Family

There is a particular heartbreak that parents experience as their children grow older. It’s a difficult, hard-to-define, push-pull kind of feeling that’s a mixture of happiness, sadness, pride, and nagging nostalgia. You raised them, worried about them, listened, taught, guided, cried, laughed, and spent decades helping them to become capable adults…

Facing a major financial reorganization after 60 comes with pressure. There’s often less time to rebuild than there would have been decades earlier, the accounts involved are more complicated, and the decisions carry more permanent weight. That’s not a reason for despair – it’s a reason to get organized, methodically and honestly, before making any […]

Nearly every woman I work with wants the same thing. She is looking for like-minded women and has no idea where they are. One of my clients put it to me this way: “Are we all just sitting in our own little globes, wishing for a friend?” The most useful thing I know about finding your people comes from an online dating profile, which is not where I expected to find it…

The funny thing about being a full-time artist is that you think everyone else is creating art too. At least planning to anyway. Fortunately, there are responsible people doing the jobs that we artists try to avoid…

It was a week when my ex-spouse was out of town. I was on a mission. I went through every file I could find in the house and made copies of statements, receipts, account documentation, everything I could find. Even though I didn’t actually file for divorce until almost a year later, sorting through the paper mound I heaped…

Hanging out with your grandkids is great for your mental and emotional health. But the question for many grandparents is, what activities can I do with them? It can be difficult to keep up with the energy of young children…

Many years ago, a little Papillon named Coco came into my life. She was six months old and had been left at a backyard breeder. At the time, I didn’t even know what a Papillon was. “What’s a Papillon?” I asked. I was told to go to the library and look it up. Yes, this was before the Internet! Coco weighted a whopping 3.5 pounds, including…

Does it start with a spark? Does it stop? Does it end? Is it tied with a ribbon and handed away, Or alive in each breath of an ordinary day? It says, “You may be you, in time and in space.” It makes room for each viewpoint, voice, and face…

There comes a time in life when you have to stop walking down a one-way street. It took me a long time to understand that. I’m in my 80s now, and I’ve outlived every close friend I ever had. I’m not talking about acquaintances or people I knew casually. I’m talking about the friends you could call at two in the morning. The people you laughed with, worked with…

I spent so much time and effort getting to the other side of divorce that I didn’t think about how the experience changed me. I am different. My life is different. I asked myself the question, “Who am I now?” Finding myself ready to embark on a life where some of my roles and identity had changed…