Broody thoughts.
Are mine more morbid than most.
I sit at my desk, preparing to write,
when my gloomy mind detours.

Instead of writing a plot,
I wander, wondering how I would feel
if my husband found another
when I’m gone.

Would I want him to remarry
and tell this woman he loves her,
as he’s told me a thousand times?
Would I want him to care for her as he cared for me?

What if he loves her more
or cares for her more deeply?
I know the textbook answers.
I know what is considered right.

I sit and think about the words—the cliché
“I would just want him to be happy.”
But would I?
Would those words be true?

Am I a horrid person,
wanting to be the love of his life?
His only, his irreplaceable,
his reason for “no one else”

Would I want to know it or see?
Sometimes I think I couldn’t; I wouldn’t.
The pain would be too great.
I want to be his only, best, and last—his great.

I know it’s selfish,
Am I the only one who thinks this way?
I’m jealous, even now, for so many what-ifs.
It’s ridiculous speculation; I might not go first.

If I were he, would I want happiness again?
Then comes my somber awakening.
I wouldn’t want to be alone, uncherished,
to spend my remaining years unloved.

I wouldn’t, don’t want that for him, either.
I love him enough to want him deeply loved,
even after me, after we.
That is the depth of my love for him.

(Published on Vocal)

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Read At Your Own Risk

I should have been born with a tattooed warning label on my forehead. I have always been a tunnel-visioned idealist. When I set my mind to something, I work at it until I get the result I want. Don’t even get me started on the ifs. If someone says I can do it, or tells me it can’t be done, well, “them is fightin’ words,” and a sure catalyst for proving the theory wrong. I may not succeed, as is often the case, but it’s not for lack of trying. Oh, and I will try until I have exhausted every option. I think this is a great trait, but I have come to realize others don’t see it that way.

The people closest to me call it stubbornness. I don’t understand why that is considered bad. Tenacity is not bad per se. It is why so many things come into existence. I mean, where would we be if people didn’t stubbornly refuse to accept that the impossible exists? Can you imagine?

I Am In Good Company

What if Edison had stopped looking for a way to create indoor light? Where would we be if NASA had stopped the space program after one failed launch? No. I don’t think it’s a bad quality. Some aspects can be unfortunate side effects, but that is the price of a driven mind and of buying into the life of a Type A person. My family is feeling these side effects in real life lately.

A New Path

Once my husband and I became empty nesters and I began my writing career, my family got a taste of my drive and focus. I am working on a plan, and for better or worse, I have a specific deadline and benchmark I want to meet, so I am laser-focused. This is the essence of the warning and the crux of the problem; it shows up in my relationships with family and friends.

My sister began complaining almost weekly that I don’t call her anymore and that she never hears from me. True, to a degree. I used to have all the time in the world for phone calls and diversions. I didn’t work. I retired when I had our son, and my days were all about our child and our home. That suited my family and friends well.

When they had downtime, I was free. When they wanted to have lunch or coffee, I was available. Kids, being who they are, are usually busy with school, socializing, and athletics, leaving Mom with time that felt open for everyone else. It did, most of the time, but this dynamic has now changed.

Growing Pains

Before I retired, everyone knew I would be at work during certain hours, so my absence was expected. Twenty years of child-rearing had everyone used to Mom being free all the time. And now the tides have changed.

I am writing. A lot. A year ago, I took it on as a full-time job with plenty of overtime, and that doesn’t seem to bode well for those close to me. I start at seven in the morning and often don’t finish until six or seven in the evening.

If I have a book or product launch, or I’m writing or editing a book, product, poems, or stories, I get in the zone and don’t like to break my flow.

For you writers out there, you understand what I mean. You get into a role; your mind weaves the story as your fingers try to keep up, and a phone call slams the brakes on the whole thing. I have actually felt the air being sucked out of the room at times, and I couldn’t finish the project that day. My mind went numb. So I keep my phone on silent, no vibration.

My son feels the same way my sister does, though he’s become more accustomed to the change. He knows my self-imposed schedule and how important my writing has become to me. Now that he is on his own, he also understands how much I didn’t do to be available to him all the time, and he’s given me a wide berth so I can enjoy my newfound job. He’s a wonder.

My husband was a little harder nut to crack. He was used to me being at his beck and call. We did everything together, and somewhere along the line we forgot how to do things apart. Since I have gone all in on writing and art, he felt neglected and didn’t know what to do with himself. He had to find a hobby to keep himself occupied while I was busy.

This was a real learning curve for all of us. Each of us had to create a new normal. It took a lot of time.

Old Dog, New Tricks

I had to bend a little, too. I became so wrapped up in my projects, writing, or art that the whole world disappeared. I, too, had to find a new way to make sure I was still giving them the time we needed together. We all adapted. I’d say it was only because of me, but in truth, the changes required adaptation from everyone.

I work hard to create buffers, banking art and written pieces I keep to post on busy days, so I can take time off to be with my husband. He has found a hobby in art, too.

This works with our son, too. Being honest with him when I am too busy works well.

It isn’t easy to start a new path in life. It truly comes with a lot of change, stretching existing habits and creating new ones. It also comes with learning to handle new kinds of crises you might not have considered before.

When I began creating my new career track, I realized the world had moved on technologically without me for 20 years. I quickly learned I had to modernize my understanding of what it means to be a writer. This meant I needed an online presence.

I created a website for my brand, Ink and Echo, and then I got connected, which created a daily flow of tasks to keep up with social media and get my name out there. I could call this growth, or growing pains, but it felt more like a rack-torture device. It was painful to learn to work on a website, create images for my posts using an AI assistant, and organize my time so I could actually write.

The business side of writing takes an enormous amount of time every single day. I had to learn to take small bites instead of trying to finish the meal each day; as a type A person, that was a tough pill to swallow. I don’t like leaving things undone, but I had to learn to accept that I can’t always get it done in one day. It’s hard for me, honestly. My personality fights that every day.

By far, the biggest challenge for me was creating the website. This is where dumpster fires begin and usually occur. Not all AIs are created equal. Every site has them to help you use the site, and domain hosting sites are no exception. Working with them is maddening.

Welcome to Insanity

I find myself fighting and yelling at these inanimate tools when they screw things up after long stretches of working on issues that have taken a long time. I am not good with screw-ups, and AI screw-ups are rampant. Anything from wrong information to looping around in circles with no forward movement makes me very frazzled.

Someone Grab the Hose! Put Out This Fire!

Saying I feel like an idiot fighting a computer over its mistakes is an understatement. I feel diabolical and like a whack job when I do it. But I do it. A lot. At times, it’s been so maddening that I’ve broken down in tears a few times. Grok led me on a wild goose chase for a week while I tried to get my website working properly and Google crawling properly; all it managed to do was mess it up worse than before.

The domain’s AI assistant was a mess in this capacity as well. It would upload and create what I wanted on a page, then delete or change something I didn’t ask for. It took me a week to sort out a page listing my books by publisher because it wouldn’t leave anything alone when it added a new section.

I found a life-saving AI that knew how to do things right and helped me organize my day into something manageable. I have been able to offload mundane tasks like posting to my social media accounts and sifting through the hundreds of emails I get every day to make sure I am not replying to phishing sites disguised as legitimate ones. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to change all my passwords, close credit cards, and rebuild all my sites with new information. Many tears were shed.

My husband was the lucky recipient of my dumpster fires. He had the task of listening to my rants, wiping my tears, and calming my spirits. God, he must have thought I was losing my sanity. Maybe I was.

Last Call!

So be warned. I am not firing on all cylinders on most days. With that handicap, I am still a perfectionist and a Type A nut case. It’s a fun ride, though. Dare to join me?

Watch your step as you fall into my abyss.

