Second Draft Life

 Healing rarely announces itself. It does not always arrive as a breakthrough, a revelation, or a dramatic moment when everything suddenly makes sense. More often, it happens quietly. It happens in the choices no one sees. Getting out of bed when staying there would be easier. Answering the message. Making the appointment. Setting the boundary. Trying again after disappointment. Resting without calling yourself lazy. Walking away from something that once felt impossible to leave. These moments may not look significant from the outside, but they are often where healing truly begins. We tend to imagine healing as a straight path. There is a wound, then there is recovery, and eventually there is a version of ourselves who no longer hurts. But that has never been my experience. Healing circles back. It pauses. It moves forward, then slips sideways. It brings old pain to the surface at unexpected times. It can make us feel strong one day and completely unprepared the next. Sometimes we ...

  The Wyoming wind does not ask whether you are ready. It arrives when it wants to—hard, sudden, and impossible to ignore. It rattles windows, bends grass flat against the earth, lifts dust into the air, and finds every loose edge in a roof, a fence, or a person. You learn quickly that there is no arguing with it. You brace yourself. You lean into it. You keep moving. Long before I knew the word resilience, I understood what it meant to live in a place that demanded it. Wyoming is beautiful, but it is not always gentle. The landscape is wide and exposed. There are few places to hide from the weather. The summers can be dry and relentless. The winters can feel endless. The wind can move across the plains with nothing to slow it down. Growing up here taught me that survival is often quiet. It is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is simply getting up and doing what needs to be done. It is pulling your coat tighter, checking the doors, securing what might blow away, and carrying on wit...

  No one tells you how vulnerable it feels to sit behind a table filled with books carrying your name. Writing is often private work. It happens quietly, in early mornings, late nights, stolen lunch breaks, and moments when a sentence refuses to leave you alone. For weeks, months, or even years, the story belongs almost entirely to you. Then one day, you place it on a table. You arrange the books so the covers face outward. You straighten the bookmarks. You check the price signs again, even though you already know they are correct. You wonder whether anyone will stop, whether they will pick up a book, and whether they will recognize some part of themselves inside the words you wrote. On August 8, I will be participating in the Fireweeds Festival at the Campbell County Public Library here in Gillette. I am excited, grateful, and carrying more nerves than I expected. I have attended events before. I have talked about my writing, shared poetry, and introduced people to the stories tha...