Thoughts from Mary Beth Harrell on meaning, connection, recovery, and the small moments of joy along the way.
I regularly ask for help from people who are smarter and wiser than me. I look for teachers. I have been in counseling frequently. I ask friends about their counselors. No, not all my friends are in counseling, Dear Reader.
Read the rest...In the spring of 1985, I sat at an outdoor café in Nurnberg with my boyfriend. Our romance was fresh, deeply passionate and full of promise. We were beautiful, eager and sincere. We’d spent so many nights walking along the city’s deep black water canals sharing our histories, our hopes, our desires. We were fearless in exposing our secrets and our shame. Our confessions were made as we passed under the incandescent streetlamps. We tested each other’s willingness to stay. Will you still love me if you know?
Read the rest...When I was 6 my mom and I would walk from our home on Norwood Ave. to the Stapelton library on Canal Street on Staten Island. Mom never learned to drive, and it was a pleasant walk. Otherwise, we rode the bus for our outings.
Read the rest...Do you know her, Dear Reader? Miss Bee is the aunt to Sheriff Andy Taylor who lives in the quaint southern town of Mayberry in the 1960s TV sitcom, the Andy Griffith Show. Aunt Bee lives with and takes care of widower Andy and his son Opie. Aunt Bee is what we used to call a “spinster”, never married, never had children, and has aged out of doing either. Is that word still in common usage, Dear Reader? Spinster? It is archaic and pejorative. It suggests a woman who has failed at being a woman.
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