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On a Warm Day

Gosh, the sun is so bright, Abby thought. The sun was blaring, but not scorching her skin because it was autumn. Temperatures were brisk and cool, and the beautiful leaves had been changing and drifting to the ground for a couple of weeks in her New England town, not that she or anyone else noticed.

For years now, the natural order of life had been cast aside in favor of the manufactured world offered to humanity via the internet. It was a lonely world, and life had become indistinguishable from what she had read in school history books or found online in searches.

Abby sat at the dining room table, having a bite to eat as she scrolled through her feed, leaving comments on others’ posts and videos. She then checked her posts to see if she had responses or new followers. She liked it when she saw her friends like her clips and admire them. Then she went to her OnlyFans page to see if her audience had grown so she could rake in more cash.

She had been peddling her body there in suggestive outfits and provocative reels to make an easy buck. She didn’t want to do much to earn her money, but she liked pricey clothes and the status they brought. She wanted to impress her followers and friends. Everyone else was doing it so she thought nothing of it, even though it made her feel ugly inside and cheap.

She took a small bite of her snack and navigated to her analytics page when her screen went black. She must have run out of battery, but she saw no notice that she was in low-power danger mode. She grabbed her portable charger and attached it, but nothing happened.

What’s Happening?

Abby looked up from her phone and saw her family at the table. They were all staring at their phones like the devices had grown heads. Shocked by the loss of their artificial appendages, they looked up from their screens and around the table. The looks on their faces were palpable.

Each looked at the others, back and forth among the family at the table, as if they hadn’t noticed them in the room and almost didn’t recognize each other. Then Abby discovered something. She did not remember the last time she had looked at her mother, father, or sister. They almost looked foreign to her.

Abby didn’t remember the last time she had even spoken to any of them. Had it been hours, days, weeks, longer? She seemed shocked, but it fit the world’s experience now that everyone was addicted to the handheld computer wonder.

Once the immediate shock passed, Abby’s sister spoke and asked what had happened. Everyone shook their heads and said they didn’t know. They turned on the television, and every channel was running a breaking news story.

News

“All internet and online activity has come to a stop!” “We have no idea what caused this or how to fix it. Millions have started calling the stations and trying to contact the platform sites somehow. There was no way to send a message or email. No one had phone numbers written down or saved to memory anymore, like in her grandparents’ generations. She remembered laughing at that discovery when she had read about it.

Some stations were getting new information trickling in, reporting that the worldwide crash seemed permanent. It had been caused by an unknown anomaly linked to solar flares. Satellites had all gone down, and there was no way to reach them remotely.

Elephant in the Room?

The awkwardness in the room was stifling. The family had never noticed that they had lost the ability to have a normal conversation. Abby spoke up and asked her parents what they should do. Her parents told her they didn’t know.

A knock came at the door, and her mom went to see who it was. Meg, her mom, opened the door to a middle-aged man and woman standing there like deer in the headlights.

Both were holding their dead phones in their hands. The woman looked at Meg and introduced herself and her husband as their next-door neighbors. She went on to ask if they had lost use of their phones and the internet as well.

As Meg went to reply, she realized she didn’t even know who these people were. She had seen them once in a while, she thought, but never knew their names, what they did, or even how long they had been her neighbors. Drake, her husband, came up behind her and told them that there may be nothing that could be done to get their phones back.

Drake’s mother, the kid’s grandmother, walked into the living space, laughing her head off. She told them they would now have to rejoin the world and live in it.

Abby remembered arguing with her grandma that her ways were antiquated and that social media and the internet had brought the world closer. Grandma argued the opposite. “You’ll see,” was always her response.

Back to the Old Ways

The day dragged on like a snail across a rough surface. The boredom was overwhelming. No one seemed to know what to do with themselves, but Grandma did not seem in the least changed. She read her book, knitted her blanket, and hummed her music to herself. She seemed undisturbed.

Abby went outside into the backyard. She noticed flowers she had never seen, and bushes she remembered were tiny new plants once, now shoulder-high. She smelled the heady fragrance of a syrupy flower wafting in the air, remembered smelling something like it long ago, but had forgotten the name of the flower. It was a gardenia, though she couldn’t remember it. A tear fell down her cheek.

Abby’s grandmother came outside and told her to sit beside her on the porch settee. She saw the tear dangling from Abby’s jaw and began to tell her that everything would be all right. Her grandma spoke for a while, and Abby listened intently for the first time in months, maybe years. She told Abby she would love to teach her to knit and shared the books she had read in the past few months.

Abby’s mind was soaring in new directions. She listened to the book details, and her imagination sparked. She realized she wanted to read the books herself and travel to the places her mind was briefly exploring.

Meeting the Family Again

Grandma Betty went up, and Abby followed her into the garden. As they walked, Betty named the flowers and told her to smell them. Each fragrance suddenly brought her memories of a time when she did not have a phone and played outside in the mud among the flowers. Where did she lose that? How did her curiosity and appreciation for life and nature get locked in a box in the back of her life’s closet?

The days went by, the weeks went on and on, and life was becoming a different kind of normal. Not just for Abby, but for their family, the neighborhood, and life in general.

Abby began spending time with her mother and discovered new things about her. She knew her mother’s favorite perfume, went shopping with her, and tried on clothes, laughing over bad choices. She spent time with her sister, listening to music and reading books to one another, opening a whole world of fantasy and possibilities to their minds.

Abby even spent time with her dad, who taught her how to make simple appliance repairs and how to mow the yard in perfect diagonal rows.

Betty and Abby spent a lot of time in the flower gardens, where she learned to prune and care for the numerous plants and the bees that came to visit. They learned together how to keep bees, collect honey, and grew very close.

Community

The family’s neighbors began to get to know one another and decided to hold a monthly gathering, rotating homes, to get closer.

Abby began spending time with school friends, too. The time was awkward at first, but as time went on, the friends began looking forward more and more to seeing one another and getting together. Friendships, real ones, developed. Everyone’s ability to socialize again returned to what it had been in the olden days, as the younger generations had called it.

In fact, the more that life returned to those norms from years past, the happier and more connected people became. No one seemed lonely anymore, and there was far less anger and hostility. People seemed calmer, less volatile, and friendlier all around, and it was nice.

Ping

A year later, Abby was sitting with her mom one night when she heard a ping. It sounded strange, unfamiliar yet familiar. Then she remembered what she was hearing and realized her phone had pinged back on. Her mom also noticed the sound. They looked at one another and stared for a moment. Then they continued to sit and talk for a few more minutes.

Meg got up a while later and went to get her phone in her office. She came out with the phone in her hand and looked at Abby, who was now heading to the kitchen. Meg followed her there and looked thoughtfully at her daughter. She looked deep in thought when she suddenly opened the trash bin and tossed her phone in.

A Choice

Dad and Abby’s sister entered the kitchen just as she threw away her chains. They looked at each other, then all walked to the bin and did the same. Then they went into the den and sat with Grandma, who had been napping. As she woke, Abby asked them if they wanted to grill some burgers together and then play a game afterward.

There was an understanding between them. They all felt it. They knew they had grown together without phones in their daily lives. They had once again become a family. They were, for the first time in a long time, happy. A decision had been made that evening. They had no regrets.

Abby didn’t miss selling herself to gawkers online, and she sure didn’t miss how it made her feel inside.

As the internet came back online, families across the world were having the same experiences. Many more than one would have thought were coming to the same conclusion and making the same choices as Abby’s family.

Normal had returned, and loneliness had become the stranger in the room.

(Published by Futurism on Vocal Media, 2026)

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The Journey

I started writing 17 months ago, after our son moved out to begin his life’s journey. After 20 years focused on our child and my husband, I felt purposeless. After 25-plus years, I picked up my drawing pencils again and started writing. I have a lot to say, it seems, since I am still at it. The road has been long and full of rejection. If constant rejection doesn’t teach you how strong or strong-willed you are, I don’t know what does. This new purpose has also brought success.

