Life for me over the last few months has been a series of negotiations. Do I chance walking through the grocery store and hope my knees don’t buckle? Should I lift this box and pray my back doesn’t pop regardless of the rods holding it in place? Do I join my family outside and try to beat the heat intolerance that will trigger my dysautonomia?
These are just a handful of the choices I have to make as I navigate life in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. Last year, I wrote an entire blog looking at the things I have to consider when I decide to go out, whether that’s running errands, spending time with family, or meeting up with friends. You can read that blog here: The Cost of Showing Up. In that post, I looked at what everyday activities can cost me physically.
As the last year has passed, those little fees have started to shift into bargains I’m making with my body so I don’t have to continue worrying quite so much about the cost of participating with my family and friends or doing the things I love and enjoy. If there’s one thing the last year has taught me, it’s that the cost isn’t always attached to big events. Sometimes it’s woven into the smallest decisions of my day.
Those are the bargains I find myself making more often now. Not necessarily about whether I participate, but about how I do it. I’m learning that sometimes keeping my independence means changing the way I move through something rather than forcing my body to do it the way it always has, or the way I feel it should.
The biggest demand my body has been making lately is that I use my wheelchair more often. As I’ve been walking through grocery stores, navigating farmers’ markets, and zipping around school buildings, I’ve begun experiencing more pain in my lower back that, in turn, has been affecting my legs with numbness, shooting pains, or a delay in responsiveness. So when excessive walking is required, especially in public places where a sudden buckle or misstep carries its own risks, I’ve started defaulting to my wheelchair.
There are also things I’m finding myself asking for help with much quicker than I used to. Cleaning up my classroom, for example, involved not only a lot of walking, but lifting, reaching, and repetitive movements. When spreading those tasks over a stretch of time either didn’t do the trick or simply wasn’t an option because of time restrictions, I had to be more willing to ask for help.
The reality of my body’s changing limitations is that things that used to feel normal or automatic are becoming things I have to “check” with my body first. And more and more frequently, it tells me no.
For someone who values my independence, that can feel like theft. Growing up with a disability, you get accustomed to a certain level of humility. It’s inevitable when your body regularly stops working in front of other people. But when your body starts changing the terms and conditions on you, even the pride you’ve managed to hold onto can feel challenged.
I don’t like asking for help. I don’t like having to sit down while other people work around me. I don’t particularly enjoy using my wheelchair in public and then watching people stare when I stand up to get out of it, as if mobility has to be all or nothing in order to make sense. These small practical concessions can feel degrading, even when I know they’re also the things helping me hold onto the independence I’m so afraid of losing.
That’s probably the hardest part of the bargain.
My biggest fear as my body starts demanding more from me is that people will begin trusting me with less, or that opportunities will quietly be handed to someone whose body doesn’t require the same accommodations. I can’t control whether people make those assumptions. What I can control is how I respond to the changing terms my body keeps handing me.
So I’m learning to bargain differently.
I’m learning that adaptation doesn’t always look like doing less. Sometimes it looks like finding a different way to get the same work done. I lean heavily on my family, friends, and support team, as well as technology, organization, and whatever other resources I have available to make tasks more manageable and to save my body for the things that actually require me to physically be there. If a tool can cut out unnecessary steps (physical or otherwise), reduce repetitive motion, or help me work smarter instead of harder, I’m going to use it.
There’s a grief in realizing that something you once did without thinking may now require planning, help, or a completely different approach. I don’t think adapting makes that grief disappear. I’m starting to accept that both things can be true at once. I can hate that the terms have changed and still figure out how to live within the new ones.
The wheelchair, the extra set of hands, the break I didn’t want to take, or the task I choose to approach another way aren’t necessarily signs that I’m losing ground. Sometimes they’re the very things that let me keep doing the work, spending time with the people I love, and showing up for the parts of life that matter to me.
I may not like the negotiations. I may grumble through more than a few of them. But if my body insists on changing the rules, then I suppose I’ll just have to keep finding new ways to play the game.

​I’ve been doing some mental juggling lately that makes it hard for me to focus on everything all at once. The nagging worry in the back of my head, as a self-proclaimed perfectionist at times, is that I’ll accidentally overlook something in my attempt to keep everything up. To keep that from happening, I sometimes have to be creative in how I keep things organized or how I approach tasks. I love technology in regard to how it can help us get more done or help us build on our strengths.
