Life feels particularly complicated right now, and I’ve made the tough decision to pause paid subscriptions and take an indefinite break from writing this newsletter. One piece of advice for tumultuous times is to avoid making big decisions or commitments, and I’m going to practice that here.

I may return one day with fresh perspectives and lessons to share. I might not. I’m keeping my options open.

It’s interesting to navigate a somewhat public, deeply personal newsletter like My Sweet Dumb Brain. It’s a privilege to write about my own experiences in a way that allows readers to find their own connections and takeaways.

But it can also be deeply confusing — figuring out what I’m willing to share and what I want to keep private; understanding the implications, for myself and others, of being candid and transparent; determining what, if anything, I owe my readers.

Some of the people who read this newsletter are near and dear to me. Others are strangers. Many of those strangers are akin to friends — people who have been reading My Sweet Dumb Brain for a long time. And some of you are brand new. (Hi! Sorry!!)

Figuring out what to share with such a broad audience can be challenging under normal circumstances. Most of the time, that challenge is creatively stimulating. Right now, it feels like a nightmare.

No matter what camp you fall in, I’ll miss writing to you. More than anything else, this newsletter has been a balm in hard times.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting and liking and sharing. Thank you for participating in Hope-Mail, setting intentions, and following all the ups and downs of these past eight years. Thank you for believing that there are more highs to come, even after a spectacularly low low.

(I might need you to keep reminding me of that last one.)

Keep living your own wonderfully complicated lives, and be gentle with yourselves as you navigate all of its twists and turns.

And remember: there are more highs to come.

With gratitude,
KHG

Are you tired of me vaguely alluding to a hard time? Are you wondering what the heck is going on?

Me too.

I don’t have the answers you’re looking for today. But I do have a lesson to share from the past few days: You can’t do hard things alone.

That’s especially true when you’re going through the kind of hard time you can’t quite yet find the words for — except with a few trusted friends and family members.

People want to help. There’s nothing quite as frustrating as knowing someone you love is going through a hard time and not being able to support that person.

But asking for, giving, and receiving help can be challenging. Trust me: I would know. Thankfully, I’ve learned a few tips over the years.

If you’re the one going through the hard time:

• Tell someone. Or a few someones. You don’t have to share everything, but you can be honest about needing a little extra support.

• Think about what exactly you need help with. A meal for the week? A message to be proofread? A garden to be tended to? Delegating these tasks can help you get the support you need — and help other people know exactly what to do. If doing that feels daunting, you can ask a friend to come over and help list everything that’s overwhelming you. Then the two of you can brainstorm about who could help with what.

• Seek professional help, too. I’m aware that therapy is expensive and finding a therapist can be daunting. But there are some times in life when therapy can be priceless. If you can make it work financially and logistically, it’s definitely worth a shot.

• Stop telling yourself you’re a burden. That narrative helps no one. We are wired to help other people. Don’t deny someone the joy and purpose of supporting you.

If you know someone going through a hard time:

• “How can I help?” can be a difficult question to answer. Instead, offer a specific kind of help. One of my favorite offers last week came from a friend who texted me that she’d made a big batch of chili with lots of leftovers. Could she drop some off on my porch? That was an easy (and delicious!) offer to accept.

• No-strings-attached texts are always great, too. Something like: “I’m thinking about you. No need to respond. I just wanted you to know that I love you.” It’s an easy, low-lift gesture that goes a long way.

• Resist the urge to fix. Humans are wired to solve problems, but sometimes fixes can be premature, overwhelming, or simply not what someone needs. If someone hasn’t asked for a fix, try to resist the urge to solve things.

• Ask: “Do you want to be heard or are you looking for advice?” This is an excellent question. Use it often.

• Take care of yourself too. Remember the Ring Theory. Identify the people you can lean on. And if you can’t help with a certain task, don’t be afraid to look for others who could jump in instead.

Right now, I’m comforted by the somewhat annoying fact that I’ve had a lot of practice asking for help in hard times.

Even then, I know I’ll make missteps. There will be times I’ll lean too much on one person or share things I later wish I hadn’t shared. There will be times I’ll try to do too much on my own. Likewise, I know the people helping me will stumble, too.

In the end, though, I trust and believe we’re all doing the best we can. We are human. We are wired to help. We want to fix. We care. So, so much.

We can do hard things — but we can’t do them alone. What a blessing to know and accept that.

What are your best tips for asking for, or offering, help in hard times? I’d love to read them in the comments below.

xoxo
KHG

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Want more on how to offer help? I got you:

August has been a hard month. For reasons I can’t yet write about. For too many reasons to count. Looking back at the past few weeks, it almost seems inauthentic to document the bright spots.

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She’s already got a new best friend, a favorite specials class, and strong opinions on cafeteria offerings. She brings home updates about daily activities, reports on snacks, and various treasure box rewards — typically some sort of plastic trinket that she’s thrilled about, and I’m admittedly less so.

But the first item she shares, the first thing she greets us with, is this:

“I got another purple apple today!”

Like many kindergarten classes, hers uses a behavior chart: a way to mark how well each student listened and cooperated on any given day. One of the goals of kindergarten is to learn how to listen, share, and follow rules in a classroom setting. A behavior chart, for better or worse, is one way to track that progress.

In my daughter’s class, the behavior chart is made up of apples. A purple apple, labeled “Top Apple,” is the highest level you can get. There are seven levels, everything from green (“Really Ripe”) to yellow (“Think About It”) to red (“Contact Home”). My child has received all purple apples so far.

One evening, as we sat at the dinner table and chatted about school, my daughter’s face lit up with an idea.

“What if,” she said with an excited gasp, “I get ONE HUNDRED purple apples?”

My face lit up right along with hers. What a great question! I thought. My brain leapt to the future, to the 100th day of school, when we could count all those apples together — turn it into a lesson, of course — and celebrate what a good girl she’d been.

“That would be great,” I started to say.

Then Billy jumped in.

“It’s okay if you don’t get all purple apples,” he said.

Oh. Right. That’s an option too.

I was raised on behavior charts, sticker-progress sheets, and glowing report cards. My parents, both public school teachers, used these kinds of tools in their classrooms and in our household. Even as an adult, I’ve carried on methods of tracking my progress: everything from how many steps I’ve taken to words I’ve revised. I still care, far more than I should, about getting that proverbial gold star.

I sometimes struggle to see the downsides of this metric-driven mentality. Tracking growth helps us excel, doesn’t it? My sweet dumb brain, like most people’s, needs tricks to help me get to the goals I want to achieve. If the simple sight of another colored-in block provides positive reinforcement, what’s the harm?

Critics of tools like behavior charts say they can promote shame and hinder intrinsic motivation. They’re somewhat hypocritical, too — we all have bad days, even parents and teachers. (Fortunately, my daughter’s chart is a private worksheet she brings home each day. I’m relieved there’s no public shaming for the kids who may not receive the vaunted Top Apple.)

Then there’s the perfectionism piece.

Once you’ve got, say, 15, 20, 30 purple apples in a row, wouldn’t a different-colored fruit ruin the streak?

Every parent wants to protect their child against the harshness of the world. I wish I could prepare my daughter for the possibility of not getting a purple apple: how the color-coded proof of a less-than-perfect day might feel.

That night, I reiterated Billy’s astute observation — “Dad’s right. Some days might not be purple apple days.” — but I’m not sure the words landed.

There’s not much else I can do at this point. Like so many things in life, she’ll only learn the lesson once she experiences it firsthand. In the meantime, I can prepare myself for the possibility, and consider how to best give her a safe space to land when that day comes.

I’ll admit: I was retroactively startled by my quickness to perfectionism when my daughter raised the possibility of 100 Top Apples. If Billy hadn’t jumped in, would I have realized my mistake?

The next day, I texted my wise friend Lauren for her take. She shared a slew of helpful thoughts based on her own parenting experience.

“I would remind her that getting a purple apple isn’t the real goal,” she said. “Doing your best is the goal. You expect her to do her best, and if her best that day is a green banana, it’s a green banana.”

She then shared an example with her youngest, who’s showing an interest in external validation.

“I am walking a tightrope of wanting to encourage him to take responsibility while at the same time reminding him that I’m proud of him for who he is, not just what he does.”

Lauren reminded me that none of this is easy. There’s no right or wrong, and we’ll always be adjusting our approach as parents and people.

In the end, the color of the apple is only a way to track a day. It says nothing, absolutely nothing, about her worth as a student or daughter or person.

This is a lesson I’m still learning, and will continue to learn for the rest of my life. It’s interesting to try to teach your child something you don’t fully know.

My worthiness is not based on how hard I work, or the quality of what I produce, or even how kind or calm I am on a given day. I am not worthy because I am a Good Mom, a Good Partner, a Good Daughter, or a Good Girl, no matter how much society has taught me to internalize those beliefs.

Which means …

After writing the paragraph above, I felt stuck. I had trouble filling in the remainder. If those things don’t prove my worth, what does?

After some thought, I finally came back to what Lauren’s trying to teach her youngest. I am worthy, period. I know my guiding values, and I try my best to follow them — including valuing forgiveness when I inevitably fall short.

I am worthy because of who I am, not what I do.

Lauren also taught me a routine that I now do with my daughter each night. During bath time, I ask about the best part of her day and the hardest, or most challenging, part of her day. Because sharing these things with a parent can sometimes be difficult, I ask these questions with the help of a rainbow-colored rubber duckie.

Hi, honey!” the duck says in her squeaky voice. “How was your day?”

This check-in has become so routine that my daughter will sometimes prompt the duck before I remember to switch personas. She’s named the toy “Duck of the Day,” and I’m grateful we have such a sweet and silly way to talk about big, complicated feelings.

There’s a lesson here, too. Each day has highs and lows, no matter what. No day is perfect, no matter how hard you work or wish it could be.

There are plenty of reasons you may not have a purple apple day. You might be sick, or operating on not enough sleep, or be worried about a loved one facing their own difficult times. You might be fighting with a friend or partner, struggling to compartmentalize the messy feelings of life when trying to show up for your daily responsibilities. You may have heard some scary news or be adjusting to a significant change.