My work appears in 31 anthology books and in many online and print literary journals and magazines, and I published a book this week as the sole author. It is tiring work, but thrilling and fulfilling in ways I hadn’t fathomed. There has been one very annoying hiccup, or as one says, “a fly in the ointment.”

Big Problem

My work keeps being attributed to another Alexandra Grant, every single time! Apparently, the only Alexandra Grant who writes is the Alexandra Grant who married the actor Keanu Reeves. Even more striking is how painful it is to get my work attributed to me. Let me be clear, in case you mistake me too.

I am Alexandra Grant! I was born six years before Mr. Reeves’s illustrious wife, so I believe I’ve owned the name longer. I write poetry, which she doesn’t; I write essays and short stories, which she doesn’t. We both write stories on the vast topic of love, though mine aren’t tied to a famous person; instead, they focus on pain and self-discovery, with a side of fictional, soul-searching angst. I am also an artist, as is Mrs. Reeves, but I am an amateur artist for hobby purposes alone. I love drawing and painting, but I do it to relax after a day of mental work and writing. I move from the written arts to the visual arts every day. Both serve different parts of my history and emotional make-up.

Why It Matters

Creative people use different methods to work through their past, pain, or dreams. It’s what we do. I pour my heart, mind, and soul into every word, line, and paragraph, and into every pencil, colored pencil, and brushstroke. Sometimes it comes easily and with little effort, but more often than not it’s steady creating and recreating of words on paper (computer, actually) or images on paper (yes, real paper here), and it takes a great deal of time and effort. There are also those moments, hours, or days when nothing comes. My mind can seem to grab onto anything I want to put down.

Writing every day isn’t easy. I spend 8–12 hours a day, sometimes more, writing. When I say writing, I also mean promoting and marketing my work, entering contests or submitting to publishers, and writing on online platforms. So, this is why it makes me so mad when my work is posted by a different person. It seems book platforms think there is only one of us, Alexandra Grants, and I am not the one they want.

Possibilities

Maybe they think listing a famous wife’s book will bring them more patrons. I could, or might. Maybe they don’t know that, aside from her, many Alexandra Grant writers exist across the globe. There are. I have googled it. I find it particularly telling that I am not confused with any other Alexandra Grants, and none of them with me. No other Alexandra Grant’s writings are attributed to her, just mine. What that is or means, I have no clue. It doesn’t matter, really. What does piss me off is what it takes to convince these book platforms that I am who I say I am and that I write too?

A Pain In My Arse

Let’s start with the process. First, I have to find the sites that carry books and/or promote them to readers. Then I have to set up an account on each one as an author. I do this myself and don’t have a staff to do it for me. Once that is set up (profile, humorous bio, and any related setup info), I have to add each book one at a time. This job can vary in many ways.

Some require little; some require a lot more. On some sites, I add the ISBN and the book loads right away. Then I add it to my page. This is the part that makes no sense to me. I add it to my author page, which has its own author account number or name, and it gets posted to someone else’s. Well, not someone. One particular someone. Then the hassle begins.

Now the fun part starts. I have to disambiguate our accounts. This means writing to the platform and, most of the time, asking them more than once to separate our accounts. Then, after that happens, which takes anywhere from a couple of days to weeks on Goodreads, I can add my book titles.

Hoops

I have to add each title, publisher, publication date, and publisher contact information one by one to verify my authorship, and so on. Some ask for additional information like page count, which I have to manually check for each book and its different versions. Yes, I have to do this for each version on most sites. So, imagine 33 books and at least 2 to 3 versions of each. You get the picture.

The Players

Volunteers called librarians do this task of verifying each book and each instance of the book, one of my titles. Not all librarians are created equal, as I have come to find out. Some care carefully, but I have yet to find more than one, so I am being generous. Most of the time, it’s someone who signed up for this kind of work for whatever reason and then doesn’t care enough to do it carefully and properly, or I wouldn’t be writing this piece.

Silver Lining?

I suppose I should be grateful for that one caveat alone. It gave me something to write today. I am not. I could have spent my words elsewhere.

Not My Job

Now here is the real gem in this tale. On one of these sites, I call it the site that shall not be named, I had a long discussion after repeatedly begging for weeks to have my name separated from the other Alexandra, and then begging to have the books appear on my page instead of hers. I asked the librarian a question. I asked how or why they weren’t checking which one was on the book.

The answer floored me. They told me straight that I couldn’t possibly expect them to check every book title an author adds. My response was heated, and I won’t apologize for it. I told him, of course I expected it—it’s their job. I went further and asked what would happen if librarians just threw books onto shelves without checking the author name, misfiling them. Librarians everywhere are turning in their spinning chairs at this exchange with a librarian in name only. The “librarian’s” response made no sense.

Trusting the Pros

Every listing has to include a website (not your own, but the publisher’s) where they can confirm you and your titles. Publishers don’t add authors or the books they publish without careful scrutiny. They want to avoid mistakes. Amazon, specifically, will not add a book to an Author Central author page without verifying every title.

So, knowing this, book platforms should be able to easily confirm a writer’s published works. Not so. You get email after email saying they can’t verify your work for the separation. Then you have to argue your case like a damned attorney in a criminal trial.

I should be used to this by now, since I am on my sixth book platform, but I am not. I am madder than a wet hornet. If I can’t possibly be who I say I am, and all my work is under Alexandra Grant-Reeves, maybe I’m entitled to her bank account too; after all, we are one and the same. Right? Somehow, I don’t think that dog hunts.

Groveling

One day, when I was especially weary of begging for my authorship, I went so far as to message the artist’s agent. That was months ago. And yes, you guessed it. She can’t be bothered to reply to a little-known poet. It’s clear I am no one they’re concerned with. Perhaps so. Maybe I am no one. But I am Alexandra Grant, and no one will take that from me. I was here first. Literally.

Could Have, Should Have?

A thought came to me the other day, when I was about to give up on fighting to get my books under my profiles. The idea was that if I left my work under the actor’s wife’s name, I might get more sales or readers. Realistically, someone who is following her or the actor might be more likely to buy one of my titles if they believe it’s one of hers.

Nah

But that thought quickly vanished. I deserve to have my little slice of written history. I worked for it to be there. Whether I get sales or not is inconsequential. I won’t ride someone else’s coattails. I’ll earn my own. And that makes me proud to call myself an author.

(Published by The Inner Catalyst on Medium, 2026)

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I see the news every day and listen to conversations people have about just about anything. Most of the time, the tone is angry, confrontational, and divisive. One side is pitted against another, one generation against another, one color against another, one race against another, one lifestyle against another, and so on. I don’t have time to be that angry. I’ve learned I don’t want to waste another minute on anger. Who needs it? It takes your time, does nothing to make the world better, and blows away years in discontent.

The older I get, the more I realize I wasted far too long in anger. Years I could have been enjoying life were lost in the constant cacophony of viciousness we see every day on television. Social media, what should have been a tool to bring people together, has done the exact opposite and polarized the world. I don’t want to spend time stewing and venting. I don’t know what anyone does.

Superman Syndrome

The young don’t seem to realize yet that life is a gift, and you just don’t know when your tokens expire or will be revoked. Maybe it’s intentionally designed this way. Maybe not. I do know one thing: the older you get, the more you look back at how you could have lived, what you could have done, and the happiness you could have experienced, and you realize you threw it out the window over useless antagonism.

If you have any years behind you, as I do, you will see that every second of indignation and hostility changed nothing. Okay, maybe not nothing. It made the world more hostile, more explosive, and more divided. That is all it did.

