Tag: family
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Matriarchy
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. I’m sick. It happened in the usual way. I let myself get run down, caught a bug—and now it’s squashed me. On the third day, I lie on the sofa, unable to lift my head without a sudden rush of nausea and hardly feeling…
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The Perfect Date, Just the Three of Us
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. I had the perfect date tonight. A double-date of sorts. I’d planned it for weeks. Take my dates to my favorite restaurant, Bonefish Grill in Destin, for this special occasion. We’d dress up, wear pantyhose and heels even. The girls insisted I wear what…
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Regrets for the Life Undone
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Life in the Third Degree. “Let’s go out sometime,” he says yet again on the phone, and the earnestness in his voice says he means it even though it never happens. “I just need to get my schedule figured out so I can have some time off…,” he…
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Making Peace in Dysfunctional Families: How to Fix It and Whether You Should
Genuinely enjoying one another’s company. A family outing to Grayton Beach, with Lorna, Aislinn, Shannon, and Brian. All photos copyrighted. In every dysfunctional family, there’s at least one do-goodin’ peacemaker who is either a blood relative, an in-law, or a “concerned family friend.” Ironically, it’s usually not so much about making peace among hostile relatives…
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Having a Family Is Not an Excuse for “No”
One of my colleagues, when she was 8 months pregnant, was asked with great disdain why she would consider having a child and didn’t she know that having a family life would hurt her career as a contract negotiator? I wanted to think we’d come a lot farther in women’s equality, especially since I’ve never…
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Defining Contentment
Lots of people talk about finding contentment. It’s the holy grail of my generation and something I’ve never really considered as completely possible for me. I always have more to push toward, it seems, so I’m never really 100% content. I’m always looking inward for more or outward for more and never stagnating, and I…
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Do Something New: An Unexpected Weekend among the Trees
Remember my vow to “do something new today”? I’m not able to do something new every day, of course, or even to find the time to figure out something new to do, but I have been leaving myself open to new adventures whenever they might crop up. I did this on my last trip to…