Or you might just feel like goofing off, just for one day, because life is about more than simply following rules and pleasing people in power.

I’m trying to view my daughter’s behavior chart as a useful tool. Instead of tracking something as binary as “good” or “bad,” it’s a way to observe what’s happening.

Right now, that unbroken chain of purple apples tells me she’s adjusting to school well. That’s great! She seems happy and excited and eager to learn. Moving from her outdoor preschool to public school has been a major shift, and I’m relieved and proud that she’s doing so well.

But that doesn’t mean things will always be this smooth.

If there are future days that are different colors, that’s a helpful piece of data to have. It’s an opening to talk — with her, with Billy, with her teacher, with our beloved Duck of the Day — about what might be happening in her world. It’s a way to address things early on, to keep an open door, to reinforce the fact that no one is perfect and it’s utterly exhausting trying to be.

I was raised on behavior charts, sticker-progress sheets, and glowing report cards. Subconsciously, I saw those things as proof of my worth. And now — as a 41-year-old enrolled in my 35th grade of life — I am still untangling that belief.

My perfectionism has cost me a lot over the years. It’s made me more anxious and less happy. It’s driven me sometimes to overwork and other times to avoid starting things entirely. It’s turned ordinary setbacks into significant spirals. Among other examples, my novel-in-progress feels perpetually stuck because of this exact issue.

But that’s okay. Because not every day is a purple apple day. Not every day is a productive day. Not every day is a creative day, a healthy day, a patient day, or a complete-your-entire-to-do-list day. And not every less-than-perfect day needs to be redeemed by the next one.

Thank goodness for that. What a boring chart that would be.

xoxo
KHG

P.S. My dear editor Becca — someone who has a lot to say about this topic — is back from a much-needed break! Please give her a warm welcome back in the comments. I missed her.

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As a freelancer, I work with a variety of clients. I write case studies, fundraising pitches, impact reports, and blog posts. I help CEOs find their voices and local newsrooms find donors. Some of these things I write with a byline. Most of them, lately, I write without my name attached.

Somewhere along the way, I became a ghostwriter.

I had no idea how freeing that would feel.

I spend a surprising amount of my work life pretending to be other people. I spend a lot of time listening. I learn what my clients care about and study how they speak. Then I do my best to disappear. I become someone else on the page.

For the most part, I love it. It’s a relief to write without constantly mining my own life for material.

Right now, I’m living through a season I don’t yet know how to put into words. Some of what I’m experiencing may take weeks or months to share. Some of it I may never write about publicly.

I’m not sure a younger version of myself would have understood this was even an option: to experience something without immediately trying to shape it into a tidy story.

Thankfully, I’ve written this newsletter long enough to know I need to honor the voice that says, not yet.

I’ve also written this newsletter long enough to know how uncomfortable not yet can be. I know the shame that comes with vagueposting or taking a break. The fear of disappointing readers. The desperation that comes with the churn of losing paid subscribers.

All that shame, fear, and desperation is loud.

Beneath it is a whisper: not yet.

I’m going to listen to that quiet voice. I’m not going to write about the season I’m in — the good and bad of it all. Not yet. I’m not going to mine my life for lessons in real time. I’m not going to tell the story before I live it.

What I will do, however, is bury myself in work.

For better or worse, productivity is one of my go-to coping mechanisms. Work gives me something to do. It supports my family. It helps my clients. And lately, it gives me the opportunity to disappear into someone else’s story for a while.

Ghostwriting and all the other copywriting I do isn’t simply a means to an end. It isn’t work I have to get through to get to the real writing. There’s something deeply satisfying about helping someone say exactly what they want to say.

It’s all a bit ironic, isn’t it?

Through My Sweet Dumb Brain, people have come to know me for writing vulnerably about my own life. Through much of my freelance work, I erase myself. Both of these things — this newsletter and my freelance career — were born at the same time.

I used to think success looked like becoming more visible. More promotions. More presentations. More recognition. Instead, my career has quietly led me in the opposite direction.

I’m no longer the manager leading the team, the organizer guiding the event, or the founder building the platform. More and more often, I’m in the background, providing support, giving someone else a boost.

Turns out, I’m more than okay with that. I’ve found a real sense of satisfaction in stepping back and helping others. I’m grateful to have found a path that lets me support other people without constantly putting myself on display.

Maybe it’s a product of being older and having less to prove. Maybe it comes from feeling relatively secure in my career.

Or maybe it’s because I have this outlet.

Here, my voice is the point. There, I get to disappear into someone else’s world. One feeds the other.

For the most part, my writing life feels balanced: professional and personal, outward-looking and self-reflective, a decent paycheck and terribly paying. (Ha. I wish that last one was a joke.)

Which brings me back to the season I’m in. Among many other things, it feels wildly imbalanced.

Maybe that’s why ghostwriting has felt like such a gift lately. I’m grateful I get to spend my days disappearing into someone else’s story.

After all, my story will still be here when I’m ready to tell it.

xoxo
KHG

P.S. If you’re looking for ghostwriting help, reply to this email and let me know. I’d love to talk. 👻

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I love it when a book finds me at exactly the right time. Sometimes the connection is obvious, like reading a novel set in winter when the world outside is bundled up too. Other times, it sneaks up on me. A single scene or sentence can illuminate something I hadn’t yet been able to put into words.

Earlier this month, I spent a long weekend at the beach with family. I packed Jenny Jackson’s The Shampoo Effect because of its beachy cover. It felt like an obvious pairing: beach read for beach days.

The trip, for various reasons, wasn’t as restorative as I’d hoped. If anything, it illuminated just how not okay I’ve been lately — how stressed I’ve been, how easily I can be tipped over the edge. I came home with fresh tan lines, sweet memories of my daughter and her cousin playing together, and a vow to find a new therapist.

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Of course, it’s my right to choose what I want to share and what I want to keep to myself—especially when I’m writing to an audience of thousands.

But there’s a real risk of masking. Of acting like everything’s okay when it really, truly is not. Sometimes I mask so well that I convince myself things are fine. Other times, I mask so that friends and family don’t see what’s going on. In either case, I’m hiding from the truth. By acting like everything is okay, I’m inevitably making it worse.

I almost did it with you today.

I drafted an essay—satisfying ending and all—about a difficult weekend before it had even ended. I rushed to wrap it up in a hopeful bow instead of giving myself time to process what happened.

The observations felt true. But they were rushed. And the tidy conclusions were far from earned.

It was a mask. It was me trying to skip ahead to the part where I’d already learned the lesson. Nothing to see here, folks!

So this is me trying something different. Instead of trying to finish this newsletter, I texted some loved ones to say, hey, actually I’m not okay. I booked an appointment with a new therapist. I gave myself permission to take smaller steps instead of bounding toward an unearned ending.

I don’t have the lesson yet. I don’t have a hopeful ending to share. But I do have honesty. That’s worth something, too.

There’s something I need to see here, folks. It might take a while.

xoxo
KHG

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That was the thought I had sitting three rows from the top of Mercedes-Benz Stadium with tears running down my face. Kickoff was still hours away.

I am a careful person. A planner. Thrifty, sometimes to a fault. I’m an introvert. A homebody. Sometimes shy. I like to read and write—to live in my head.

These are the things I tell myself. For the most part, they’ve served me well. But sometimes they keep me small. Sometimes they leave me lonely.

And sometimes, I don’t listen to them.

Days earlier, in an uncharacteristically impulsive move, I bought myself a ticket to the World Cup.

I paid $400—more than I ever imagined spending on any event ticket. The seat was unquestionably in the nosebleeds. The purchase pushed me well above my budget for the month. I sat, alone, between one very talkative Morocco fan and a Canadian father who reminded me a bit of my own dad as he kept telling his teenage children to enjoy themselves.

It was worth every penny.

Soccer always reminds me of my dad. He attended nearly every game my brother and I played, his baritone ringing out across the field as he cheered us on. He’d watch games on Telemundo—never mind that he didn’t speak Spanish—his booming “Goooooooooooaaaalllll!” carrying through the house. When the World Cup coincided with our annual summer vacation, he’d scout the best spot to watch the final. I can still remember those games: in a South Carolina living room blowing into vuvuzelas while wearing Netherlands orange; on a striped couch in Maine, watching the U.S. women lose in penalty kicks.

If my dad was still alive, he would have figured out a way to attend at least one World Cup match this summer. But I hadn’t. Whatever the version of anti-hype is—cynicism?—I’d bought into that. I was dismayed by ticket prices. I was worried Atlanta wouldn’t get its act together to be a host city. I was preemptively embarrassed of our country and its many xenophobic policies. Getting a ticket seemed like an expensive and uncomfortable hassle, so I didn’t even bother to try.

It wasn’t until the night of the U.S. men’s opening match against Paraguay that I said, okay, fine, I’ll drop the money for another streaming subscription and tune in. I’m so glad I did. I had so much fun watching it. I texted old friends—the pals I’d once screamed alongside watching many World Cup games in many bars. I was flooded with nostalgia.

A few days later, I wandered over to one of our city’s free World Cup watch festivals during my lunch break. I had been working from my mom’s apartment, and she and my daughter tagged along. My mom is like me, someone who can sometimes keep herself small, who too often lets negativity have its way. We’d just peek, we told ourselves, and see what a disaster the Spain versus Cape Verde game turned out to be.

We wound up staying for the entire two-hour match, which resulted in a 0-0 draw. My mom and I traded bemused looks with strangers, a moment of shared surprise and awe. We watched a nearby family dressed in Cape Verde gear celebrate what was a tie on paper but a momentous win in reality. We walked back to the apartment, smiling. How wonderful was that?

I had to work late that night to make up for the time I’d missed. It was unquestionably worth it.

That game was my first reminder: Joy is best shared with others.

From there, I watched as many matches as I could, soaking up the displays of national pride, the dreams playing out in real time, the wonderfully diverse and unique faces on the screen—players and fans alike. I reveled in the U.S. being an underdog and mourned our all-too-predictable exit. To my delight, Billy has watched alongside me, understanding what it is that makes soccer, particularly the World Cup, so great.

