Author: Laura Roose
Integrity and Freedom from Judgement
As I’m writing this, the hearings on the newest Supreme Court judge have just finished. I purposely did not watch them… it was too much for me. Lately, I have been overwhelmed with the feeling that I’m waiting for a dream sequence to end; that I’ll wake up to a world where leaders don’t mock abuse victims, where honesty and integrity are still valuable, where character and courtesy mean something....[Read More]
45 Lessons I Didn’t Learn in School
We have all had levels of “education,” but I’ve found that I consistently learn more from what is not on the syllabus than what is. I discovered more about myself in between the lines of my formal education than I ever did sitting at a desk. A recent poll of my closest friends and relations made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I asked about their top “informal” lessons—here are some of the highlights...[Read More]
How Art Has Changed My Life
I was recently asked what experiencing a creative art taught me, if I could quantify its effect on my life, and what “good” came from it. As a self-proclaimed “arty farty” person, my first reaction is to soap box the importance of art in our culture. How it shapes us and our reality. How it’s used in marketing, film, politics, and is statistically proven as valuable for test scores and SAT’s. I ...[Read More]
Anxiety and the Little Things
Adulting is hard. There are the occasional perks—like having pie for breakfast. Recently, when our kids have asked, “how come YOU get to…and I don’t?” we’ve been using the response, “because we pay taxes.” It seems to work well. It doesn’t, however, touch the surface of explaining the level of stress and anxiety that adulting requires…sometimes pie for breakfast is the only way to get through the ...[Read More]
Healthy sex—do we know what it is?
Sex. It is everywhere, and it is a part of all of us. Having it, not having it, wishing we were having it, never having it done correctly, being addicted to it, even being paid for it. We all are classified by how we identify with one, none, or even multiple genders. It seems to pervade every layer of political discussion and color most interactions to some degree. Who we are is somewhat defined ...[Read More]
When Baggage Is My Comfort Zone
Why is it so hard to let go? I mean, I can SAY I forgive you… I can actually think I do… but then we’re all at the table for family dinner night with the extended relatives. Of course, my brother says a single thing and I am suddenly triggered as if by a hypnotist’s finger snap. Suddenly I’m 11 years old again. Everything is unfair and I see the world in a haze of emotional-vomit-tinted glasses. L...[Read More]
I’m grateful for friends who tell me I’m wrong.
When I think about my life and the people in it, I am reminded of the value of good and honest friendships. The people who are dearest to me all seem to have one thing in common—they call me out on my crap. Truth is a real thing. I try to talk to my 5-year-old about the difference between a fact and a belief. But teaching her about truth involves more than that—it’s also about being humble enough ...[Read More]
Anyone else feeling numb yet?
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m numb. There’s just…too much. Maybe it started with the Columbine shooting. Maybe it was 9/11. They seemed to compound from there. There was a loss of this generation’s cultural innocence in those early days when we saw that bad things don’t just happen to other countries but they happen here. When the September 11th attacks occurred, we were all in a state of s...[Read More]