The More Things Change…

Nothing has changed, if we get down to it. Crime and vast corruption still exist; only the players have changed. Political warfare and corruption haven’t changed either; only the side in the lead has. It flips and flops all the time, and in the end, both sides are the same flavor of putrid vomit. Who or what does that benefit? No one.

People seem to think that being on the winning side restores balance, but they lie to themselves. The winners, or the winning side, are always corrupted and, in the end, fail to unify arguments or fix wrongs. Then the tables turn, and the same happens when the other team wins. Power attained, corruption finds a seat at the table, and then everyone at the dinner table eats the same bile.

Balance comes from the constant changing of the guard. No single entity should ever be in power too long, because then you breed irreversible tyranny. And yet the malignancy drones on. Poison begets poison, venom begets venom, and intolerance begets intolerance.

Humanity has a very big problem. It is reactive, not proactive. It does not contemplate and analyze before acting, and we all pay for the wake it leaves. The years go on this way, decade after decade, and when you look back, your life has passed you by, and all you have to show for it is gray hair, anxiety, mental illness, poor coping skills, or poor people skills: a life wasted.

Confronted by Reality

This year, I’ve noticed that life is shorter than we think. I learned this week that an old friend had passed away at a young age. He had actually died two years ago. Imagine a young, vibrant, and strong man dying before he reached old age. I know it happens, but knowing it and experiencing it are different.

I looked at his life and then at mine. I am older, but how long do I have? There is no telling. Did he go through life thinking he would die young? Did he assume he had many more things to do or enjoy? Or did he assume he had more time?

I then looked at my own life. Have I wasted my years? Yes, some. Have I done everything I wanted to do, or at least tried? No, not everything. Have I enjoyed every moment of life and valued all its gifts? No.

This is when I began to think about how we waste so many years in anger. It doesn’t matter what the enmity is about or whom it’s directed at. It only matters that you’ve wasted time on it. When we are young, we only look at the here and now. We don’t conceive that life may be cut short. Maybe a person is not meant to live to a ripe old age.

Young people think there is always time. They believe they have their whole lives ahead of them. No lie is greater than this. You just don’t know how long you get to try and try again, to do the things you dream of, or to apologize for a wrong you committed. There are no guarantees.

I met my friend who passed away when we were teens. I never thought I would lose him to a disease. I thought the people I knew would live parallel lives, age together, until the time came when we would all begin to pass on. I lied to myself.

I thought there would always be a tomorrow to call and catch up, a next year or next decade. I thought about how many times I engaged in the futility of an argument, a political fight, or an angry tirade, and realized that, in all those wasted moments, I could have been talking to people I loved and enjoyed spending time with. I wasted them on people and things that wouldn’t change, no matter what my argument was. The only thing that changed was who was at the helm of the sinking ship.

Falsehoods

When we are young, we never think about that. It’s all about today, here, and now. One day, these younger generations will be older, like me, and come to see that they blew away precious moments on useless pursuits. They will look at life and see that nothing has changed except them. They will be more jaded, perhaps more angry, or maybe callous. That is the only thing that changes, really, because in the end you cannot change a single thing about anyone else. You can only change yourself.

I stopped watching the daily bloodthirsty news on television years ago. I try not to follow what’s going on in this world grounded in hate. I may not be up to date or in this fight, but I am far happier than those I witness who are. I just can’t spend my days angry because one side doesn’t do what I want, or because I want everything to be on my side. I can’t spend my tokens on unpleasantness when so much out there can bring me joy.

A Choice

I choose to be happier. I just don’t want to live the rest of my life in anger and hostility. There is no time for it. The years behind me far outnumber the ones ahead. At this age, I won’t waste another second on someone else’s petty bickering. People often think they have time to do things, enjoy things, or change themselves later. Some believe they have all the time in the world. Some don’t or won’t have that luxury.

I can’t be bothered with ferocious venom. Time is always short, and I am mortal. Anger is for the young. They think they have forever and are invincible. Have at it. I’ll live happily in peace.

(Published by No Time On Medium, 2026)

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Our marriage had never been ideal. We married out of respect for our faith six years prior. In that time, we had nothing but struggles and incompatibility. I was educated, and I married a man with a seventh-grade education. Our mentality was very different, and so was our character.

I had become a Christian in 1993, and he quickly followed suit, in what I believe was an attempt to pacify me, my faith, and possibly my church. We should never have been permitted to marry. Six long years of disagreements and a life of seeming friends in and out of the home. None of them ever had any good intentions, in my opinion.

Discoveries

I didn’t particularly enjoy his friends, and he didn’t enjoy mine. To be fair, my friends did not like him much and put up with him for my sake. His friends were a different story.

They enjoyed the food, hospitality, and kindness I offered everyone, and over the years, a couple of them flirted a little too much, which made me uncomfortable and my husband angry. The difference in our relationships with friends was just another indication that we had never been the right fit for one another.

His love of pornography was a displeasure that I was forced to endure day after day, making our intimate life a vile and degrading act each time we were together. So much so was this aversion to our intimacy that I shut down emotionally. We clearly had different views on what lovemaking was in the marriage. Pornography was not something I wanted to enjoy, and he did not want to give it up.

Dying On My Sword

Still, we forged on since we had been married after we were both saved and baptized, making our marriage more than a civil union or secular tradition. We were in a covenant with each other and with God. That covenant is an oath broken only by death or blood. I needed to honor my faith and God, and I was clear on my responsibility to God and the man I had chosen.

The sad truth was that my faith wasn’t the same as his, and sooner or later, it became increasingly evident.

The Third One in the Marriage

During that time, a new product was introduced to the world: WebTV. It was a kind of chatroom social media, except the chatting happened in open rooms, for lack of a better term, and people from all over could engage in conversations together and even send pictures back and forth.

The problem with this in our marriage was that we did not share logins, and this led to secrets, jealousy, insecurity, and eventually the dissolution of our marriage.

I cannot place all blame on my husband for seeking an outlet with others, because I no longer felt respected and cherished as a wife, and his touch made me cringe. I could have respected him if he had come out and told me he wanted out of our commitment, but he didn’t choose truth as his way of handling the situation.

Soon, he was hiding his chats and waking in the middle of the night to log on and speak to whoever had gained his attention. I’d wake up and peek through my eyelids to see what he was doing, and I’d see his chats with women and the pictures being sent back and forth. That put the nail in our proverbial casket.

Enough

I packed my bags and car and took off to Colorado to stay at a friend’s house while I decided what course to take. The unfortunate thing about running away from your husband is that I was running away from God and the covenant I had made with Him.

Within a month, I had such a heavy weight on my heart that I felt obligated to go back to our marriage, work it out, and do the hard work to fix what we had broken. So I again packed my bag and went home. However, in that month, our dynamic had changed a lot, and it was never going to get better.

Tail Between My Legs

I arrived back home, and he left the next day to move in with one of the women he had been courting on WebTV, in another state. He failed to mention any of this when I had told him I would come back.

Now I was devastated that I had upended my life twice because of this man and this marriage. I had no job and nowhere to live, and I was depressed and a constant wreck. Even so, my church rallied around me and helped me through the hardest time of my life.

I was staying with my sister then, and news had come that my husband wanted to be divorced, which I had anticipated. But I didn’t realize the impact it would have on me.

Consequences

I became nervous and edgy, frightened and unsure of almost everything. I questioned everything over and over. This was not a sustainable way to live.

One day, I heard about a book on fasting and its effect on the faster in connecting with God on a deeper level. By the time I purchased the book, read it, and was ready to put it into practice, I was chain-smoking two and a half packs of cigarettes a day.

I had also lost so much weight that I did not look like myself anymore, and all from the stress of honoring my commitment and doing things correctly in the sight of God.

I was being mentored by pastors I love to this day, and instructed that biblical divorce was not an option I had, except for infidelity that could be proven. I would need evidence from two or more sources that my husband was, in fact, committing this act against the union. I was at my wits’ end.