I’ve been living a small life lately.

For one glorious game—possibly the only World Cup match I’ll attend in my life—I got to watch the action unfold in front of me. I didn’t watch it through the small screen of my phone. I didn’t watch it on the bigger screen of my television, or the even larger screen of a watch party. I saw it in person.

I’d almost forgotten why I love the World Cup so much. It’s what happens when thousands of people simultaneously experience something joyous.

Years later, I may not remember the players or the goals. What I will remember—what I sincerely hope to never forget—was how it felt to be part of a big, happy crowd, surrounded by people thrilled to be together.

I will remember the whistles, the drums, the flags flying high. I will remember high-fiving and hugging people I’d just met. I will remember Morocco supporters and Haiti supporters dancing together outside the stadium, red and blue swirling into one dizzying mix. I’ll even remember the sidewalk preachers with their megaphones, shouting about what they loved and believed in.

I will remember how I felt: like a flower, tilting toward the sun, soaking up the warmth.

More, please.

It can be easy to convince yourself that the world is a bad place, full of bad people. If you only view it through headlines or someone else’s jaded eyes, your trust in humanity can start to slip away. At least, that’s true for me.

The other day I read that our brains often lie to us but our bodies don’t. If I’d let my brain lead the way, I would have stayed home. It had plenty of good reasons: the ticket was too expensive, something could go wrong, it wasn’t worth the risk or hassle. My body, thankfully, knew differently. The moment I sat down in my seat, before a single player stepped onto the field, I felt myself relax and exhale.

Yes. This feels good.

I was one of the very few people in the packed stadium who wasn’t wearing a jersey. Instead, I wore a red shirt, green shorts, and a matching bandana that once belonged to my dad. (The previous week, my brother also went alone to a World Cup game wearing our dad’s beloved Grateful Dead soccer shirt.) My dad, like my brother, was an artist. And like my brother, he signed all his work with a pseudonym: Excess.

For better or worse, Dad was a man of excess. He lived his life in a big way. He rarely denied himself joy.

There’s nothing wrong with a small life, of course. There’s beauty in appreciating what you have, living within your means, finding purpose right where you are. But you can do those things and still live expansively. You can laugh with abandon. Open your doors to visitors. Choose pleasure. Be wildly generous. You can sometimes do big things—rare, absurd, $400-ticket things—for yourself.

The match ended 4-2, Morocco. By that point in the World Cup, Haiti already knew they wouldn’t make it to the next round, and they played as though they had nothing to lose. They played beautifully, with so much heart, and their fans were an absolute joy to watch. On the way out of the stadium, I witnessed Morocco and Haiti fans congratulating each other, red hugging blue, on a game well played. There were smiles all around. It was wonderful.

I ended the game like I started it: tears in my eyes, reminded that most people in this world are good.

I’ve been living a small life lately.

It’s not a bad life. It’s a life that’s full of gratitude and joy. But it’s also a life that’s often very careful and controlled. It’s a life where my risk-averse brain loves to take charge. It’s a life where, thanks to remote work, I tend to spend more time alone than with others, rarely venturing outside my comfort zone.

That’s the danger of living too small. You can forget the magic of living large: what it feels like to laugh out loud, cheer with strangers, mourn in public, get swept away by collective joy. You can become lonelier. More easily driven by fear. You can forget that a life shared with others nourishes the soul.

I rarely give myself permission to let loose and choose the path of excess. But that day, I did.

That day, with my dad’s bandana on my head and tears streaming down my face, I pushed my fears aside and walked into a massive stadium alone. I witnessed that the world is full of good people. I remembered how wonderful it feels to share rituals and celebrations with one another. I delighted knowing that I can still surprise myself.

That day, my brain learned what my body already knew.

Yes. This feels good.

xoxo
KHG

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p.s. There’s a name for this feeling—collective effervescence—and a lot of folks also experienced it with the Knicks’ joyous win last month. I loved how both Carla Zanoni and Jenna Park described it.

The worker gave me a pamphlet, a sad smile, and a check for $255.

“Do you have any questions?” she asked.

“Well, um—”

Words escaped me, as they often did in those foggy days.

She anticipated my question and confirmed my birth date.

I nodded.

“You’ll receive full survivor benefits in,” she paused to check her computer, “thirty-six years.”

The next time I stepped into a Social Security office was just last month, on a warm, muggy afternoon in Atlanta, Georgia. I was 41 and in a harried mood. My 5-year-old came along with a coloring book and colored pencils, which were, thankfully, allowed. We were there to get a replacement Social Security card, documentation we needed to register her for kindergarten.

(Years ago, in a mistake I deeply regret, we lost her card while traveling.)

When we arrived, we joined a long line of cars in the packed parking lot. We turned the corner to discover why: there was an ambulance with its back door open. Paramedics were loading someone on a stretcher into the vehicle.

I froze. Mentally, at least. Physically, I kept driving, inching past the scene, grabbing the first parking spot I could. I gripped my daughter’s hand as we walked past. She covered one ear with her free hand, anticipating how loud the siren would be.

Inside, we waited. We confirmed our appointment, pulled a ticket, and grabbed two open seats. We got called to a window, were asked a few questions, then were sent back to our seats. Later that night, when I asked my child what the hardest or most challenging part of her day was, her answer came easily: Waiting.

In all that waiting, my mind wandered. I couldn’t focus on the book I’d brought. Instead, I found myself vigilant. Agitated. I watched through the front windows as the ambulance left, sirenless. I took note of the people around me. I smoothed the papers we’d brought along in preparation for the appointment.

Finally, a half hour and two coloring pages later, we were called. I answered questions, repeating the information I’d filled out online, and handed over the paperwork.

It was promptly handed back.

“This won’t work,” the worker said to me, nodding to the stack I’d presented. “The rules have changed.”

Again, a slight freeze. I did my best to stay calm. The worker asked if I had an insurance card with my daughter’s name on it (yes!). Then she asked if that card also had her photo and date of birth on it (no! does such a thing even exist?). She asked if I had certified letters from her doctor or preschool (no?). She told me I would have to return with one of those things.

“Why isn’t this enough?” I said, pointing to the birth certificate I’d brought.

“We need proof the child is still alive,” the worker said.

Beside me, my daughter blinked.

For years now, I’ve documented the “glimmers” that brighten each month—the small moments that make me pause and feel safe, calm, or hopeful.

Glimmers, as coined by psychotherapist Deb Dana, are the opposite of triggers. Triggers, which are unique to each person, tend to pull us into fear or distress. Glimmers, also unique to each of us, bring us comfort and steadiness.

Documenting glimmers isn’t simply a saccharine exercise or reliable newsletter content. It’s a way to counter the more challenging moments of life. For me, glimmers are padding for a harsh world. By collecting them, I create some protection against the sharp edges that can snag and snarl a day.

It took me three days to realize that the sight of that ambulance, combined with the failed Social Security visit, triggered me.

I did not process that in the moment. Instead, I powered through. I was solo parenting that day, and soon after we loaded back into the car, I reminded my daughter that once we got home, she needed to play alone, quietly, while I conducted a Zoom call.

“You can play with your LEGOs. They’re all set out,” I told her. I tried to keep my voice steady; I was still reeling from being turned away. “When my call is over, I’ll check on you, but I’ll need to get a bit more work done after that, okay?”

In the backseat, she nodded.

“But Mom?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can I give you a hug first?”

That should have been my first clue that I needed to take a moment to cry.

We drove home. I called Billy, explaining we’d have to return in a month—the earliest available appointment—to get the replacement card. My daughter and I got out of the car, grabbed the useless paperwork and useful coloring book, and hugged. She set off to create a birthday party out of blocks while I interviewed a publisher about her small-town newspaper.

I worked some more. I emailed the school system, explaining our situation. I ranted to a few friends. I felt increasingly agitated. Vigilant. Angry.

I pushed those feelings aside. Finished work. Ran a quick errand. Prepared dinner. My daughter and I talked about the day while she bathed, then read books we’ve read many times before. That night, I let her sleep in my bed. Billy was out of town, playing a show. She slept soundly.

I woke in the middle of the night, mind racing.

The sight of an ambulance has always been difficult for me. Mentally, I’m transported back to that horrible ride to the hospital: me in the front passenger seat; my husband on a stretcher in the back.

Other triggers are less obvious, more unique to my own brand of trauma. I’m flooded with memories whenever I’m near a race. I flinch when people say the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” (do you know how often people say this?!). I still struggle with the feeling of being out of breath.

It’s been almost ten years since my husband collapsed during a half marathon. Almost a decade, and those memories still feel as though they happened yesterday. I’ve gotten better at recognizing my triggers. Better at managing my responses to them. But they still exist. They probably always will.

Thankfully, so will the glimmers. I’m a broken record, but it’s true: there are always bright spots.

I finally realized that I’d been triggered days later, during a Saturday without screens. Like documenting glimmers, “screen-free Saturdays” are an experiment, an attempt to build a calmer, more centered life.

But screens can also serve as padding against a harsh world.

That day, I didn’t have my phone to distract me. I couldn’t scroll headlines, answer texts, or refresh emails. I couldn’t look at the weather forecast, google random questions, or photograph the little moments I wanted to remember.

Instead, I was left with my thoughts. My emotions. And the belated realization that the Social Security office visit wasn’t solely upsetting because we’d been turned away.

That night, I cried. A lot.

I was flooded with memories from the day Jamie died—how scared I was, how I tried to hide that fear, how I carried an inordinate amount of responsibility right from the start.

It’s been almost a decade, and some days those memories still feel impossibly close.

Sometimes I feel ashamed that I can still get bowled over by the grief of it all. But I try to be gentle. I try to remind myself the same thing I’d tell you: If you have hurts you’re carrying, memories that still come rushing back, triggers that other people wouldn’t recognize as triggers, that’s okay. You’re not the only one. It can be a heavy thing, to be human.