It was as I was sitting in my truck this morning, mentally limping along and trying to figure out what I wanted to write this week, that I decided to use the technology at my disposal. I pulled out my phone and opened ChatGPT. Now, before I have anyone audibly gasp at the audacity of me using this tool, I promise I haven’t handed over the keys to my brain just yet. I understand that people are very torn on this tool and on AI in general. However, as I tell my family, coworkers, and students, I don’t foresee this technology going away anytime soon, so people may as well learn how to use it appropriately.
Anywho, I opened ChatGPT and began chatting with it. For this particular brainstorming session, I decided to use the voice model and have a spoken discussion. I began by declaring that I had no spark of an idea, so I just wanted to talk and see if anything jumped out. So we did. We talked about getting ready for our upcoming farmers’ market, the books I’ve been reading, and the movies I’ve been watching. Inevitably, we ended up talking about the fast-approaching beginning of the school year. I brought up that I’d like to support staff in becoming more comfortable with AI because it feels irresponsible to me that we aren’t preparing students to navigate a world with AI or teaching them that there are responsible ways to use this resource.
It was during this part of the conversation that we meandered through various ways I could support staff, and ChatGPT suggested that I start by assessing how I use it. I humorously pointed out that I was currently just rambling at it when a thought occurred to me. A few years back, when I taught the TEALS program in our school, one of the things they taught us was the “rubber ducky” method. Basically, the idea is that we often process things better when we speak out loud. It doesn’t necessarily have to be to anybody, and we don’t automatically need feedback, but simply talking through a problem can allow our brains to connect dots differently and come to conclusions we might not have reached while thinking quietly to ourselves, or at least not as quickly.
I’ve used ChatGPT long enough that, for the most part, I generally like the advice or help it gives. However, sometimes simply having to sit down, organize my thoughts, and articulate them is enough for me to work my way back to the solution without too much assistance from it. This rubber ducky method can be amplified, not necessarily because of the coding and algorithms behind ChatGPT, but because, in order for those components to work to our advantage, we have to be able to string together our thoughts and articulate them clearly. Sometimes that little bit of extra effort is all the clarity we need.
Another way I use AI is when I’m learning new coding techniques for systems of my own. Recently, I decided to redo my Miss K’s Help Desk Ticket system at school. To help me keep track of technology requests, I have a Google Form that students and staff can fill out. Me being, well, me, I didn’t want them to send a request off into what probably felt like the void, never knowing whether it had actually reached anyone. When I originally created the system, I coded a simple email template and used a third-party extension to automatically generate a ticket for both me and the person submitting the request. Over the years, however, the tickets began to look dated, and the extension changed just enough that part of the information stopped appearing altogether. That’s not particularly helpful when the missing information is what I need to figure out how to help someone.
I wanted to update the system without continuing to depend on a third-party extension, so I did what most of us do when we have a problem and only a vague idea of how to solve it: I searched Google. Again and again, I kept coming back to the most obvious answer, Google Apps Script. Until this past year, I’d had only a limited understanding of JavaScript, the coding language used by Google Apps Script, and even less knowledge of how to build and implement a script of my own. I searched for examples and found plenty of useful tools, but most of them were either designed for generic purposes or solving problems unrelated to mine. Eventually, I turned to ChatGPT, or Codex, to be more precise.
Over the course of an evening, I outlined what I wanted my Help Desk Ticket system to accomplish and began working through how each piece would function. ChatGPT and I went back and forth over its features and functionality. It suggested a few small changes that would make the form more useful, along with a few others that I decided weren’t necessary for a district as small as mine. As I built the script, I used ChatGPT to help me understand how the JavaScript I was writing needed to be structured and implemented within Google Apps Script. When I ran into problems, it helped me troubleshoot them, explain why something wasn’t working, and think through different ways to organize the functions. I found it genuinely riveting to design and code a system around my own needs while learning the platform through practice. The finished product was still built from my ideas, decisions, and understanding, but ChatGPT was able to turn the process into a tutorial designed specifically around what I was trying to accomplish, making the material far easier to understand than a set of generic instructions ever could have.
