Tag: advice
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How Did the Pandemic Change Your Friendships?
This post is an excerpt from my latest story for HelloGiggles, “Is This Normal? I Talk Less to My Friends and I’m Happy” Dear Is This Normal?, It’s no secret that the pandemic has changed our lives. But now, with vaccines available and everything starting to open back up, I’ve spent a long time wondering…
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The High Highs, The Low Lows, and Everything In Between
In my family, we like to do it up big. We’re busy trying to go to the moon, but we’re also contracting rare diseases that puzzle medical professionals. When I draw a timeline of my life, these high highs and low lows, these peaks and pits, they happen at exactly the same time. Some say…
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Every Day Is for Hard Work
“I want you to know that the invitation to offer your life as a living sacrifice is probably not going to feel very glamorous or heroic. It’s going to show up in the way that you love your spouse when it’s difficult. The way that you care for your children even on the long days.…
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Why We Can’t Do All the Things
This post is part of a new project that I’m working on. Visit Jess Alston’s website to learn more about the Dig Deep Podcast. I’m not the one to naturally ask, “Can I get you anything else?” I’ve learned and practiced a bit over the years, a little spit-shine technique to show just a dash of hospitality…
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M(r)s. Jogger
I spend my days watching people. Yes, I recognize that this sounds creepy, but I assure you, it’s nothing like that creepster watching kids at the playground that Netflix would turn into a documentary that goes viral. I watch with innocence and wonder, marveling and curiosity. I watch to learn how to live and breathe…
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Sorry I Ate All the Cookies
She skipped town for the weekend and left a Tupperware container on the counter filled with chocolate chip cookies. She had stayed up late one night baking them, clanging baking sheet after clanging baking sheet I heard downstairs at an unusual hour, said it was really only a recipe from the back of the chocolate…
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Needed
Somewhere deep down, we all want to feel needed here, beyond Can you count these paper clips? Way beyond Turn in your time sheets. So far beyond Pay your doctors’ bill or It’s time for your colonoscopy.
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Lessons from a Lifeguard
I overheard the teenage girl lamenting her new lifeguard duties at a quiet pool. How is lifeguarding going? Are you loving it?, asked the neighbor, who seemed expectant of reports of contentment with youthful summer bliss. Surely, the girl’s bronzed skin and luscious locks had prepared for 16 years for a job of this Baywatch caliber. It’s…
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There Are Things I Need to Tell You
My waiter, he asked how old I was in reference to the round of margaritas for the table of guac lovers, and so I replied, “27.” My friends, they turned to me quickly and corrected, “Ash, you are 28.”
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The Fear of Flying
Last night, I had two revelations: 1) I am out of Stress Relief tea, and 2) I can’t stop thinking about the young girl on the plane. She wore black chucks with low bright purple socks, hair in a high ponytail, glasses like the ones I wear before bed, and a shirt covered in…
Ashley Fenker 