Tomorrow, I will return to the Social Security office for a third time—hopefully the last time, for a very long time. I will bring the certified letter from our daughter’s pediatrician. I will take deep breaths. My child will come with me again, just in case.

We’ll cheer if we’re successful. We might even get ice cream afterward. I’ll find a glimmer or two to ground me. And when I hold my child’s hand, I will remember what we came there to prove: that she’s alive.

I will be grateful that I was given another chance.

xoxo
KHG

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On Thursday evening, I got together with two friends for no other reason than to sit on a porch and catch up. We talked about the challenges — and joys — of our lives: working through disagreements in our relationships, navigating new stages of parenthood, caring for aging parents, learning to care for our own aging bodies. The night settled into a comforting ebb and flow of heaviness and lightness, concern and laughter.

Before we departed — well past everyone’s bedtime — my friend Meredith asked us each to share one thing we were looking forward to. The conversation had ebbed a bit, and it helped us end the evening on a hopeful note that would carry us home.

“Returning to the newsletter,” I said. “It feels like my well is full again. I have lots to write about. It feels good.”

I’d been sensing this for a while, but I hadn’t said it out loud. The moment I did, I felt something release.

Yes! What a delight to be looking forward to returning to the page.

And now, here I am. Refreshed. Recharged. I missed writing to you. It feels good to be back.

June was a good month. Next Tuesday, I’ll return with regular posts for everyone. Today, though, is a little treat for the paying subscribers — the folks who make this newsletter possible. If you’d like to join them and read the rest of this post, you know what to do.

Onto the highlights!

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Readers of ’s (very excellent) Maybe Baby may already be familiar with a concept a recent guest writer shared: the three tiers of fun.

According to this framework, fun falls into three categories:

• Tier 1: You do something, and it is fun.

• Tier 2: You do something, and it’s not fun at the time, but becomes fun in retrospect.

• Tier 3: You do something, and it is neither fun at the time nor fun in retrospect, but it is fun(ny) to tell other people about later.

Dating as a widow? That’s some Tier 3 fun, y’all. Boy, did I have stories!

(Truthfully, I should probably spend more time reflecting on why I enjoy Tier 3 fun so much. I’ve always loved a good I-wanted-to-die story.)

But today, I’m here to talk about Tier 2 fun — the kind that only becomes enjoyable once you’ve made it to the other side.

A good amount of this month fell into that category for me. Looking back, the past few weeks feel full of joy and growth. That wasn’t always obvious in the moment.

I suppose that’s yet another reason reflection matters. Sometimes glimmers only reveal themselves after the fact.

Before we get into those highlights — and before I drop the dreaded paywall — I wanted to share an update: I’m taking June off from the newsletter.

I’ll be back on June 30 for another glimmers post, then return to my regular Tuesday schedule after that. I’ve taken summer breaks before, and this one feels especially necessary. Becca is taking a break from editing, my child will begin kindergarten in a few short months, and I’m juggling one too many projects (per usual).

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I began writing this early Sunday morning, right after I woke up. I’m typing as quickly as I can from bed, racing against the internal clock that will soon wake my daughter. Before long, she’ll be here too, curled up next to me. I’ll have no choice but to stop what I’m doing and snuggle her back.

The night before, Billy and I debated who would get up with her. Because getting up with her isn’t just getting up. It’s offering breakfast choices, preparing that choice, listening carefully to hear whether she wants her milk cold or warm. (It’s almost always warm, but she sometimes surprises us.) It’s deciding on a movie. It’s sitting close by, half-watching that movie.

I lost the debate, which is fair. It’s my turn. At this point, Billy and I have spent five and a half years negotiating over early mornings, bedtime routines, little pockets of time. Constantly trying to divide time fairly can wear on you, even —

Oops. There it is. The interruption.

The snuggles are sweet.

What was I saying? Right. Dividing limited time and energy strains even the strongest relationships.

She chose warm milk. A waffle with “a pinch of butter.” Strawberries with the tops cut off.

Now we’re watching Moana. I’m back to writing, though I stop every so often to remind her to drink her milk before it gets cold.

Does it sound like I’m complaining? Because I’m not. Really.

It feels like complaining is a given in parenthood — just like exhaustion and negotiations are things all parents of young children are expected to commiserate about.

But here’s the secret: every challenge (and there are plenty) is outweighed by the sweetness. I love being a mom. I love getting to know and raise my wonderful child. I love the way my life is interrupted by snuggles and breakfast requests and, yes, even the negotiations that keep our household running. I love all of it, truly.

The thing I don’t love — my biggest complaint of parenthood — is that it won’t last.

For all the things I wasn’t prepared for, I didn’t realize how much raising a child would be a lesson in grief. I am constantly saying goodbye. Forever learning to let go.

Next week, my kiddo will complete her final day of preschool. We’ll gather in the forest, in the center of her outdoor classroom, while the teachers share stories and lead songs. They’ll call each student’s name, and one by one the children will cross over a wooden bridge. I will cry. I know this because I’ve cried at every preschool celebration so far. I’ll try not to cry too much, but I know better than to make promises.

Another interruption. “Mom, I need you to look at the movie!”

Moana is embarking on a trip across the ocean — a journey her frightened father forbade her to take.

Come August, my daughter will begin elementary school. Kindergarten. She’ll leave the forest and enter the world of uniforms and cafeterias. She’ll learn so much. Meet so many new friends. Discover more about herself — what she likes, what she doesn’t. She’ll get taller, smarter, even funnier. More independent by the day.

My job as a parent is to help her feel safe and loved. Right now, that means morning snuggles and waffles with butter. “Mama kisses” whenever she stumbles and falls. Bedtime stories and made-up songs before sleep.

If I do my job right, she’ll need me less. With time, she’ll prepare her own breakfast, pick herself up off the ground, fall asleep on her own — head filled with her own hopes and dreams.

“Mom! It’s just a dream!”

Another interruption.

She finished her waffle and climbed onto the couch next to me. Moana had a nightmare about her family slipping away.

It’s hard to cuddle while typing, but I’m doing my best.

Every new stage, every step towards independence, is a step away from me.

I miss her — I miss this — already.

After Jamie died, I tortured myself thinking about the things I took for granted. I still do, sometimes. I loved my life with him. He loved me. We were good about telling each other that.

I never imagined it wouldn’t last.

Maybe the toughest part of parenthood is also the greatest gift. Because children change so rapidly — growing, transforming, learning by the day — it’s hard to grow complacent. Every milestone is a reminder of how quickly it all passes.

The movie is almost over. Billy is up, making coffee. He told me I could escape to my office; he’s got it from here. I could do the thing I so often crave: close the door and write without interruption.

But I’m choosing to stay put.

Moana is returning home. My daughter is watching the scene unfold through a pair of plastic binoculars. They’re backwards. Everything must seem so far away.

My child is fighting for my attention. I’m fighting not to laugh. She’s winning.

I’m choosing to write the rest of this right where I am: half-watching a movie, surrounded by silliness and love.

Loving children means watching them cross oceans that might frighten you and cheering them on anyway — trusting you’ve done your job.

This time I interrupt the flow.

“Why do you like me watching the movie with you?”

A smile.

God, I love her smile.

“Because I want you to.”

This won’t last.

I keep the door open.

xoxo
KHG

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Hannah almost always leaves a comment on My Sweet Dumb Brain posts, and those comments reveal a lot about the person she is. She’s thoughtful and conscientious, self-reflective and funny, and genuinely cares about other people’s well-being. She’s also gotten really good at noticing the bright spots in her own life. Every month, when I share my personal glimmers, I know Hannah will soon show up in the comments sharing her own recent moments of joy too.

But this wasn’t always the case. As you’ll read below, Hannah initially struggled with the practice. It’s only in the past several months that she’s begun documenting her glimmers with real anticipation and ease.

Here’s something else you might not know about Hannah Iris: that’s not her real name. Because she’s a therapist — and because this space is important to her — she keeps her identity private. We’ve never met in real life, but we’ve connected over Zoom and exchanged handwritten notes, and I can confirm she’s just as wonderful as she seems in the comments.

Today, I thought it’d be fun for you to get to know her a little better too.

Hello! Thanks so much for agreeing to this Q&A. You’ve been a longtime reader (and regular commenter) of My Sweet Dumb Brain. How did you first discover this newsletter? What made you want to stick around?

I can answer the former question with remarkable specificity: I discovered what quickly became one of my favorite corners of the internet on October 9, 2022. That was the day your own Q&A was published in the Culture Study newsletter. I’ve experienced my own fair share of palpable grief, but — and this is so funny to reflect back on now — because I’m also a therapist in private practice whose work centers on grief, my interest in reading your Q&A was initially piqued because I thought your writing might serve as an additional resource to share with clients.

As I began to dig into the MSDB archives, though, it immediately became clear to me that I wanted to preserve this space as one for me. I have incredible working relationships with my clients and I am not at all a stereotypical blank-slate therapist, but, to use the language of Amanda Litman, I am skilled at discerning between my real self and my full self: clients get my real self, but it doesn’t do them — or me — any good to give them my full self. And your writing — replete with thoughtfulness about what it is to make a meaningful life out of what’s often a devastating world — resonated on a deep full-self level for my own tender heart and sweet, dumb brain. I knew I wanted to keep reading, and I wanted to engage in the community you’d built.

You’re such a thoughtful, engaged presence in the comments — the kind of reader newsletter writers hope for. I have to admit, I tend toward being a lurker online, but your comments have inspired me to leave more encouragement when I read something I love. Has that always come naturally to you, or is it something you’ve grown into?

Oh, wow, that is such a generous compliment; thank you. Receiving that feedback is especially meaningful to me because how I show up in online community spaces is actually really important to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I lurk plenty. Also, part of my engagement is purely (albeit wisely) selfish: I’m an elder millennial who’s long known that online spaces can offer rich opportunities for connection, all while honoring, in my case, a deeply introverted and homebody self.

In the spirit of both/and, though, it’s also true that I really value being kind, and letting people know that they, and their work, are appreciated feels like a meaningfully kind thing to do. Expressing that appreciation to writers is especially important to me, because I am a reader.