A newer and surprisingly helpful way I’ve found to use ChatGPT is through scheduled reminders, check-ins, and updates. Within ChatGPT, you can ask it to send you certain things at scheduled times, whether that’s a simple “How are you doing?” to remind you to assess yourself or a briefing on topics relevant to your life. At the moment, I have three scheduled chats set up, each designed to help me be a little more intentional in an area where my attention can easily become scattered.
The first is a series of check-ins throughout my day. They aren’t so much opportunities for me to check in with ChatGPT as they are reminders to check in with myself. At different points, it might ask, “What’s your number one priority today?” or “Where are you on the spoon scale?” They’re simple questions, but they make me pause long enough to notice how I’m actually doing instead of charging blindly into the next task. If I answer that my priority is finishing a particular project, it can refer back to that answer later and ask whether I’ve made progress. For someone like me, who can become a little scatterbrained when technology tasks start hitting the fan, that small interruption helps me step out of the chaos and return to what I’d already decided mattered most. ChatGPT doesn’t determine my priorities or enforce my boundaries. It simply helps me remember the ones I chose before the day became noisy.
The second scheduled chat is what I call my “Daily Interest Briefing.” I gave it a collection of topics that either interest me or directly affect my work, including books, movies, technology, education, and Washington State news. I can continue shaping the briefing as my interests and responsibilities change, which makes it feel far more relevant than scrolling through a generic newsfeed and hoping something useful appears. As I begin shifting back into a school-year mindset, I especially appreciate that the briefing does more than list headlines. It helps me consider how developments in education or technology might affect my job, support staff and students, or be useful in one of my classrooms. It doesn’t replace my curiosity or decide what deserves my attention. It helps clear away some of the searching so I have more energy to think about what the information actually means for the people I serve.
The third and final scheduled chat I’ve set up recently is my “Daily Kindness Idea.” As I step into the ASB Advisor role, I keep thinking about some of the beautifully simple things previous coworkers have done to help both students and staff feel seen. While I’d love to boast that I’m a black belt in kindness, anyone who knows me knows that’s not quite the truth. I’m only a brown belt. Regardless of our kindness prowess, though, all of us can learn to be a little kinder. This daily reminder feels almost like a small morning challenge. Yesterday’s idea was simple: “Bring someone a drink without being asked. When you hand it to them, don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s a tiny act that quietly says, ‘I was thinking about you.’” Every day is already filled with opportunities for tiny kindnesses, but the reminder encourages me to make at least one of them intentional, especially on the days when kindness doesn’t come as naturally.
None of these scheduled chats can do the human part for me. They can’t decide what matters most in my life, genuinely care about the people around me, or walk into school and make someone feel seen. What they can do is cut through the noise long enough to remind me of the person I want to be. They help me pause, refocus, remain curious, and act with intention. In that way, the technology isn’t replacing the “us” in the work. It’s helping create more room for us to show up in it.
I understand why people worry that tools like ChatGPT might remove the human element from our work because, used carelessly, they certainly can. They can become a shortcut around learning, creativity, judgment, or even the uncomfortable but important process of sitting with our own thoughts. But I don’t think that has to be their role. To me, the more important question isn’t simply whether we use AI, but what we’re asking it to do. Is it helping us step away from the work that requires our voice, experience, and judgment, or is it helping clear enough space for us to bring more of ourselves to it?
This morning, ChatGPT didn’t decide what I believed or write this post for me. It gave my tired, scattered thoughts somewhere to land until I could finally hear the idea underneath them. The Help Desk system still required my vision, decisions, and growing understanding of the code. A reminder about kindness still requires me to notice another person and choose to act. Technology can organize, prompt, explain, and assist, but it can’t supply the part of the work that comes from who we are.
Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to ask technology to become more human. Maybe it should be to use technology in ways that leave us with more time, energy, and attention to be human ourselves. It shouldn’t replace the “us” in our work. At its best, it can help clear a path back to it.

With the start of another school year just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about the word Ohana. Most of us are familiar with the definition: family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. It’s a beautiful idea. It looks lovely printed on signs, included in mission statements, or spoken at the beginning of a new year. But I think it’s important to realize that calling ourselves an Ohana and creating a place where people genuinely feel that they belong are not necessarily the same thing.
