When I was a kid, I had this friend who was convinced that she could see ghosts. She would tell me that ghosts whisper memories to her and that every once in a while when she least expected it, she would experience a strange sensation of having lived a moment before.

“Sarah, this is so weird,” she would say. “But I feel like I know this moment, like, I lived it before. I think the ghosts are reminding me of one of my past lives.”

What’s more, though, she was pretty sure that this phenomenon meant that she could tell…

One time, when I was in the third or fourth grade, my little sister and I were waiting at the school bus stop on a street corner with a group of neighborhood kids. As we waited for the bright yellow bus to round the corner onto our street, an older boy who was a few grades above me took his backpack and shoved my sister to the ground. Then he laughed. The kids got very quiet and quickly stepped back, waiting to see how this confrontation would unfold.

It has been over 30 years since this scuffle transpired, and so…

Mix one cup apple cider vinegar, one cup sugar, and one cup fruit. Seal. Shake. Rest on counter for four days. Open, add two tablespoons over ice, cover with sparkling…

There was another story of a woman who claims she had no idea that she was pregnant, giving birth on an airplane over the Pacific recently. Video footage of the passengers erupting in applause made its way around TikTok and while everyone was delighted by the happy story, I was perplexed. The woman claimed she didn’t know she was expecting and if I’m being honest, I find that hard to believe.

I cannot possibly be the only person who reads a story like this and says, “Nope. No way that lady didn’t know she was pregnant.” But here I…

A few months ago, I wrote this piece on what science says about parents who yell. It was directly inspired by my utter frustration with my children because no matter what I tried to do to get them to listen to me, our communication would inevitably devolve into a yelling match over screentime or chores.

Yelling at my kids doesn’t feel good, and it has never solved any problems, so why was that my default method of parenting? And if science was telling me that yelling is considered as harmful as hitting, how much damage was I causing my family…

It’s a Saturday afternoon and I am in the kitchen looking up recipes on Pinterest for “easy kid-friendly dinners” and I come across a healthy version of McDonald’s chicken nuggets. Score! I have all the ingredients and the time so, I whip up a batch of golden, baked (not fried) nuggets that I used ninja cookie cutters to shape. This will win over my kids, I tell myself. But when I serve dinner only one of my three kids is happy. The other two? …

I’m not sure when I first read or heard the mantra, “it’s none of your business what others think of you,” but I can tell you that it has been popping up in my newsfeed for a while now. I hear it on TikTok. I see it on memes on Instagram. I listened to an author the other day talking about her writing process on some podcast, and she mentioned it. It seems to me that the universe truly wants me to drill the meaning behind these words into my head.

“It’s none of my business what others think of…

The past 15 months of living through a pandemic have taught me many, many lessons about what is essential in life. Reading books instead of scrolling Instagram ranks pretty high. But the one lesson that sticks out is how safe and relieved I feel to have a fully stocked pandemic pantry and freezer.

Not being able to go to the grocery store during some of the worst months of the pandemic sent fear through me. We ran out of disinfectant when the news told us that we had to wipe down our food or get sick, but no local or…