It comes naturally in the sense that it’s springing from one of my core identities and directly from one of my values: expressing kindness and gratitude through engagement. That said, I’ve also intentionally cultivated it over the years. Just last month, I sent off a quick email to a local journalist telling her how much I appreciated a recent (incredible!) article of hers in my city’s newspaper. That’s not the first time I’ve done that, but that’s a consciously made values-based decision that takes more intentionality on my part than, say, engaging with my favorite newsletters.

Let’s talk about glimmers. I started a monthly practice of documenting bright spots back in April 2024 and invited readers to do the same. I went back to that first post and you commented: “As soon as I read your invitation to share our own, I realized I was at a loss. Which I know is less an indication that I didn’t experience glimmers and more an invitation to start paying more attention to them.”

Now, two years later, you consistently share moments — big and small, global and personal — that have brought you joy. What shifted for you?

Oof. I’m actually emotional right now, because I remember writing that in response to your first glimmers post. And I remember being at that loss and thinking to myself, this is so sad! I was going through a wild ride of a time personally back then; I was in the midst of a giant midlife reckoning, and there was a lot that was heavy and hard. But, even so, I knew I didn’t want to be at an immediate loss for a single darn glimmer over the course of an entire month!

Here’s what I DIDN’T remember though, not until going back through your glimmers archives just now: You started documenting glimmers in April 2024, but I didn’t actually start sharing my own glimmers, in the comments of those posts, until October 2024 — and then only inconsistently so. It wasn’t until February 2025 that I started consistently sharing them (and adding in all the corresponding emojis that continue to decorate my lists to this day). But, even then, there were some pitifully anemic glimmer lists happening: short in length, generic in content. Fall 2025 was when I (finally!) really got cooking with the practice. So: SIX MONTHS to get started and then A YEAR to really find my rhythm.

In my mind, I’d jumped right in and voila! Clearly, it was a more plodding process than that.

Ultimately, I think these (sloooow) shifts unfolded because, well, I am quite stubborn. I’m quick to let something go (euphemism for giving up) in all kinds of cases, and at my core am incredibly impatient, but when I really want something, I am persistent and unyielding.

What does noticing glimmers look like in your day-to-day life now?

Honestly, it’s so simple: the whole thing looks like 1) noticing, and 2) (often) taking a photograph. My noticing skill, just like any other, of course strengthened the more I practiced it. And the photography aspect instinctively happened, in large part I think as a natural extension of a previous commitment I’d made to myself to begin documenting my life more.

While taking photos of things can for sure take us out of the moment (by looking at the image of the thing on our screen rather than the thing itself), I’ve found that taking glimmer photos actually allows me to really savor the glimmer. Also, by photographing a glimmer, I’m marking the moment as special; I’m marking it as worthy of remembrance; I’m marking it as something I can return to (and I do!). I think all of that has helped boost my glimmer-noticing skills even more.

What this glimmer photography often means in reality is that I, well, have a bunch of photos on my phone that would be utterly confusing to anyone else and that are otherwise just absolutely absurd. (The sheer number of photos I have OF MY TELEVISION — from the Olympics; of the livestream of the Big Bear Valley eagle nest; throughout the Artemis II mission — is truly wild.)

Then, when I make my glimmers list in your comments at the end of each month, it’s an opportunity to revisit my memories, my calendar, and my photos from the month. I find that to be an absolutely lovely reflective practice. I take a screenshot of that glimmers list, crop it, and save it as a monthly marker in time in my photo gallery. Revisiting these lists is often a glimmer itself!

I’ll also just quickly note that this practice, from the start, has felt far more impactful than a standard gratitude-journal kind of exercise. That, to me, always felt just like another chore to do, another thing for my brain to think about. For me, my glimmer practice has always been rooted in pleasure, which is surely why I’ve kept with it.

I love that! I’ve noticed real benefits from keeping track of glimmers myself. What started as a whim has become central to how I see the world.

You’re a therapist. From your perspective, why does this work? What’s happening when we start paying attention in this way? Have you ever suggested something like a glimmers practice to your clients?

It all comes back to the wisdom of your own language, Katie; it’s because we all have sweet, dumb brains. In this case, that our sweet, dumb brains need glimmer-like practices can be connected to (at least) three things:

1) Evolution and our ancient ancestors: Human beings’ brains evolved to have a negativity bias, which serves to prioritize paying attention to, focusing on, and remembering the RISKS, the BAD, the SCARY, the WHAT IFS, the THINGS THAT HAVE EVER GONE, OR COULD EVER GO, WRONG. This is true even for people without anxiety disorders, because this isn’t about anxiety at all; it’s about a brain adaptation that evolved to help ensure the survival of the species.

That negativity bias is why we’re here, in the present day, to begin with! Our ancient ancestors who were more focused on remembering that THOSE BERRIES KILLED KEVIN and then DIDN’T EAT THOSE BERRIES THEMSELVES were more likely to survive (and pass along their killer-berry-remembering brain) than those ancient-ancestor losers (ahem, Kevin) who were primarily focused on those oh-so-beautiful-looking ripe berries that they just had to pop straight into their mouth to savor. RIP Kevin.

2) Our dominant culture: I’m a licensed clinical social worker, and my therapist self is deeply informed by the social work profession’s value of looking at systems, not just individuals. I end up ranting quite a bit in my work with clients about patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism, because these systems have a profound impact on how we experience our individual lives, both externally and internally.

As pertains to this discussion, we are immersed in a dominant culture that glorifies — and moralizes — achievement, attainment, and striving. Always focusing on what could be better and then trying to make it better, only to rinse and repeat, is our cultural default. And so, because of this dominant culture, our experiences of contentment, satisfaction, and pleasure are perceived, on a subconscious level, as existential threats to our goodness, value, and worthiness.

3) Our own unique selves: I’ll use myself as a quick example here. My temperament tends more toward seriousness than silliness. My mood skews toward a melancholic baseline. I’ve experienced traumas. I’ve had three major depressive episodes, and I also have a chronic anxiety disorder. There’s shit in my family lineage that I only have a slight grasp on. I grew up in a Catholic-school environment that capitalized on all my vulnerabilities toward rule-following, people-pleasing, and perfectionism. I’m white; a first-generation college grad; middle class; a cis-gender woman; straight; neurodivergent. I could go on. All of these things contribute to how I experience my life, and many of them throw up obstacles to experiencing my life in an unencumbered, lighthearted, pleasure-focused way.

To recap: Our brains evolved to prioritize survival, which has no use for thriving; our dominant culture is focused on upholding cruel systems, which are all threatened by individuals’ liberatory practices (both big and bite-sized); and we, as individuals, hold countless parts of our own history and identities which can impede our well-being and enjoyment of our lives.

NO WONDER WE NEED PRACTICES LIKE GLIMMERS.

My clients and I are constantly exploring these practices, because we as humans are essentially compelled to practice pleasure and enjoyment — through the mindfulness of slowing down, savoring moments of gratitude, and connection to art, community, and the natural world — as an antidote to all these forces and as a way to live a life, even amid horrors, that feels full and meaningful.

If how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, then it can also be argued that how we spend our days is what we pay attention to. (I highly recommend Chris Hayes’s recent book, The Sirens’ Call, for a compelling argument about the vitality of attention.) Mindfulness, gratitude, and noting glimmers are all about attention. Our minds can help us identify our values, orient (and reorient) our attention in ways that align with those values, and make values-based active choices — like a glimmers practice — that can support a more radically empowered way of living.

Wow. That was so helpful. And thoughtful. And funny. (Poor Kevin!)

Thank you for being so generous with your answers. Is there anything else you’d like to add? Maybe a bit of advice for readers who are curious about glimmers but haven’t yet started their own practice yet?

I’m going to give the answer that I admittedly would hate to hear myself: don’t be too serious about it! Just jump in, play around, see what happens. There are no rules to follow, and there is no right or wrong way to do it. (God, I mean it, I would SO hate hearing that.)

Beyond that:

1) I never could have had my current practice as my initial practice (my current practice is a natural outgrowth of the practice evolving over time; process matters; yadda yadda);

2) if I had known it would take me SIX months to start and then A YEAR to find my groove, I never would have freaking begun.

So especially for you fellow recovering perfectionists who feel daunted by starting what’ll likely be an imperfect, evolving process: maybe it won’t take you as long as it did me! Or, maybe just try to forget about my timeline entirely! Or maybe remember my timeline as a reassuring boost if you end up feeling like your own practice isn’t immediately clicking into place! Or maybe this whole glimmers practice is just a great exposure therapy to keep dismantling that darn perfectionism! Or maybe you do another practice entirely (I also love, and participate in, ’s weekly One Good Thing tradition)!

The final thing I want to add is a request: it’s obvious that I love sharing my glimmers in the comments of Katie’s monthly glimmers post, but I also really love reading other people’s glimmers. So PLEASE share yours, too! Sharing in one another’s glimmers is a glimmer itself! ✨

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Thank you, Hannah, for showing up so fully. And thank you, readers, for being here. It never ceases to amaze me that there are real people reading these words, week after week.

I hope you take Hannah’s glimmers request to heart. It’s never too late to start noting and documenting the bright spots.

See you next week, friends.

xoxo
KHG

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More accurately, it smelled like a bonfire made from more than just wood. There was a whiff of burning plastic. Of toxic chemicals. Of smoldering rubber.

I noticed it on the walk home after dropping off my child at her outdoor preschool. By the time I got back, I had a pounding headache. I checked the local news for answers. Billy checked social media. Within seconds, we had the same explanation: wildfires. Tens of thousands of acres were burning in South Georgia, more than 250 miles away.

Not long after that, the preschool messaged to say the children were moving indoors.