As I’ve thought about what I want Ohana to mean to a new generation of students, and even staff, I’ve continued to come back to one idea that I want to place at the center of this entire mentality shift: We are all responsible for how it feels to belong. But what does it actually mean to create that kind of belonging?
First, we have to understand what it means to belong. More often than not, we treat belonging as something a place either gives or withholds. In reality, it’s an atmosphere continually being shaped by the people within it. It’s built through all of the small, seemingly insignificant interactions we have with one another. It’s the way we enter a building and how we welcome others into that space. Ohana sounds pretty, but saying it isn’t enough to make it a reality. We can’t simply claim that we’re an Ohana. We have to practice it. We have to say the right words and then follow those words with genuine, everyday behavior. Sometimes, that takes real work and effort.
Creating that kind of Ohana doesn’t require everyone to be identical, like the same things, or agree about everything. It doesn’t mean there will never be friction or conflict. Belonging means making an effort to see one another, to hear each other’s thoughts and ideas, to make room for questions without judgment, and to respectfully disagree without making someone feel like they’re no longer welcome. It means showing people the same respect whether they’re in the room or not.
Even when we genuinely belong, every room will not always feel comfortable. Growth, honesty, and accountability can all be uncomfortable. Belonging doesn’t eliminate that discomfort, but it does mean discomfort isn’t used to humiliate, isolate, or remind someone that their place among us is conditional or somehow less than.
It’s easy to create belonging for people who are cheerful, helpful, agreeable, and easy to understand. The real test comes when someone is struggling, makes a mistake, needs extra patience, or doesn’t naturally fit into the group. That can feel especially difficult in a school of only 30 students, where there may not be another group to gravitate toward or another circle where someone fits more easily. We have to be intentional about making room for one another.
That’s where the extra effort comes in. We have to ask ourselves regularly: Do we still make room for people when they don’t contribute in the same way as everyone else? Do we offer grace without removing accountability? Are we allowing someone to grow beyond their worst moment? If someone belongs only when they serve a purpose, remain agreeable, or are easy to include, are we genuinely helping them belong? Or are they only welcome as long as they meet certain conditions?
Of course, recognizing that extra effort’s needed doesn’t mean it should fall to one person. Everyone contributes to a culture, but people with authority, influence, or social power carry a greater responsibility because their behavior affects more people, often more directly. When those people aren’t actively supporting change, growth can feel like an uphill battle. One person cannot single-handedly build, reinforce, or fuel a healthy culture, but one person can make that work significantly harder for everyone else.
It’s one of my favorite things about the team I’m a part of at my school. The responsibility for Ohana and belonging doesn’t fall to any one of us. It belongs to all of us. We’re a family, and we’re responsible for how we nurture that Ohana together.
And while Ohana is a word we use often at school, that shared responsibility follows us into every community we’re a part of. We may not control the entire climate of every family, workplace, church, school, or community we enter. We can’t carry the whole culture alone, and we can’t guarantee that everyone will always feel happy or comfortable. But we can pay attention to the weather we bring with us.
That’s the responsibility of Ohana. Not to make everyone the same. Not to keep everyone happy. It’s to remember that our presence helps shape the experience of everyone around us. Ohana isn’t simply the promise that nobody gets left behind. It’s the daily decision to create a place where people know they genuinely belong.
Because we are all responsible for how it feels to belong somewhere.

It’s hard to watch something or someone we love fall apart. It might be a community, a workplace, or a relationship close to us. The cause may be as obvious as a change in leadership or as subtle as a shift in perspective. While the circumstances may look different for everyone reading this, most of us have experienced some version of it.
For some, the immediate response is a call to arms. They see something wrong, but they also see something worth saving. So they compensate. They work harder, smooth over the rough edges, absorb responsibilities that were never meant to be theirs, and quietly convince themselves that if they stop, everything will fall apart.
This is where I tend to stand. If I try a little harder, if I give a little more of myself, then maybe everything will go back to “normal.” But in moments of calm and clarity, I find myself wondering: At what point does helping become enabling? If I’m constantly bending over backward for someone, there’s always that nagging question in the back of my mind: Did they ever try to meet me halfway? Sometimes people genuinely do want to repair the problem, the relationship, or the situation. Other times, we find ourselves carrying burdens that were never ours to carry alone.