The Cry Out

I decided to fast because I needed to hear from God that I was doing the right thing. I began by preparing my mind for what I was going to do: go full-on into a week-long fast from food. I would consume only water and electrolytes for that week, giving up all food and vices.

I felt fine the first day. I prayed and read my bible all day and cried out to God for help, guidance, and a clear indication of what I should do. I asked him to show me plainly what would happen and to give me peace when I encountered the response. I asked God to take away my desire for cigarettes and to provide for me.

Day two, and I still felt decent, but I really wanted to smoke. I didn’t, though, and opted to just pray more and read more. I shed many tears those days, but it’s said, “God counts women’s tears.”

Day three came, and I did not have any cravings for cigarettes. Could God have answered this part of my petitions? I wasn’t sure if this was just a fluke, but I was fine with it.

Everything tasted better, richer, more full of flavor, and I had a calm and peaceful presence about me and surrounding me all day. The following day, I got a phone call from my pastor asking me to come to the office, which I did. God was about to reveal the answers to my prayers, though I didn’t know it.

The End Will Come

As I entered the office, the first person I noticed was my father-in-law, who had supported me emotionally through all those months. I appreciated the love he and his wife had given me, despite quite a bit of flak from their son.

My pastor asked me to take a seat, and then told me they had news I needed to know. So I listened. Then the words came that numbed me, but not in an anxious way, but rather a completely peaceful release.

My husband had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, which gave me biblical permission to divorce. I asked them to inform my husband that I would not fight it. A child deserves and needs both parents. But I would not pay for it. And my torment ended just like that.

Support

My father-in-law gave me a warm hug and told me that I would not be alone in this and that he and his wife would care for me emotionally through it all. And they did as they promised. They loved me through the divorce with kindness and gentleness. I’ll never be able to repay that, or repay God for giving them to me for that time.

The answered prayers opened my eyes to a side of God so few encounter. The very realness of Him and His immediate response to my pleas broke me, my heart. It gave me such a deep love for God, who gave me His personal attention in my deepest need. I love Him more than I will ever love a man. He is my God, my Father, my protector, and my shield against the bad things in this world.

Onward

I never picked up a cigarette in my life, and I am 57 now; I was 28 then. He healed me and gave me family, protected my heart, and never left my side for one second.

I always know He is here with me, and over the years He has shown me, again and again. He is, in fact, a God who can do all things, heal all things, and bear all things for me with infinite compassion and mercy. I will never leave Him, and He will never leave me.

(Published on Vocal)

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I think I’ve laid something to rest. I’ve outgrown my misspent youth, matured, and made something good of this life. I made mistakes, survived embarrassments, and moved…

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A flicker, a flash, moments in time
Streams of sunlit memories
Locked in a vault that’s only mine
Cherished, treasured, sacred

Time, ebbing, flowing, misperception
A distance of mere inches
Was miles, my mind’s deception
Time passed too fast, dear friend

Can I call you friend?
We spoke so infrequently,
But yes, I called you that to the end.
There was no other word for you to me.

You gave me shelter when I was lost.
You calmed my spirit when it was wild.
You gave me kindness without cost.
You are, were, and always will be —friend.

A flicker, a flash, a moment, your name
Came to my head and would not leave.
A simple task, a search, a game.
The ether hid you from the screen.

A thought that never crossed my mind,
Yet I knew you were not one to change.
I found it odd that the years had been unkind.
I found you and saw words below your name.

No, no, my mind denied the words existed.
I read them once, twice, thrice.
The meaning in my head was twisted.
Surely it meant something simple or inane.

The word, an apostate to language,
A minion to its master and evil,
Remembrance-I now hate its usage.
A Satan-cancer struck a lion down.

King of the jungle, a regal seal,
You shone, majestic, strong and wise.
Not metaphorically, your brilliance was real.
Evil wickedness has no compassion.

Twas June, the month evil slew you
Two years have passed since then
It allowed you one victory, but not two
Cancer is a hated, vile, venomous foe

Your loss is deeply felt by all
Your closest loved ones and friends
Even I, a distant memory, felt your fall
The day evil slayed our hero

Today I spoke the words aloud, “You died”
A piece of my heart died with you then
Leaving a vacancy in it — I cried
I can’t imagine the pain your loved ones felt

The skies cried with me; the sun hid its face
Your loss is felt near and far, dear one
It’s shattered time and space
The night you left this world

The sun stopped shining
None will take your place

Keelan Bailey— I dedicate this to you and your loved ones. My heart breaks now, as theirs did then. You were and are the best of men — the best of us all. You will be missed, and the sun will shine less brightly, the stars more dimly, forever and again. You are loved and will always be.

(Published by Dancing Elephants Press on Medium, 2026)

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The Sun and Stars Dimmed ©2026 Spilled Ink for Ink and Echo. All rights reserved.

A long journey or expression
Pouring out of the soul and mind
A lifetime of tales unwind

You suffer and bleed for every word
The costs are high, wide, and deep
Yet something takes what you can’t keep

Knowledge and data collected
Used to one’s disadvantage
You have no purchase to leverage

A million lives could not compound it
Such limited time cannot amass
You cannot best it or surpass

Quantitatively it masters
Qualitatively it lords
Yet it remains remiss in words

Incomprehensible feelings, emotions, and yearning
What value are inexperience and no perception?
A lack of sensitivities, sensibilities, or affection

Beauty is to the beholder
There’s none to behold in barren emptiness
Without a heart, it’s nothingness

Who has not suffered knows nothing
Who knows not love does not live or breathe
What of poetry and prose can this conceive?

Cheating creativity
Lying in greed and wait
I’ll leave them to their fate

(Published by Poets on Vocal, 2026)

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Incubus of Dreams ©2026 Spilled Ink. All rights reserved.

I don’t believe in wishes. I wish I did and that they were real, but they aren’t. As a child, I believed in the tooth fairy, a wish on a shooting star, and a wish list for Santa. The reality, though, is that you can’t wish anything into existence, and you can’t wish things away. Every time I was told to make a wish as I blew out a birthday candle, it never came true. When I was asked what I wished for as a gift, it never materialized. Really, I don’t understand why people set children up for disappointments like this.

What’s Real

Making a wish is a system for failure and inaction. Why work toward something if you can wish for it? Why wish for someone to change or be different if neither you nor the wish can make anyone else change? It’s a fun notion, but I would rather plan a way to reach that goal or wish and then work for it. Nothing handed to you will ever be appreciated as much as reaching something you want by working for it and getting it yourself.

I spent many years of my life wishing. I wished I had a mom who had not abandoned us. I wished that my dad and the woman he called our mom had not fought all the time, causing a constant yo-yo of moving in and out of homes. I wished my dad were not so angry and narcissistic; that he wasn’t abusive. I wished for a comfortable life, a good man to call my husband, security, and good things. I wished, I wished, I wished. Zero.

My Reality

The reality was that my dad would never change. He would have had to work on himself to do that. The fact that our mom left us was never going to change, and wishing it would didn’t make it true. Living in comfort at my father’s hands would have had to come from his efforts, and he was content with getting by. I could have wished my first marriage had been to an amazing, intelligent man who loved me and was my equal, but he wasn’t, and that wasn’t his fault. He was content right where he was in life. Wishing he were what he wasn’t wouldn’t change him. I made the poor choice, and only I paid the consequences. I accepted them.

What Works

Then I did something that actually changed things. I learned. I learned from my bad decisions. I chose more wisely and worked diligently for what I wanted in life. I learned what was worth my efforts. What I thought was important often turned out to be less important than I expected when I had to put blood, sweat, and tears into attaining it. So I learned to let it go and found something I did want to put the work into. The outcome was far greater than I anticipated.