Georgia — like much of the Southeast — is experiencing a drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly 50% of the state, including Atlanta, where I live, is under “extreme” drought. The southern portion of Georgia — about a third of the state, where the wildfires are burning — is under “exceptional” drought. That’s as bad as it gets.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I struggle with eco-anxiety. Heat waves send me into a tailspin. Hurricane season leaves me breathless. Drought makes me panic. I worry about how bad things will get, and what my daughter’s future will look like. If I’m not careful, I can lose hours — sometimes an entire day — to the spiral.

Wildfires are a relatively new fear for me. I’ve watched with horror from afar as places like California, Canada, and Australia have gone up in flames. But I don’t have firsthand experience living alongside them. I didn’t know you could smell a wildfire hundreds of miles away, or how terrible the odor can be.

I learned these things during a trip to visit family in Pittsburgh. It was the summer of 2023. Record-setting wildfires were raging in Canada — one country border and some 300 miles away. For a day or two, every time we stepped outside, we were met with smoke. Billy and I worried about our daughter’s tiny lungs. We wore the masks we had packed for Covid to instead shield us from the smog.

It was bleak. And while there were plenty of awe-inducing moments on that trip, what I remember most clearly is the fear — how quickly it took over. The smoke was like a dark cloud, blocking all the bright spots. Looking back, I can see how much that fear stole from me, how much it kept me from being present.

I thought about that trip as I walked home the other day, the air thick with that same mix of plastic and rubber and lord knows what else. But this time, I didn’t let dread sideline me. I had blocked off several hours to work on my novel — a book in which the characters grapple with their own complicated feelings about climate disasters.

I decided to use my fear as fuel instead.

We already own air purifiers. (Thanks, eco-anxiety!) I turned them on, said a quick prayer, and got to work.

Two days later, I went to a CreativeMornings talk — my first since returning to Atlanta five years ago. The smoke had cleared, but the wildfires were still burning. The theme for the talk was, fittingly, Ember.

Atlanta knows fire. During the Civil War, much of the city was burned to the ground. Today, the city’s seal features a phoenix, the mythical bird known for rising from the ashes.

Fire destroys. But it also creates room for something new.

I learned this in the woods of North Carolina, on a hike with friends along the Appalachian Trail. It was the summer of 2018 — just a year after losing my husband and months after quitting my job. Our trek took us through a section of trail that had burned a few years prior. The landscape was gray; the altitude, punishing. The remaining skeleton-like trees did little to provide shade.

But the charred environment offered hope. At least that’s what Sarah, our trail leader and an ecologist, reminded us. She explained that longleaf pine forests, like the one we were walking through, benefit from controlled brush fires. Every so often, she would crouch down and point out tiny wildflowers pushing up through the soil, marveling at how nature finds a way to return.

Almost everything about that hike was hard. My grief was fresh. My future felt uncertain. I was tasked with carrying one of two tents — and I somehow managed to forget the poles. Thanks to my resourceful friends, we rigged a solution together using string and canvas.

The hike was hard, and it was wonderful. Our makeshift structure proved sturdy enough to hold through a storm that night. The sense of accomplishment was intoxicating. We laughed so much.

We gave each other trail names: Sunshine, Lightning, Machete. They called me Phoenix.

Over the past few years, my creativity has transformed in fits and starts — from spark to flame and back again. Lately, it’s felt closer to an inferno.

The CreativeMornings talk I attended — given by , author and founder of the Decatur Book Festival — was about keeping a creative dream alive. A week later, I saw in conversation with Matthew Shaer, a live podcast recording focused on building a writing routine. My friend Becca came with me, and by the end of the evening, we were both ablaze with possibility. This past Saturday, I attended a Zoom class on plot with . I workshopped my novel-in-progress and walked away feeling more confident in my words.

On paper, these are relatively small things. The kinds of events anyone with an interest in writing might attend.

But they feel significant to me, because I so often talk myself out of them. I tell myself it’s too expensive, or that I’m too busy, or that I should be able to figure things out on my own. Each choice comes with its own cost. Every time I listen to those voices, the fire in my belly gets a little smaller.

I made different choices this time. I tended to the flames.

I’m feeling a lot like that reborn phoenix these days. Like I’ve earned my trail name. When it comes to my writing, I feel clear-headed. Confident. Excited for what’s to come. This feeling might come naturally to you. For me, it’s rare. Exceptional. As good as it gets.

I also know it won’t last forever. There will be times when real-life worries grow too big or real to ignore. When I’ll have to set aside creative projects for more practical, pressing responsibilities. There will be a day — hopefully far off, but maybe not — when my well of inspiration feels as dry as the soil in my backyard.

There will be hard days. There always are.

But for now, I’m here. The fire is burning. And I am grateful.

xoxo
KHG

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P.S. The wildfires in South Georgia are improving, but still devastating. I just made a donation to the Red Cross Georgia chapter. If you’re able, I hope you’ll consider joining me.

P.P.S. If you like this theme, you might enjoy ’s latest missive. I wrote this essay just an hour or so before hers arrived in my inbox. I love when I’m on the same wavelength with someone I admire!

I, a woman who is 41 years and one day old, am writing to you with a confession: I still struggle with the birthday blues.

For me, they look a lot like the grief that creeps in ahead of a death anniversary or the emotional upheaval before my period. I get moody and introspective — pretty low, at times — questioning all the big things in life.

Then, the day arrives and… I’m fine! What was I so upset about, anyway? I’m blessed. Lucky to be alive.

Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to be a more even-keeled, less sensitive soul. Until then, this newsletter continues to earn its name.

April was a rollercoaster — one that started on a steady climb, dropped sharply in the middle, and ended with laughs and cheers. Now I’m 41 and feeling good. Honestly? I’d get back in line and ride it again.

After all, a rollercoaster without a little oh shit moment isn’t much of a ride.

But we’re here for the high points! At least when it comes to a glimmers post like this one. Fortunately, there were plenty this month.

Let’s get to it.

✨ The calm after the chaos

My younger brother, Rory, shares a birthday month with me. He turned 38 on April 4, which also happened to be the day of his neighborhood’s Easter egg hunt. A few friends and family members — including my five-year-old and Rory’s two-year-old — gathered together to walk to the park where the madness would soon descend.

Have you been to a community egg hunt recently? Or remember them from your childhood? It’s chaos: kids hustling and shouting, grabbing as many plastic eggs as they can for a few frenzied minutes. Then it’s over. It takes no time at all. Not exactly an ideal setup for a birthday party (especially for a grown-up).

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Hello, friends! Today is my birthday. It falls on a Monday, perhaps the worst day for a birthday, but all’s well. I celebrated over the weekend, and today I get to kick off the next…

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There’s a downside, of course. I don’t have as much space for this week’s newsletter as I usually do. So instead of banging my head against a wall — or continuing to; I’ve tried! — I’m revisiting an oldie but goodie. I wrote this essay exactly three years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites.

Next Monday, I’ll turn 41. I’m happy to report this essay lands the same way for me as it did when I turned 38.

Giving myself a pass on writing something new feels like an early birthday gift. I hope it’s a treat for you, too.

My home in Atlanta is just a few blocks from the rental house I lived in as a college student. That rundown bungalow, still a rental, somehow looks exactly the same all these years later. I’m also not far — just 13 miles away — from my childhood home. Another family lives there, but, again, not much has changed on the exterior. And I’ve recently returned part-time to the office where I used to work almost two decades ago. It, too, looks precisely like I remember.

Later this week, I will turn 38 years old. Unlike these places of my past, and despite my current nearness to them, I have experienced incredible change — on both the outside and inside. Just as we all do.

I have been a baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager. I’ve been a young adult, trying to find her place in the world. I’ve been a 23-year-old bride, a 25-year-old homeowner, and a 26-year-old editor, furiously crossing off life’s milestones like I was in a race to the finish. I’ve been a traveler, venturing to far-off places around the world. I’ve been a risk-taker, packing up all my belongings and moving to Florida. I’ve been a stranger in a familiar place, packing up those same belongings and moving back to Georgia.

I’ve been a daughter, a sister, a teacher, a mentor. I’ve been a career-climber and a recovering workaholic. I’ve been a young widow. I’ve been a not-so-young mother. I’ve been a writer — finally. I’ve been a friend to people I still love and talk to regularly; I’ve been a friend to far more people I love but no longer keep in touch with. I’ve been many things and have been to many places.

Sometimes, though, it feels like I haven’t traveled far at all.

Depending on the day, I range from being slightly satisfied with who I am to wildly disappointed. I’m critical of myself to a major fault — taking stock of everything from my body to my clothes to the essays I write and finding endless ways they could be improved. I wish I were a better version of myself, someone more confident, more outgoing, more secure, more intelligent, more fun to be around. I wonder if I’ll ever become that person.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the pandemic, or parenthood, or getting older. I’ve had some version of this conversation with countless friends. We rattle off the reasons for feeling less satisfied, less sure of our place in the world, in one breathless sentence. It’s because of the pandemic, right? Perhaps this is what happens when you’re raising a little one. Maybe it’s a result of all the depressing news, or facing the reality of climate change. Or … is this just what it’s like to age?

It’s hard to know where the effects of one life-changing event end and the others begin. It’s hard to know what to blame. It’s hard to know if this is normal or if we’re the byproduct of a wildly transitional time in history. The only thing that’s clear is that we’re different and we don’t feel like we’ve had a whole lot of say in how we’ve changed.

When I was in college — living just half a mile from my home today — the opportunities in front of me seemed endless. I flirted with the idea of moving to New Zealand on a work visa (and went as far as buying a one-way plane ticket). I applied to dozens of jobs, dreaming of what it would be like to live in different cities. I thought about the way I’d carry myself, what I’d look like, how I’d dress. In those imagined scenarios, I had it all figured out.

Over time, some of those possibilities became realities. I accepted my first job offer. I bought a return ticket and spent a week in New Zealand instead of a few years. I found an apartment in a nearby neighborhood. I wore a weird amount of infinity scarves. With each choice, new doors of possibility opened. But others began to close.

Now, just days away from turning 38, it feels like I’m facing more closed doors than open ones. I’ve made many big choices — to find love again, to become a mother, to go freelance, to move back to my hometown, to buy a new house — that have, despite their perks, inevitably limited the possibilities ahead of me. I no longer wonder who I will become or what my life will look like. This is it.