The consequences of that can be just as damaging as the original problem because nothing is actually being resolved. Instead, our efforts may shield someone from the hard work they need to do, or at least share in. Sometimes the cracks need to remain visible before the people with the power to repair them will act. As difficult as that may be to accept, constantly covering the damage can make it easier for everyone else to ignore how serious the problem has become.
Once we’ve taken on the role of fixer, boundaries become essential. The important thing to remember is that boundaries aren’t big neon signs announcing that we’ve stopped caring. Quite the opposite. They mean we’ve learned to recognize value on a larger scale: the value of partnership and teamwork, the value of the overall health of a situation, and the value of ourselves, our limits, and the things we can and cannot control. There is still so much we can do without sacrificing ourselves to keep an unhealthy system or relationship functioning.
Sometimes setting boundaries may mean severing ties and prioritizing our mental, physical, or emotional health over a broken or unhealthy situation. Whether we leave or stay, there is often grief. Grief for a better time. Grief for the version of ourselves that existed before things changed. Grief for the time and energy we invested, especially when we begin to wonder whether any of it mattered. Walking away doesn’t erase the love, and staying doesn’t require pretending the loss isn’t real.
However we choose to move through these experiences, we can allow them to shape us without allowing them to consume us. Sometimes that means recognizing warning signs earlier. Sometimes it means setting boundaries that allow us to become healthy helpers instead of exhausted rescuers. Sometimes it means learning how to advocate more clearly for the things and people we love. And sometimes the most constructive outcome is becoming someone who will never make another person feel the way we were made to feel.
Growth can take all kinds of forms. It can look like trusting ourselves sooner, resting without guilt, choosing healthier environments and relationships, or simply believing that our worth isn’t measured by how much damage we can absorb. Not every painful experience has to become a grand lesson or a new mission. Sometimes the growth is quieter than that. Sometimes it’s simply knowing ourselves better and carrying that knowledge into whatever comes next.
Faithfulness isn’t endlessly holding together something someone else is determined to dismantle. It can mean staying and speaking clearly. It can mean stepping back so the truth can finally be seen. It may mean leaving, grieving, and carrying the best of what we loved into whatever comes next. We may not always be able to save what we love or repair what someone else is breaking, but we can choose what we carry forward and what we finally set down.

​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.

Many of us have seen the video online where The Star-Spangled Banner is explained line by line. In the background, a dramatized soundtrack plays with the sounds of cannon fire, making the familiar words feel heavier than they usually do. If you haven’t, I’ve included it below.
For many people, myself included, that simple depiction of our national anthem causes chills. It makes us stop and listen differently. It reminds us that this song wasn’t written as background music for sporting events, school assemblies, rodeos, graduations, or small-town parades. Before it became familiar, it was born out of fear, uncertainty, and hope. It came from a long night of waiting to see whether the flag, and everything it represented, had survived the impossible.
At the end of the day, The Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t begin with a victory cry. It begins with a question.
In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem called The Defence of Fort McHenry after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. Key had been detained aboard a British ship during the attack, unable to do anything but watch as the fort was fired upon through the night. Fort McHenry wasn’t some distant symbol in that moment. It was a real place, filled with real men standing guard over Baltimore Harbor, holding the line while the city behind them waited.
For hours, cannon fire filled the darkness. Smoke, noise, fear, and uncertainty hung over the harbor. From where Key watched, there was no way to know what was happening inside the fort or how much longer it could withstand the assault. The flag wasn’t just a symbol in that moment. Lowering it would have meant surrender, and as long as it remained in the sky, Fort McHenry was still holding the line. Every burst of light through the smoke was a chance to search for it. Every passing hour carried the same unanswered question. No one knew what morning would bring. No one knew whether the fort would survive. No one knew whether the men inside could endure another hour. And no one knew whether the flag would still be there when the sun rose.
But then dawn broke, and to the surprise of those watching, Fort McHenry had not fallen. The American flag still flew. That sight inspired Key’s poem, which was later set to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven and eventually became the song we now know as our national anthem.
