Rita Arens's Blog, page 3

I'm Also Happy Janelle's Happy to Be Here

I met Janelle Hanchett in person backstage at BlogHer's Voices of the Year show, where she was preparing to read "We Don't Start Out With Needles in Our Arms."

 

She was also wearing a baby at the time. We spent about five minutes debating whether or not said baby should be worn onto the stage (I was a fan of the idea in theory but, having worn a baby myself in the past, not a fan of the reality of having a baby anywhere near a microphone in a room of 3,000 people). 

Janelle's story is a sho...

An Unfortunate Response

In 2010, I wrote a post about anorexia and Dr. Phil. Shortly after that, I wrote a response on BlogHer which seems to have been lost in the abyss. Shortly before I was laid off from SheKnows Media (which acquired BlogHer and is now being acquired by Penske Media, I transferred some of my posts to Medium on a lark. One of them was 5 Things You Should Know About Your Girlfriend With an Eating Disorder.

I've said it before: It's amazing, but I have received between 3-5 emails a week since I ori...

Don't You Give Up, Kelly Clarkson

I caught a few minutes of The Voice tonight. I haven't watched it since Christina Grimmie was killed. That was a bit of a perspective-setter about fame.

In this episode, Kelly Clarkson was having a moment. I assume from context clues that Alicia Keys has been nabbing all the hot young things to the extent it started to give Kelly a complex. She didn't even want to turn around for a fabulous voice because she said, "There's no way I will win," or something to that effect.

Oh, Kelly, I feel you...

Small

It appears to be true that we shrink as we age.

In height, I mean. And maybe our hands.

I always thought when I was a child and observed my friends' mothers (not mine, so much, because mine didn't wear a lot of makeup), that I hoped I would never become one of those people who looked completely different without makeup.

I fear I have become that woman, mostly because when I don't wear makeup, suddenly my features seem ... small.

And I wonder ... is it just our outlook that is outsized when we...

44

My birthday is next week. The little angel's is in a few months. She's not little anymore -- she'll be 14. So will this blog.

Everything I start to write I just select and delete. I'm not really sure what I want to say. It's a new year ... 2018. This year (next week), I will turn 44. My daughter in April will turn 14. My marriage in June will turn 17. 

God, the passage of time is relentless, isn't it?

We've started talking about when Lily ... I always had this grand plan of doing a great outi...

If Christmas Letters Were Truthful

Dear friends, family, and college buddies I haven't laid eyes on in twenty years:

Boy, was 2017 amazing! Hilda joined the Peace Corps after realizing she couldn't afford community college. She's currently digging latrines in Sierra Leone, which she says is beautiful as long as you don't look at the human feces or feral dogs. We have high hopes she'll wear herself out after a year and come back to join the nursing program at a nonprofit institution of higher learning.

We recently learned there...

2017: The Plunge

"Maybe, when you're in it, you just get through it, and it seems so much scarier to everyone else," she said.

"Maybe," I replied.

My friend Ann put it best: When someone tells you that you have cancer, it's like you're plunged into the deep end of the pool. Nobody can see you, nobody can help you. There's water in your eyes and your ears and your nose, and there's nothing in your world but the water; you can't see or think about anything but the water.

And then ... you hit the surface. Every...

That's Why You Have To

"I'm scared to go back there," I said, gripping the reins more tightly in my hand.

The day before the horse beneath me had too much juice. He kept trotting when I said to walk. I forgot my tight circles. And then came the cyclist out from behind on my left, and suddenly Rowyn's back legs were in the air and I was falling to the right and in my mind's eye I saw a bone breaking on the pavement below and Rowyn and Jazz taking off for the barn with my girl clinging to Jazz's back.

I think I was a...

We Go On and On

One of the weird things about letting my girl read THE OBVIOUS GAME is that she's had more of a window than is probably good and right into my teenage years. So when I came home today from my twenty-fifth high school reunion and told her about how when my classmate driving the pick-up pulling the haybale-stacked float for the big Homecoming parade circled the town square three times and then just ... drove ... it reminded her of the sled scene in my book. Stupid, and dangerous, and totally, u...

October

I realized recently that I graduated high school the same year a coworker was born.

Let's sit with that.

But then I reminded myself this brilliance was recorded when I was in first grade: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kqdJ6Cs...

So it's okay, to be old. Because every generation contributes something awesome.