Sometimes I think back to college-student Katie, living in that crowded house just a few blocks away. She didn’t yet know how much grief and sadness life could hold. She didn’t know the weight of true adult responsibilities. She didn’t know what it would feel like to look around and see doors of possibility, once wide open, now shut for good.

Is this it? Sometimes I look at my partner after a disagreement, my child after a meltdown, my house after something breaks, and I think: Is this really what life turned out to be? More often, I look critically at myself — my tired eyes, my wrinkled forehead, my struggles to join group conversations, my endless list of worries — and think: Is this really who I turned out to be?

At some point, I catch myself in this self-deprecating, existential spiral. It might require a deep breath, a walk around the block, an emergency text to a friend, or a good night’s sleep, but, eventually, I blink and readjust my vision. My partner trusts me as someone he can disagree with and be vulnerable around; my child loves me and needs my support to test the boundaries of life; my house is my home, a space full of love and potential. And I am someone who has lived through a lot. My eyes have cried so many tears. My forehead has weathered so many worries. I have a lot to say and offer, even if it takes me a while to get there.

Sooner or later, I find that moment of clarity: This is it! This is all I ever needed.

Having lived through my share of big losses, it feels like a requirement to say that growing older is a gift. Not everyone lives to be 38. Not everyone gets to become a parent. Not everyone finds lasting love. Every time I quietly ask myself, is this it? I feel a pang of guilt. I should be nothing but grateful!

But getting older is hard. It is a gift, yes, but it is also heavy. Just as the doors of possibility become fewer and farther between, the burden of grief gets bigger. As the years pass, our losses in life accumulate, threatening to weigh us down. It takes active effort — breaths, walks, conversations with friends, rest — to slow down and remember that all that time has been a blessing, too. I have gained more than I’ve lost. I have been so lucky.

Like anyone else, I spent my quarter-life years wondering who I would become. Now I know. I live not far from where I went to college, where I grew up, where I first fell in love. Although those places have stayed more or less the same, I’ve experienced incredible change. I’ve become the person I am today: someone who struggles with confidence but excels at empathy; someone who is quiet but thoughtful; someone who worries a lot but also plans ahead; someone who asks questions when she doesn’t know the answers; someone who loves a good book and a good laugh. This is who I am.

With age and with loss comes wisdom. That’s a gift I can fully embrace. Somewhere along the way, as I walked through different doors, some by choice, some by accident, I discovered myself. My task now is to accept that person. To embrace her. To stop searching for a different version of me and to look at the woman I am today with warmth and with love. To see the older, wiser, stronger me and to be proud as hell of her.

This is it! This is me. This is 38.

xoxo
KHG

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When I began freelancing, I didn’t have a solid vision for what kind of work I’d do. I was open to anything and everything — pitching articles, leading workshops, speaking at conferences. Now, eight years later, I seem to have found my lane. Most of what I do centers on the great work of local newsrooms and the people supporting those outlets.

I appreciate this focus because I am reminded, again and again, of how much journalists care about the communities they serve and the lengths they’ll go to keep local news alive. I’ve interviewed dozens of one- or two-person operations, spoken to reporters who continue to cover topics long after the mainstream media has moved on, and gotten to know leaders who find surprising ways to keep their publications running.

After so many years and so many stories, some of these conversations naturally blend together. But there’s one interview that, four years later, I still can’t forget. In 2022, I was assigned a feature for the Institute for Nonprofit News about member newsrooms that cover the environment. One of the people I spoke to was Amy Martin, the host and executive producer of Threshold, a podcast about our place in the natural world.

About halfway through the interview, I asked Amy the same question I’d posed to the other environmental journalists I’d spoken to.

“Sometimes — or a lot of times,” I hedged, “when people think about environment and climate news, they think about doom and gloom. What, if anything, makes you feel optimistic these days?”

There was a long pause. An almost uncomfortable stretch of silence. Finally, Amy spoke.

“I will be totally honest and say, I think there is something about that question — nothing personal — but this is a question that we’re asking ourselves over and over again in a world that I think deserves a little bit of pushback.”

I still have the recording from that interview. The moment when Amy said “nothing personal,” I can hear myself murmur and gulp. I gulped! I remember feeling nervous to hear her answer. I was surprised she was going off-script, and unsure where we were headed next.

“I think optimism and hope are important things to have,” she conceded. “But I also worry about that frame, because I think that there’s a way that we — especially people who are living in relative comfort and relatively privileged societies — focus a lot on how bad the news makes us feel, and how we need something good to make us feel better.”

At this point, I’d stopped typing. I trusted the recording and just listened to Amy’s words.

“It’s a totally valid question — but I also feel like I’m getting asked it so many times,” she continued. “I think we need to be focused much more on what we are going to do. What are we doing? Let the doing — the action, and the solutions-building — be the thing that brings us hope. You get optimistic by doing the work.”

Amy was wildly kind in her response. We ended our conversation laughing and exchanging pleasantries. But I walked away with a lingering sense of shame. I felt silly not just for asking that question, but for what her answer revealed.

She was right: I did want to feel better. I’d asked this journalist — someone examining our complicated relationship with the environment, who was not shying away from reality — to soften the blow. I wanted a neat and tidy answer I could easily slot into the article I was working on. I wanted to hear that maybe things weren’t actually so bad after all.

Afterwards, I was left with a set of even bigger questions. Is it silly to focus on hope? What does “doing the work” really mean? How can an average person make any kind of difference? And if we don’t have hope, how do we stay motivated to make change in the first place?

It felt like an existential chicken-and-egg conundrum. We’re told we find hope by taking action. But we need hope to take action in the first place. It’s no wonder I’ve been turning this over in my head for years.

Despite my shame and confusion, I haven’t given up my search for reasons to feel hopeful. In the four years since I’ve spoken to Amy, I’ve gone through my share of dread and fear; you may have, too. From climate disasters to war, mass shootings to losses in reproductive rights, immigration raids to lawless leaders, the reasons to feel overwhelmed are too many and too significant to measure. It’s a persistent, all-encompassing heaviness.

Last fall, at a particularly low point, I asked you all to share your own reasons for hope. In response, a reader and friend — the brilliant Emma Lacey-Bordeaux, who I’m admittedly sometimes intimidated by — pointed me to an article she’d written.

The title of my post was “Dear reader, I’m looking for hope.” The title of her article was “The danger of hope.”

Oof. There it was again — that feeling of shame. Once more, I felt like my craving for hope was somehow small-minded or misplaced.

In her piece, Emma argued that hope, when untethered from action, can be counterproductive. It can create the illusion of progress, allowing us to feel like something’s being done when nothing actually is. She explained that unearned hope can drift into complacency — softening urgency instead of sharpening it.

Like Amy, Emma wasn’t dismissing hope entirely. Instead, she offered a useful warning: hope can be dangerous if it becomes a substitute for action instead of a byproduct of it.

To find hope, we need to take action. But when it feels like everything is on fire — war, climate disasters, food insecurity, income inequality, families torn apart, unchecked leaders, polarization — it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s hard to imagine even making a dent. It’s natural to reach for reassurance instead.

Emma ended her piece with a bit of wisdom she’s held onto for years.

“One day, during the start of the pandemic, when my home doubled as my office, I got a piece of professional advice I’ve held tight. A therapist who works with ER doctors shared with a group of us journalists that when we work on tasks that seem never ending, burnout is more likely. To prevent it, he advised that we right-size the problem. Put down the work from time to time, celebrate our achievements (especially in tough times), develop rituals and build out perspective to nourish us as we keep doing the work.”

You have to put down the work every so often. But you keep doing it.

There’s another conversation about the nature of hope that’s been tumbling around my head. It happened last fall, around the same time that I asked readers for their perspectives. I was at a neighbor’s house — celebrating the fifth birthday of a wonderful, funny, amazing kiddo for whom I hope we can create a better, less bleak world — and wound up chatting with a woman named Marilyn.

Marilyn is a teacher at my daughter’s outdoor preschool. She’s also a board member and volunteer with El Refugio, an organization dedicated to supporting immigrant detainees and their families. I asked her a version of the same question I’d asked Amy all those years ago. Perhaps I hadn’t learned much. Or maybe I was better at listening. I was hungry for hope, and I wanted to understand how to use that desire for good.

“What brings you hope?” I asked. “When everything feels like it’s falling apart, what keeps you going?”

We were standing near a bounce house filled with small children shrieking and laughing with delight. If all goes right in the world, those children will outlive us, inheriting a future brighter than we can imagine.

A friend had recently asked her a similar question, she said. This friend felt overwhelmed by all the crises that demanded attention and didn’t know how best to use her time. Marilyn pointed her to a lesson she’d learned from reading the work of Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa: you hold the line.

“We all need to find our own lane,” Marilyn told me. “We can and should lend a hand to other movements when we’re able, but it doesn’t do anyone any good if we sacrifice our expertise and passion for our own work and allow ourselves to be distracted by whatever else seems the most urgent at the moment.”

For Marilyn, that issue is immigrant rights. For her friend, it’s climate awareness. For the journalists I interview, it’s access to reliable, trustworthy information.

For me? Much like my relationship with hope, I’m still figuring it out.

My blood boils when I hear politicians offer nothing but thoughts and prayers for the victims of a mass shooting or some other kind of preventable disaster.

Thoughts and prayers are, of course, hope. But hope on its own gets us nowhere. We need action.

Lord, do we need action! Not only in the hands of kind and competent leaders (do those people exist? If the Artemis II mission taught us anything, it’s yes), but in our own lives. We must consistently take steps, no matter how small, toward a better tomorrow.

The minute we stop, we’re truly cooked.

Hope alone doesn’t get us anywhere. But using hope as fuel — a way to power our action, to get us closer to the future we’re imagining — is something different. Hope isn’t the work. It’s what the work produces.