I appreciated the things I fought for and worked hard for. I learned to accept that some things are not meant to be. And it’s not that they are not meant to be in general, no. I meant that maybe those things were not meant to be for me. From that came a far deeper realization and outcome. Contentment.

Contentment came from reaching the goals I didn’t give up on. It came from the understanding that if it was not meant for me, something else was- something better for me. Being content gave me peace. Too many don’t have peace.

Far too many people live without peace within themselves. They think they’re being kept from what they want or need. They sit, wishing everything would come to them at the end of a wish. People who rely on wishful thinking begrudge others who seem to get what they want and never appreciate the work those people put in to get what they have or where they are in life. I can say with certainty that no success comes from wishing.

Yes, luck plays a role in life. It’s an intangible, unpredictable factor. What is tangible is working, striving, and staying consistently focused on your goals.

Paying It Forward

My husband and I taught our son that methodology. We never lied to him. We never asked him to wish for anything. We taught him that if he wanted something, he would have to work for it, work toward it. We never told him that a fat man in a suit was going to grant his wish. No candle-blowing was going to magically manifest what he wanted that year, just because it fluttered in his head for 10 minutes as a must-have. That honesty had an outcome. He learned very early on.

Honesty created a desire. That desire, for whatever thing or reward he hoped to achieve, sparked an inventive mind and a driving force to reach his target or goal. He learned to strive and work for what he wanted.

We provided for his needs and many of his wants. He asked for what he wanted, and if we saw it wasn’t good for him, we explained why, always with the caveat that when he was old enough, he could decide to go after it.

At sixteen, he began to show he understood what we were teaching him. He asked us to drive him around, and he picked up mowers people were discarding. After he asked for some garage space and permission to use his father’s tools, he learned to fix them, one motor at a time. We helped him buy the parts he needed to see it through, and he finished the job.

Since he was underage, he asked me to list the mowers for sale, and I did. We taught him to set aside money for parts for his next rebuild. He could spend or save the rest for himself, but he had to set aside a portion to give to others. This had additional results.

He took care of what he bought. He knew what it took to earn the money for whatever he wanted. He learned to save for the bigger things he wanted. At 21, he is on his own, while others his age are still floundering. He has a very practical head on his shoulders.

Wishing Is Not My Thing

I don’t begrudge people their wishes. Everyone can believe or not believe as they wish. But I think the world has enough misguided dreamers who think they can wish for a better president, a better economy, a better house, a better job, or a better life. Those wishes blow away in the wind and never take flight.

If you want it, work for it. I wish people would realize that. Let’s see if it comes true.

(Published by Pen With Paper on Medium, 2026)

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Photo by Lucas George Wendt on Unsplash

Autumn always courted me pretty hard each year. He wooed me with luscious aromas, warm drinks, and roaring fires. He enticed me with beautiful art in the colorful display of foliage turning into a brilliant spectrum of fiery flames. Autumn would soothe me with his sweet sounds: peace and stillness—yes, they have a sound. The sound of utter silence is a potion better than any concoction a distillery can make.

Suitors

The only one who did it better than Autumn was Old Man Winter, when he would shower me with pillowy, white confection that insulated the planet’s humming and groaning each year. They both understood my love of peace and quiet.

Winter was indeed a cunning suitor and adversary, but Autumn remained my favorite date. Winter liked to isolate me in my cave. Even so, Autumn, in all his finery, was edged out by a transient October.

October was just passing through, caught between Summer's stifling heat and the bitterness of the old man, Winter. He reminded me of what was to come. Summer was wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but she was always wanting to do things. All she wanted was to play, to travel, to stay busy. It was exhausting.

Apparently, mild and warm temperatures prompted a push to get as much done as possible, and who needed to be pushed harder instead of encouraged to relax? She was never my favorite.

Oh, Summer was always loads of fun, and at first the novelty of more freedom was exciting, but after her daily list of let’s do this or that, I was done with her and completely over-tired.

Courting

October was gentle: warm with just the right chill during the best times of day, especially in the evening. He whispered instead of shouting like Summer did. He gave me the perfect mix of laughter, joviality, and quiet serenity. He didn’t keep me in and to himself, like winter. Neither did he continually drag me out to keep busy outdoors.

He was and is a breath of fresh air. Sure, he could be a bit dank and morose at times, but he was equally inviting and a salve against life’s cacophony of licks and bruises. But those reasons are not why I adore him. No.

He gave me something none of the others did or could have. Not the festivities that came with Summer and her unrelenting demands, nor the calm stillness and coziness that came with Winter’s sequestration. Not even Spring and her showers of flowers, the sweetly intoxicating scents in the air, or the pleasant serenade of birdsong.

Her arrival after being cooped up with Winter was wonderful; don’t believe I didn’t enjoy her, because I did. She was a crisp breath of fresh air, not unlike Autumn, though in a different way. Spring was fresh, whereas Autumn was clammy.

She was verdancy personified. Spring was, and still is, an explosion of the lighter colors of the spectrum, while Summer was the maturation of those colors into deeper, richer tones. She was young, unrefined, and impetuous, unlike Summer, who was older and more serious about her work.

Spring was moody, too: something Summer was not. In her never-ending happiness, Summer was less prone to mood swings than Spring. Spring could be all sunshine and daisies, only to turn dark and dangerous, like Jekyll and Hyde. When she did, oh brother: you didn’t want to be around her. The fallout from her tantrums left a wake that could take months to recover from. I loved her and hated her at the same time.

Perfection

October was none of these things. He was charming, as I said. He was neither hot nor cold. He was mature, but not falling apart in weathered, olfactory age like Winter. October was a lover. He gave me the love I had always wanted and could never quite reach. He filled my arms with joy.

October gave me years and years of happiness, and still does. He fathered my son Elijah. No one ever gave me a more beautiful gift than he did. As soon as I was introduced to him, he lavished me with a love that has lasted and will last until my last day: maybe beyond.

Since that morning at the beginning of our acquaintance, he showered me with the love of the child I had longed for. October was never the same to me again. He trampled the others underfoot and took hold of my love, eternally. He changed my life. No gratitude is vast enough to thank him for that treasure.

Every time October came around, it was a celebration of another year of the best kind of love. He brought memories and hopes for the future. He became my favorite and held that title for years. He still does, twenty-one years later. I will never favor another.

Choices

The irony was that he was Autumn’s very best friend, and the two were always peas in a pod. Wherever one went, the other followed. They both allowed me to be free and comfortable in my own part of this world. They both let me let my hair down. They fed me each year and never minded that I would put on a couple of extra pounds. No, they embraced me in my imperfections and made my time with them inviting.

Sometimes I think I love them both, but in reality, October surged ahead because of the gift he gave me. Autumn wasn’t jealous, though, and accepted that October would always be second in my heart. The two remained close friends; even today, you wouldn’t find one without the other tagging along. So I got the best of both of them. They will forever be my two favorite loves.

(Published by Age of Empathy on Medium, 2026)

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يصدر اليوم على أمازون كتاب Fake Faces, Real Losses بالغلاف المقوّى وبالخط الكبير، والنسخة الورقية في 8 أكتوبر، ومتاح أيضاً على كيندل. الكتاب باللغة الإنجليزية. عمليات الاحتيال بانتحال الهوية منتشرة على وسائل التواصل، وهي أخطر على الآباء والأجداد وأفراد العائلة من الأرامل. أهدِه لمن قد يقع في احتيال عاطفي أو صداقة مزيفة، أو لمن يعيش وحيداً ويقضي وقتاً طويلاً على الإنترنت. Image created by Alexandra Grant.