Before our anthem became ceremonial, before it was played while crowds stood with hands over hearts, before it became something many of us could recite without thinking, it was a question asked after a long night that was expected to end one way. Is the flag still there? Is the country still standing? Was the sacrifice enough?
At its core, this song captures the moment between fear and relief. It’s not just about a flag. It’s about what that flag meant to the people watching for it. It meant endurance. It meant resistance. It meant hope when hope probably seemed foolish. It meant that the fight wasn’t over. It meant that the people inside that fort had held their ground. It meant that, at least for one more morning, freedom hadn’t been surrendered.
I think that is part of why the anthem still matters. It asks us to remember that freedom has always come at a cost, and that the responsibility of preserving it didn’t end with the people who came before us. The flag still flying over Fort McHenry wasn’t simply a pretty image at sunrise. It was proof of courage, sacrifice, and perseverance. It was a sign that the people defending it had refused to give up, even when the night was long and the outcome was uncertain.
Today, a new question often rises around this song: why should I stand? We stand because this song reminds us that freedom hasn’t always been inevitable. People fought, bled, prayed, waited, endured, and died so that the flag could still be there in the morning. We stand because someone had to hold the line before we ever had the privilege of living under the freedoms they protected.
We stand because men and women have carried the weight of this country through war, hardship, fear, grief, and sacrifice. Some came home changed. Some will never be held by their loved ones again. Some served in uniforms on battlefields, ships, bases, and foreign soil. Others served in quieter ways, building communities, raising families, teaching children, tending farms, running businesses, caring for neighbors, and protecting the values they hoped would outlive them.
Standing for the anthem is one small way to honor that inheritance. It is a way of saying that we remember. It is a way of acknowledging that the freedoms we enjoy weren’t handed to us lightly. They were defended by people who had families, homes, dreams, fears, and futures of their own, and many of them laid those things down for the sake of something bigger than themselves.
The flag represents both memory and responsibility. It reminds us of what has been given, but it also asks what we are willing to do with what we have inherited. Freedom is not something we should treat casually simply because we were born into it. It is something to be respected, protected, and passed on with care.
Honoring those who fought for this country doesn’t have to be performative. It doesn’t have to be loud. It doesn’t have to be wrapped in political arguments or social media outrage. It can be simple and sincere. It can look like standing respectfully when the anthem plays. It can look like teaching the history behind the song instead of letting the words become routine. It can look like remembering the cost of freedom before we complain about the inconvenience of responsibility.
It can look like caring for our communities, voting thoughtfully, speaking with courage, serving where we are needed, and refusing to take our freedoms for granted. It can look like living in a way that makes the sacrifices of others mean something.
Because the question in the anthem was never only about whether the flag survived one night over Fort McHenry. It is still a question for us. After the fireworks fade, after the music ends, after the holiday passes and life returns to normal, the question remains: is the flag still there? And maybe, even more importantly, are we still willing to honor what it cost?

​I had never heard the term “love language” until I was out of high school. Once I did, though, the idea made sense to me. The thought that people give and receive love in different ways felt simple, but also deeply accurate. At first, I thought love languages were mostly romantic. Something meant for couples. Something soft and candlelit and probably found in the relationship section of a bookstore.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that isn’t true.
Love languages show up everywhere. They show up in friendships, family, work relationships, community, and even in the ways we care for people we may not know all that well. They show up in the meals people bring, the texts people send, the time people make, the little things people remember, and the quiet ways they say, “I see you,” without always using those exact words.
It took me even longer to realize that the way a person gives love isn’t always the same as the way they receive it.
When I first started thinking about this post, I was fairly certain my love language across the board was quality time. Honestly, that still feels mostly true. My grandpa set the standard for that one. No matter what he was doing, you knew how much he loved you because he would stop what he was doing and spend time with you. Sometimes that meant sitting together watching cow auctions on cable. Sometimes that meant talking, even about absolutely nothing. Sometimes that meant working alongside him while he did whatever needed doing.
It didn’t have to be fancy. It didn’t have to be planned. It didn’t have to look like much from the outside.
But it felt like love.
