’s true. But sometimes I wonder if we don’t need to force it as much as we need to listen a little closer.
Because the books we reach for, the ones we avoid, and the ones that finally pull us back in might be telling us something. They might know we need softness before we admit we’re tired. They might know we need courage before we realize we’re discouraged. They might know we need something steady before we notice how unsettled we feel.
Sometimes my books know what I need before I do.
It’s just a matter of learning to trust them.

​This week has been one where I feel like I’m go, go, going… but at the same time I’m completely oblivious to everything happening around me. So when I was brainstorming this week’s blog, I couldn’t quite nail down what I wanted to write about.
I bounced around a few constructive blog topics, some that will hopefully be coming in the future, and a few introspective ones. But then I realized that what I really needed this week was a break from “work.” And doing anything too serious felt a little like work.
So instead… I chose to play a game with y’all.
I like books. That may be the understatement of the year, but I really do. So I thought it would be fun to play a little book game. I’ve picked five books that I’ve read and loved. I’m going to describe them in the most random ways possible, and I want you to try to guess what each one is.
I tried to stick with classics and really popular books, so hopefully you have a fighting chance.
One rule: no cheating! Don’t peek in the comments for the answers until you’ve made your guesses. Best of luck!

Everyone has an opinion about something. If you don’t believe me… hop over to Facebook or TikTok and you’ll see that firsthand while picking up a little trauma along the way.
As someone who loves reading and cinema, I have my fair share of opinions on both. And due to a DELIGHTFUL migraine, I’m keeping things shorter and more playful this week. So today, I’m sharing a few of my “unpopular” book and movie opinions.
Disclaimer… no feelings were hurt in the making of this blog post.

 HATE the book 1984.
I understand that it’s wildly relevant to the world we live in, but oh my gosh. I hated reading it in high school. I am permanently traumatized by the ancient prostitute the main character goes to visit. And the worst part? I reference this book almost every year in my welcome-back-to-school staff introduction, calling myself “Big Brother.” The irony is not lost on me.

​Romantasy is overhyped… AND unfairly dismissed. Let me explain.
I LOVE romantasy. It’s dominating publishing sales and is one of the fastest-growing fiction categories right now. I’ve read some incredibly immersive series: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, Quicksilver… the list goes on.
But from the “serious literature” crowd, I often get the sense that romantasy is dismissed as nothing more than fairy smut. And don’t get me wrong… yes. There is a lot of that.
Then you have cleaner, beautifully written series like Snow Like Ashes, An Ember in the Ashes, The Kiss of Deception, Once Upon a Broken Heart. Because of the mass flooding of fairy smut into the genre, these genuinely well-written romantasies get overlooked. That doesn’t make them any less great.
This is also what I mean by overhyped. When a genre explodes, not everything in it is excellent. Looking back at some of my initial reviews, for example Quicksilver, I didn’t love the writing style, the character arcs, or the development. It felt like the love child of several other popular series. Just because something is trending doesn’t automatically make it strong.

Which leads me to my next “unpopular opinion”…
Spicy content is overused.
Spice has become so common that it almost feels obligatory. And that’s where I struggle. When an author isn’t sure how to move a scene forward or add dimension to a relationship, spice starts to feel like filler instead of substance. I love Feyre and Rhysand, but there were times when I felt certain scenes pulled away from their development instead of strengthening it. A good story shouldn’t need that kind of patchwork.

​And this one gets me…
SHADOW DADDIES ARE COPY-PASTE.
I loved Rhysand, the original shadow daddy. Then I found Xaden, whom I also love, but who felt familiar. Then Kingfisher. Everywhere I turn in romantasy, there’s another brooding, morally gray, shadow-wielding male lead who feels like someone cloned Rhysand and tweaked a detail or two.
I think this ties into something bigger. Morally gray characters are wildly popular right now. Heroes who are upright, steady, and morally sound don’t get the same cultural love. That feels societal to me. But it’s okay to have a morally upright character. I wish we saw more of them.

​I’ll start gently.
I HATE Pretty Woman.
I don’t find it romantic. I think it romanticizes a very toxic relationship. I love Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, but I much prefer them in Runaway Bride. In Pretty Woman, he doesn’t really grow so much as he adjusts just enough to keep her from walking away. That doesn’t feel like transformation to me. I would rather watch its predecessor, My Fair Lady, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

​Another overrated movie? Titanic.
When I saw it as a kid, I was fascinated, but mostly by the historical event itself. As I got older and learned more about the actual tragedy, I realized the movie feels more sensationalized than necessary.
And as a completely separate and unnecessary side note… learning about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating life did not exactly help the rewatch experience.
And I don’t care what you say. “Draw me like one of your French girls” was completely unnecessary. They just needed another wow factor.
Side side note. I do love Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s friendship over the decades. That part is elite.

​I know a number of people who love The Office, specifically the American version. Before I say this, I want to reestablish that I love you.
But I hate The Office.
I didn’t watch it when it originally aired. As an adult, I tried. I really tried. I just can’t get into it. I love dry humor, but I didn’t find most of the jokes funny. I think I struggle most with the shaky, hand-cam filming style. The documentary-style interviews have been done brilliantly elsewhere. But I think because I didn’t connect with the characters, the format didn’t add anything for me.

​At the end of the day, these opinions live in two fields that are deeply personal and subjective. Even the ones I feel strongly about aren’t hills I’m willing to die on.
But in a world constantly shouting about heavier “unpopular opinions,” I think it’s refreshing to disagree about books and movies instead.
Sometimes the lighter debates make for the best conversations.

I started off the year stating that I wanted to romanticize my life intentionally. Almost immediately, the reality of another new year settled in, and I felt weighed down by it. As I’ve spent the last few blogs brainstorming topics and ideas, I’ve worked hard not to make those weights the center of my posts. While I love having an introspective space where people can hopefully feel seen and relate, I already spend so much time carrying those thoughts that I simply don’t want to live inside them here. At the same time, I don’t want to pretend that life is all rainbows and unicorns either.
As I took notes, wrote out half-thoughts, and quietly argued with myself, it occurred to me that I had a fairly fatal flaw in my thinking. Not talking about the troubles in my life isn’t avoidance. It’s setting a boundary with myself. And romanticizing my life isn’t pretending everything is perfect. It’s choosing to focus on the wonder of things.
To me, one of the most romantic things in the world is a love letter. I blame Jane Austen for this. Across her novels, she uses letters again and again, often at the most pivotal moments, especially when her male characters can no longer say what needs to be said out loud. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy writes to Elizabeth after she rejects him, not to persuade her, but to take responsibility and explain himself. In Persuasion, Captain Wentworth writes to Anne when he realizes he can no longer remain silent out of fear of rejection.
I think the thing I love most about letters is that they carry the weight of love, remorse, reflection, forgiveness, devotion, gratitude, friendship, to name a few, in a gentle and meaningful way. So that’s what I want this blog to be. A small collection of love letters to a few of the things that add a little wonder to my life.