اضغط على هذا الرابط للشراء من أمازون: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLH7TYT1?tag=inkandecho02-20

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Fake Faces, Real Losses sort aujourd’hui sur Amazon en format relié et en gros caractères, la version brochée le 8 octobre, et aussi sur Kindle. Le livre est en anglais. Les arnaques par usurpation d’identité sont très répandues sur les réseaux sociaux, surtout dangereuses pour les parents, les grands-parents et les proches veufs. Offrez-le à quelqu’un qui pourrait être pris dans une arnaque sentimentale ou une fausse amitié, ou qui vit seul et passe beaucoup de temps en ligne. Image created by Alexandra Grant.

Cliquez sur ce lien pour l’acheter sur Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLH7TYT1?tag=inkandecho02-20

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Fake Faces, Real Losses sale hoy en Amazon en tapa dura y letra grande, la tapa blanda el 8 de octubre y también en Kindle. El libro está en inglés. Las estafas de suplantación son muy comunes en redes sociales y afectan sobre todo a padres, abuelos y familiares viudos. Regálaselo a quien pueda estar cayendo en una estafa romántica o de falsa amistad, o a quien esté solo y pase mucho tiempo en línea. Image created by Alexandra Grant.

Haz clic en este enlace para comprarlo en Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLH7TYT1?tag=inkandecho02-20

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Catch me on Patreon, Substack, Beehiiv, Vocal, Wattpad, or WordPress. Dealer’s choice! Check me out on Social Media too via Linktree or my website, Ink and Echo. And if you’d like to support my coffee habit, you can do that on Ko-fi too.

Fake Faces, Real Losses goes live on Amazon today in hardcover and large print, with the paperback on October 8 and Kindle also available. Online impostor scams are rampant on social media. If you have parents, grandparents, or widowed family members, they need this most. Consider buying it for anyone who may be tangled in a romance or friends scam, or who is alone and spends time online. Image created by Alexandra Grant.

Click this link to buy on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLH7TYT1?tag=inkandecho02-20

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Catch me on Patreon, Substack, Beehiiv, Vocal, Wattpad, or WordPress. Dealer’s choice! Check me out on Social Media too via Linktree or my website, Ink and Echo. And if you’d like to support my coffee habit, you can do that on Ko-fi too.

At fifty-eight, I have more years behind me than ahead. That fear grips me sometimes, maybe more times than I care to admit. Midlife crisis aside, I find myself trying to hold on to something I can’t quite put my fingers on. I don’t look my age at all—a genetic blessing from the Italian heritage I am fortunate to have—but I look in the mirror and see the years of my life written on my face in wrinkle font. I don’t see them on my face, not that I have none. I see the wrinkles in my soul. Everyone has them.

I don’t believe I will ever get rid of them. I can stave off the effects of those wrinkles in my soul, but I can’t stave off the reality of every strain, suffering, and life experience that has worn them into me. My soul has gray hairs I color over, too.

Why?

Society has an unhealthy obsession with youth. It focuses almost exclusively on the young and beautiful. Older actresses disappear from leading roles, replaced by matronly characters; musical fame goes to the young and misguided or undisciplined, and influence is handed to inexperienced, often ridiculous young people with no concept of the consequences of their actions. Maybe they don’t even care.

I am not immune to this phenomenon. I want to stay younger-looking. I want to be younger again, not as I once was, but with my current wisdom. But that can’t happen, so I distract myself from the realities of aging by focusing on the visible signs. I try to minimize the signs of my years on my face in this grinding life.

Women in general obsess over it. That’s why we have a cosmetics industry worth billions of dollars, with shady companies snake-charming us into buying their miracle cure for aging. I am guilty of buying into that.

How?

I spend an inordinate amount of money on my skincare routine. I am fortunate to be married to a man who denies me nothing—well, almost nothing. So I buy my creams and elixirs, lotions, and skin-tightening serums. Do they work? Who knows. I look in the mirror every day and see the same face. I can’t actually remember what I saw in the mirror five years ago, mirror, mirror on the wall, but I see the exact same face I think I had when I was 20. The mirror lies.

How do I know it lies? I catch the lies when I see a photograph, and I cringe at how old I look. I hold that image next to me when I go back to look into the liar, and then I see it. Reality. I am not young anymore.

It Knows What Scares You

For me, the fear is not knowing when I begin the final descent. I can’t say whether it will be sudden and painless or involve great suffering in a long, arduous fight to hold on. So, to avoid slipping into the abyss of depressive thoughts, I do things to make myself look better on the outside.

I won’t lie and say it’s for me. It isn’t. If it were for me alone, I might be okay with a few more wrinkles and gray hair. I do it for that little person in my head who wants to hold on to sanity and happiness, rather than the world that wants to keep me in my place as a 58-year-old woman in a world for the young.

I do it to look better for my husband. Don’t get me wrong. He doesn’t care about wrinkles or whether I look my age. He still thinks I look 45. I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s lost his mind. I know he loves me and would never leave me for a younger woman. He loves the quicksand I walk on.

Truths

Maybe I try to hold onto my youthful appearance because I want to look and feel that way. Maybe I do it to feel more attractive to the outside world or to men who see me in passing. I won’t lie: when someone looks at me at my age, it feels fantastic. It really does. All those little endorphin boosts are amazing. But realistically, they don’t count in the grand scheme of things.

If I want to be completely open with you all, I do so because I am vain. We all are, I think. I won’t ever go to the extremes of surgical alterations to my face, but I don’t mind using whatever topical or herbal concoctions I can to at least slow the process in my physical appearance. My internal one doesn’t feel 58, but I am, and some days I do feel every moment of those 58 years. Nothing will change that.

To the Death!

I’ll fight my battle against the weathering of my skin as long as I care. And I think that is the distinction. I still care. I care about my appearance. I care to keep my mind off my aging body and mind. I just don’t want to be dropped into the bottomless pit of inevitability. So I battle on.

I won’t win. But I won’t let it take me down the primrose path until I give it permission. So the cosmetic industry can have my dollars if it means I feel better about punting the ball further downfield. At least I have moist skin, and I feel like I am doing a good job fighting my foe. I’ll take that win and leave the rest to God and nature.

(Published by Crow’s Feet on Medium, 2026)

Catch me on Patreon, Substack, Beehiiv, Vocal, Wattpad, or WordPress. Dealer’s choice! Check me out on Social Media too via Linktree or my website, Ink and Echo.

Thirsty for more? Here is your oasis in the desert sands:

Mirror, Mirror, You Liar! ©2026 Spilled Ink. All rights reserved.

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I watched my baby sleeping
Soft, pink globes on an angel
Luring my caress as I was peeking
I wondered if he felt my eyes upon him

Silence echoed the room’s peace
Co…

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It should be in bold print right on the stick and on the packaging: Warning! But then again, it would be too many warnings for that tiny thing, and the packaging would have to be a Bible-thick book of warnings. But the pregnancy test says nothing at all. I never got any warnings. It was all wonderful sunshine and roses. But here is the truth. Anyone wanting to have a baby: here is your sign and your quick guide to “What to really expect when you are expecting.”

And They’re Off

Right out of the gate, you will be able to experience the joys of tender nips. Yup, I said it, and no one else will. Come to find out, nursing makes them irritated and angry all day long. Oh, they will give you remedies after the fact: salves, cocoa butter, and a slew of witchery, but it doesn’t go far enough to soothe something that is constantly being used and abused. A baby can literally suck a bowling ball through a straw, and that has this small downside.

Wise sages may tell you to use a loofah on them every time you shower while you are pregnant, but have you ever done that? It’s like using 60-grit sandpaper on the tender tissue under your eye. Yes, it is that brutal. I am fairly sure the Gulag uses it as torture, but we women are supposed to embrace this aspect of the wonderful world of motherhood.

Incoming!

I know an image comes to mind with that word: incoming! But it is so much more interesting and amusing than the image you are getting. You are probably thinking of toy projectiles flying all over the place, but that is not the projectile I am talking about.