That is one of the earliest and most vivid examples of love I can remember. Not love as a grand gesture or a dramatic speech, but love as presence. Love as making room. Love as letting someone exist beside you and making them feel like their presence was not only welcomed, but wanted.
As I started outlining this post, though, I realized I needed to separate the way I receive love from the way I give it.
Most days, the way I feel the most loved and most seen is when people choose to spend time with me. Even if it’s simple. Even if we’re sitting in the same room doing completely different things. There is something deeply touching about knowing your presence alone can bring someone comfort and make them feel at ease. To me, that feels incredibly intimate and personal.
Maybe that’s because my grandpa taught me that love doesn’t always have to announce itself loudly. Sometimes love looks like pulling up a chair. Sometimes it looks like staying a little longer. Sometimes it looks like saying nothing at all, but choosing to be there anyway.
In a similar way, though on a slightly quieter level, I do like words of affirmation.
To be specific, I like genuine and weighty words of affirmation.
Let me say upfront, I don’t always do well with compliments. I’ve never been especially good at receiving them. Something about them can make me nervous, especially when they’re vague. Phrases like “Oh my goodness, you’re amazing” are kind, and I know they’re usually meant well, but they don’t always land with me. Sometimes they feel too broad to know what to do with. Too shiny. Too easy to say.
But specific words? Those matter.
Words like “You matter to me,” “I didn’t forget about you,” “I noticed how hard you tried,” or “I’m glad you’re here” carry weight. They feel rooted in something real. They have the same quiet intimacy as quality time because they make me feel remembered, chosen, and seen.
Because of the way my grandpa’s time made me feel seen and comforted, quality time is also one of the main ways I try to give love. I know what it feels like to have someone make room for you, so I try to do that for the people I care about. I try to show up. I try to listen. I try to be present, even when life is busy and messy and full of a thousand tiny things demanding attention.
Outside of quality time, though, I think one of the biggest ways I give love is through acts of service.
I love being able to notice the weight someone else is carrying and, when I can, help ease it a little. I like fixing the thing, making the list, bringing the food, solving the problem, helping with the task, or stepping in where I see a need. Not because I think I can save everyone from everything, but because I know how heavy life can get. If I can take even a small piece of that weight off someone I love, I want to.
I don’t always feel like I can do that to the extent I wish I could. Sometimes my own limits get in the way. Sometimes I see the burden, but I can’t fully lift it. That part is frustrating because, if I love you, my instinct is to help. I want to make the thing easier. I want to take one problem off the pile. I want to be useful in a way that says, “You don’t have to carry all of this by yourself.”
Maybe that’s what I keep coming back to with love languages. They aren’t just cute little personality categories. They’re the ways we try to say the things that don’t always come out neatly. They’re the way we say, “I’m here.” “I see you.” “You matter.” “I thought of you.” “I noticed.” “I didn’t forget.”
For me, love has always felt the most real in the ordinary moments. Sitting beside someone. Making room for them. Helping with the thing. Remembering the detail. Showing up when it would be easier not to. It doesn’t have to be dramatic to matter. In fact, most of the love that shaped me best wasn’t dramatic at all. It was steady. It was practical. It stayed.

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.

Another school year is in the bag!
And mercy, what a year it has been.
Like most years, it came with its share of highs and lows, but some of those lows felt awfully loud while we were standing in the middle of them. There were days that felt heavy, days that felt messy, and days where it seemed like we were all just trying to keep the wheels on the wagon long enough to make it to the next bell.
But we did.
If I had to choose one word for this school year, it would be resilience.
I’m beyond proud of each and every one of my coworkers who kept showing up, kept caring, kept problem-solving, kept laughing when we could, and kept moving forward when things felt harder than they should have. We met challenge after challenge head-on, often together, and often when it felt like the odds were stacked against us.
That doesn’t mean it was easy. It doesn’t mean we handled every moment perfectly. It just means we didn’t quit when things got hard, and that counts for a whole lot.
As we head into summer, I hope every single one of my coworkers gets some much-needed rest. I hope you sleep in, sit outside, drink your coffee while it’s still hot, read a book, take a nap, ignore your alarm clock, and remember that you’re allowed to breathe again.
I’m so proud of us. We made it through the year, and we did it together.

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.