Hope gives us the motivation to do the real work, work that is sometimes discouraging and oftentimes thankless. Things like visiting detention centers, registering voters, supporting your local news outlet, making meals for neighbors, donating to a cause you believe in, creating art, marching in the streets, going out of your way to actually recycle things — and showing others how to do it, too.

There are a million things to lose sleep over. Pick one. What can you do to make the situation a little better? Take that step. Celebrate it. Rest if you need to. Then do it again.

I’m still figuring out how to incorporate more hope-fueled work into my own life. The idea of you all doing it alongside me is an encouraging one. The idea of my daughter knowing I worked to create a better future for her and her peers is even stronger motivation.

While you’re doing the work, take stock of what you’re feeling. It might be many things, but I’ll bet there’s at least a little bit of hope mixed in.

And that feels good, right?

xoxo
KHG

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✨ Speaking of hope

Becca and I will be launching the second round of the My Sweet Dumb Brain Hope-Mail Exchange soon. If you, too, are looking for reasons to feel hopeful, I hope you’ll sign up! (And this go-around? We’ll talk about the actions we’re taking, too.)

This pen-pal exchange is only open to paying subscribers of My Sweet Dumb Brain. If you’re not one yet, here’s your chance! We’ll contact all paid subscribers later in the week with more information about participating in the exchange. We hope (!) you’ll join us.

Subscribe now

I was born in New Orleans and lived there until I was three. Not long after my brother was born, we moved to Georgia, where relatives had landed and jobs were waiting for my public school teacher parents.

New Orleans was where I laid eyes on my first female bus driver. We rode the bus often, and — like most public transportation then, and I’d guess still now — most of the drivers were men. So the day those bifold doors whooshed open to reveal a woman behind the wheel stuck with me. It was my first glimpse of someone breaking through the glass ceiling. (I was three; the bar was low, okay?)

For years after, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up — a bizarre question for a small child, I now realize — I answered with confidence: “a lady bus driver.”

Alas, that didn’t pan out. Somewhere along the way, I let go of my visions of a future in public transportation. Not long after I learned to read, another idea took root: I wanted to be an author.

I dreamed about it in Mrs. Calvo’s second-grade class, where we’d get half a worksheet to write a story based on the illustration above. I’d fill the front, then the unlined back, then ask for another piece of paper to keep going. I don’t know how often we did that exercise, but it was never enough. I could have written stories all day.

I carried that desire into fourth grade — the first year school didn’t come easily. As math grew more complicated — multiplication and division, fractions and decimals — I struggled to maintain interest in the classroom. But I found my place in writing: book reports, essays, long journal entries. I’d rush through the rest of my homework just to have more time to read, tearing through The Baby-Sitters Club books and wondering about the impossibly glamorous life of Ann M. Martin.

Adults kept asking what I wanted to be when I grew up — early training for the career-oriented small talk of adulthood, I suppose — and my answer was always the same: I wanted to write the kind of books other people would devour.

I held onto that answer through elementary school, middle school, and the early years of high school. But as college and the real world crept closer, it began to feel flimsy, like my own faltering self-confidence. Writing books seemed impractical, like something a child would decide to do, not an adult with bills to pay.

So I decided to be a journalist instead.

I tucked my novelist dreams away and planned for a different sort of future. I joined the high school newspaper and applied to colleges with print journalism programs. I figured I could use my love for writing and storytelling to report stories with clarity and compassion.

The joke, of course, is on me. It’s perhaps slightly easier to make money as a journalist than a novelist, but not much — and neither pays particularly well. After graduating from a state school on scholarship (another safe, practical choice), I landed a trainee position at a big national news network, where I’d interned, just down the street from campus.

Here’s where we’ll fast-forward.

I did not write during my time at the news network. I wound up on the management path, attending meetings, approving time-off requests, and editing others’ work.

At my next job, I wrote a bit more, but still not much; I instead supported other journalists as they honed their skills.

Then my husband died. (This is always the pivotal point, isn’t it?)

After more than a decade of life with a man who never stopped pursuing his creative dreams, I was forced to rethink everything. I had to rediscover who I was without him — what made my now-decimated life worth living. I scoured through his storyboards and screenplays, looking for answers; he lived his life as if he knew time was running out, and I wanted to know how.

In all that searching, I found my way back to writing.

I started journaling. I filled notebook after notebook, writing whenever and wherever I could. When people asked how I was doing, I’d tell them I wanted to write a book one day — a more palatable answer than struggling to find reasons to live. I left my job to give myself time to grieve and figure out what came next. I started this newsletter.

It took hitting the lowest point in my life to return to the dream I’d always had.

I am a writer.

I’m still not great at saying that out loud — I haven’t fully shed that version of myself with the shaky self-confidence — so I write it instead.

I’ve published more than 450 Substack posts — more than 400,000 words, enough to fill at least five books. I’ve started writing a book of my own — a novel, not the memoir I imagined in those early grief days. I’ve written and revised 66,000 words.

I’ve built a beautiful life with another creative person, a musician. Only this time, my creative dreams aren’t tucked away.

I am a writer.

And I’m sometimes terrible at it. I write essays that wander, sentences that try too hard, paragraphs that say the same thing five different ways. The number of mistakes I’ve made working on my novel is laughable. (One day, I’ll tell you about the beta reader group I joined after writing for just three months, or how I blew my shot with not one but two agents.) I still have a lot to learn when it comes to pacing, character development, and how to get from one point to another without the words dragging on.

I’m a not-yet-great writer. I struggle to find the time to make the progress I want. Every published book I read is something to study. I can’t stop brainstorming essay ideas and character choices. I listen to podcasts like Bad on Paper and and wonder whether I, too, will one day talk about book one, two, three. Thinking about writing — how to find time, how to get better, how to keep going — consumes a significant portion of my days.

I wanted to be a lady bus driver because I hadn’t realized that was a possibility. To see a woman in that seat — guiding people to different places — felt exciting and powerful.

Doing that with a book? Taking even more people to even wilder places, all through words? That still feels like magic to me.

I started working on my novel in November 2024, right around the time that tools like ChatGPT and Claude went mainstream. Suddenly, anyone could write a book — and in record time. These days, there are plenty of stories and scandals about people building entire careers on books created with AI.

I won’t lie: it’s tempting.

At this point, I’ve been plugging away at my novel for a year and a half. A year and a half! After a lifetime of wanting this, setting it aside, then fighting my way back, I can feel the impatience creeping in. I have good ideas. The foundation is there. Wouldn’t it make sense to bring it to life faster?

But the part I love most isn’t the finished product. It’s the process.

Nothing makes me quite as miserable as being stuck on a writing problem — and nothing feels better than finally solving it. The struggle is the point.

If I handed that over to an LLM I might end up with something that looks like a book. But it would be empty. It would feel a lot like that management path, sitting in endless meetings and approving time-off requests: close to my dream but not actually living it.

I do use AI sometimes, mostly to assist my freelance work. I use it to sort through transcripts, pull takeaways, and run basic line edits. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I can see it as a helpful tool, one I need to know how to use to stay relevant. But I never feel great about it. What am I giving away by giving it my words?

Writing challenges me. It lights up my brain. It helps me untangle the knots of grief and clarify what I believe. It connects me with wonderful people. It gives me the humility and joy of a beginner’s mindset, over and over again.

I’m not willing to give that up in the name of speed.

I am a writer. It’s terrible and wonderful, and it’s taken me a long time to get here. I have been writing this newsletter for seven years and often still struggle to view it as anything but a side project. There are zero guarantees that this novel becomes anything. Odds are, it will fade somewhere in the submission process, in a sea of countless hopeful novels before it.

And even if it does die there — even if I never hold my own book in my hands — I also want to die knowing that I did things the real way. The hard way. The way that left me feeling invigorated and frustrated and completely obsessed. The way that made me feel alive.

If six-year-old Katie could see forty-year-old Katie, finally toiling away at a novel in earnest, she’d wonder what took so long.

I also like to think she’d be glad I found my way back.

xoxo
KHG

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This is a rich topic! And I’m far from the only person thinking about it. Here are some other recent pieces I appreciated:

• Love this framing from : “When I’m about to use an LLM, I try to pause and ask: am I skipping something meaningful, or replacing work I’m uniquely equipped to do with something less considered?”

• From the master of awe, : Trees can teach us a lot — about patience, inefficiency, and time well spent.

• explains how she uses an LLM as a pretty solid editor.

• “What happens if we forget how to learn?” wrote this in early February, and I think about it all the time.

I made a promise to myself that I’d write today’s post sitting outside. The weather has been pretty much perfect in Atlanta lately — not too hot, not too cold, deep blue skies, tolerable humidity. Birds are singing up a storm, trees are sprouting leaves, and flowers are beginning to bud. It’s the sweet hush of anticipation before a riot of color: green grass, technicolor petals, and long, golden days.

There’s just one problem: pollen.

Right now, the dominant color here is yellow. Pollen coats everything — outdoor furniture and toys, cars and driveways, the cushions you regret not bringing inside. It’s relentless, making even the least allergy-prone among us a little itchy-throated and watery-eyed.

But it’s the price we pay to live in a place with abundant trees. It’s all part of the fertilization cycle — the process that keeps our ecosystem ticking along.

My daughter came home from school the other day singing a sweet little song, clapping her hands and slapping her thighs:

The wind told the grasses and the grasses told the trees
The trees told the bushes and the bushes told the bees
The bees told the robins and the robins sang out clear
“Wake up, wake up, Spring is here!”

Before I sat down to write, I wiped off the patio table and cleared my chair of its powdery film. I settled down with a big glass of water and a vial of eye drops. Then I began this post.

Spring is here! Is there any better glimmer than that?

Here are a few more highlights from the past month — and what I had to clear away to appreciate them.

✨ Whatever it takes

I’m still plugging away at my novel-in-progress, still trying to touch it once a day. My methods vary (as does my motivation and inspiration), but right now, I’m back to waking up early to get a solid half hour of writing in before the rest of the household wakes.

For me, writing is almost always a glimmer. The feeling of flow — when the words come quickly and my fingers fly across the keyboard — is delicious. But it doesn’t always come easily.

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