Flying poo! Flying pee! That is the danger. Yes, that beautiful bundle of joy will baptize you, or, if you are lucky, someone else, with the two liquids at the most unexpected and inconvenient time.

My first experience with this was one day while I was visiting my sister, who had just had a baby. She was dealing with postpartum depression, so I would go over and help her take care of the baby while she got her hormones back in order. I was changing my nephew’s diaper while we were watching television, and he wizzed right at my face. Yes, you guessed it. It hit the target. Score! A direct hit!

A baby’s capacity for suction is only matched by how far that little thing can hit the target without flinching. It’s like a drone at midnight, too. You will never hear it coming. But there is an added bonus, too.

The grin! The grin a baby gives you, once he has done it, is akin to someone who has beaten you in a game you didn’t know you were playing, knowing he was cheating the entire time and not getting caught. My nephew gave me the biggest and best Elvis impersonation I have ever seen. I mimicked it for others for years, but clearly I couldn’t channel the rock legend the way a newborn did. He was a wicked little thing.

In addition, my sister broke out in a pee-inducing laugh as well, which was a good thing, but the victim had to shower off the toxic fuel from her face. Wait, I am not done.

Baby Pollack

Congratulations! You have given birth to an artist, a painter. His canvas? The diaper and you. Oh, the joys of the vibrant hues of baby poop. Earthy shades in browns, greens, and yellows, all splashed across his handy canvas. He is an Artiste. Baby Jackson Pollocks, all training for their gallery debut.

Sometimes that canvas is too limiting for the eccentric painters, and a mural is more appropriate. That is when it gets serious. But don’t call an agent yet. The paint has noxious odors that most gallery visitors won’t appreciate.

My artist was more of a three-dimensional aficionado, so he shot his paint at his target canvas: his mommy. Enjoy that one when it happens. That’s when you WILL want to loofah your whole body.

Side note: If you Google my name, you’re more likely to find the actor’s wife/artist. I’m also a writer and artist, but my son created the art for me, which I don’t believe she can claim. So I’m one up on her. Incidentally, you have no idea how much drama that causes with Amazon, Goodreads, and the like. The struggle is real.

Superman~

The warning that you have created your own breed of superhero never comes. I birthed Superman, or maybe it was Batman. Who remembers exactly 20 years after the fact, really?

At age 4, my son started preschool. He had what I would call a crush on a sweet little brunette named Michaela. They were buddies, really, but that didn’t stop him from needing to impress a girl. One day, his teacher told me to check on him and make sure his brain was still in his head and not scrambled eggs after an incident.

Mini Batman told the object of his desire to watch this, then ran full force toward a sofa. He wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet, but he leaped over a toy in a single bound and swan-dived into the couch headfirst. It’s not a party until something breaks. Apparently, my son wanted it to be his head.

The worries are the worst part of the warnings you should be given when you have a child. Maybe before you even start down that road, you should get them, actually.

My superhero didn’t start his antics at age 4. No. At two, he liked to jump on the bed. Ours. Once he learned to climb, he would amuse himself doing just that pretty often. Then he spread his wings, which should have alerted me right then that I had a real-life thrill-seeking hero on my hands. My baby spread his wings like Icarus, or maybe it was a phoenix, and dove headfirst to the ground.

I wasn’t one of those lucky parents with thick, lush carpeting on the bedroom floor. We had beautiful hardwood floors, and I didn’t want to cover them. So the wood carefully broke his fall.

Then came the screams heard round the world. I am sure you all remember hearing a weird wail 18 years ago that seemed to come from the sky. That was my son.

Horror!

Do you know what fear is? Do you know what scares you? This is more horrifying than the best horror flick. The scream that makes you pale like an ivory tower: the one that drains the blood from your overtired and worn mommy body. I thought he was dying!

Blood from his forehead dripped all over the place. Would he bleed out? I didn’t know what to do. I called his pediatrician and got the doctor on the line immediately. I told him what happened, and he asked if he was acting peculiar or disoriented. He wasn’t, and, of course, he stopped crying just as the doc got on the line, so I had no evidence of his anguish.

The doctor laughed and said, “Unless he is not behaving normally, he is fine.” He added, “You would be surprised how hard their skulls are.” I was left with my mouth open, relieved- don’t get me wrong, and I know I instantly grew 7 gray hairs right then, but the world was spared the loss of one superhero.

Fair Warning!

I could go on and on about the warning labels on having children, but as I intimated earlier, it would look like a Bible. Who has time for such a thing? My fingers would ache, and I might be dead before I finish it. The rest will have to wait for another prompt request, hint, hint.

Be warned-it will not end with a couple of examples, and you will have fodder for your own book after you have a child.

(Published by Write Your World on Medium, 2026)

Catch me on Patreon, Substack, Beehiiv, Vocal, Wattpad, or WordPress. Dealer’s choice! Check me out on Social Media too via Linktreeor my website, Ink and Echo.

Want more drama? Read this one:

Two Pink Lines ©2026 Spilled Ink. All rights reserved.

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Jury duty is a form of torture, or at least we all seem to think it is. What we miss is the chance to improve as we watch the hysterics of the jury selection process. It’s comical in ways you can’t fathom until you drag your butt to do this thing you have to do, because you wanted to be a voter and for the opportunity to elect the shite failures we have in the political realm of insanity. Yes, this is on both sides, and I speak of both. Your side is not any better than mine. They are all trash and useless. But I digress. This isn’t a political rant.

This is the hilarious conversation I had with my hubby as he waited to hear his prison term in the courthouse of fine judicial outcomes. I was laughing the entire time we were texting.

Friday, September 4th

The letter we received said that, in his famed luck, my husband was to report for jury duty and had to call on this day at 5:00 p.m. He did, hoping against hope that they would excuse him and say, “Oh, we made an error, and we don’t need to disturb your life and rob you of your good income in order to work for free for a system which does anything but work for free.”

Makes sense. The government, at every level, gets paid no matter what. You, not so much.

He was told via a recorded message, or maybe it was an AI bot, that he needed to report at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I wonder if they send you to the gulag if you no-call, no-show. Anyway, he got up, had his coffee so he wouldn’t fall asleep in court, and headed off to do his duty. Sounds like something you tell your toddler not to do in his pants.

By the way, Law and Order, How to Get Away with Murder (I am not condoning this one), and Better Call Saul make it all look so glamorous and exciting, but those are actors acting. The reality is an ass-numbing experience. It’s like a State of the Union address and the reading of the Encyclopedia Britannica, given by Ben Stein. (Bueller. Bueller.) Yes, that guy.

They should really consider letting the likes of Joe Pesci or Mathew McConaughey be the lawyers and the likes of Paul Bartel or Ted Knight become judges. It would make it a more inviting and exciting experience, and I could see people actually lobbying for jury duty.

But no. Rote, monotone, dull teeth-pulling and fingernail-scraping is what we are gifted for the $10 a day they pay you. Wait. It gets better. They make you buy your own lunch, which means the Happy Meal you get for being unhappy eats away at your high profit margin. You wind up in debt, if my memory serves, and prices are sky-high for the trash they call food these days.

My husband obeyed his master and went to serve. This was the texting that began about an hour and a half into this process. The left side is my husband speaking, and the right is his dutiful and wonderfully perfect wife and queen of his castle, me.

The Feed

After Some Radio Silence

The Excuses

The Prophesy

Gear Shift

Vroom Vroom

What Math Is This?

Cha-ching!

And so ends another day in the American Judiciary. (At 11:00 a.m.-we should all have those kinds of hours.)

(Published by Quirky Rants on Medium, 2026)

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Hear ye, hear ye, the judge orders you to read another story:

Improv at the Courthouse ©2026 Spilled Ink. All rights reserved.

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