Quick Note: Check my Five Best Stories Ever … just below the personal update!
Yeah, so … I turned 51 this Saturday, and as you know, when you reach that stage of life where you’re “not getting any younger” (ha!), it becomes increasingly important to focus on what you eat and drink. If you don’t, well—you might not last as long, and your quality of life could take a hit. To put it more bluntly: I need to eat better—again.
This isn’t just because of my birthday. The concrete push came when my doctor pointed out that my cholesterol levels were a bit high. The prescription? Surprise, surprise—more exercise, less fat and sugar. So, I decided to start with the easiest (ha, again) part: cutting out the little snacks I rely on for comfort. That means less chocolate, fewer extra glasses of wine (a very strong temptation as a special-needs parent), and scaling back on excessive coffee. I also switched to low-fat milk. Since I don’t eat much meat—just fish—that part was easy.
The effects aren’t just some vague “maybe I’ll avoid a heart attack in five years” benefit. I’m noticing changes now—especially in my mood. Eating less sugar means my blood sugar isn’t spiking and crashing, so I feel more clear-headed. After two months, the cravings have eased. I don’t feel the same urge to grab a soda or a sugary treat because my body just… doesn’t want that rollercoaster anymore. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle: the more sugar you eat, the more you crave when the crash hits. Breaking that loop feels like a win.
I’m grateful for my doctor’s pointed finger wagging at me to pull myself together. Not only might this lower my risk of heart problems or strokes down the line, but it’s already sharpening my mind. And with a life like mine—especially as a writer—I’ll take all the clarity I can get. (Now, if only I could tackle the coffee addiction…)
Life in the Trenches
Not much has changed on the home front. We’re still busy in the trenches, day in and day out. A few days ago, I hit a breaking point—threw some things around the kitchen in frustration. Sometimes, it feels like living in an eternal prison. (No wonder my characters are so neurotic. There’s not much separating me from Carrie or Jonathan, honestly.)
But I bounced back. I thought about my son, how much I love him, and how committed I am to helping him. It’s funny—a friend once said that children make you feel like both the weakest and the strongest person in the world. That’s absolutely true, whether your kids are neurotypical or have special needs. For parents in the latter category, those extremes just last a little longer.
Detoxing from Doomscrolling
I won’t dwell on the world situation. It is what it is, and hopefully, it’ll improve eventually. (How much chaos we’ll endure first is another question.) My coping mechanism lately has been focusing on the positive: writing, my love for my son, a good cup of tea, sunshine—those quiet moments I wrote about last time.
I’ve also been cutting back on news consumption. Just like sugar, it’s an addiction. I subscribe to breaking news alerts from Danish national channels and check the BBC in the morning, but that’s it. No constant doomscrolling. And it’s working. Despite the horrors in Gaza, Ukraine (which is less than a day’s drive from here), and the general chaos—especially in the U.S.—I feel steadier.
The trick, I’ve learned, is substitution. You can’t just stop a habit; you need to replace it. For news, I’ve resubscribed to Audible. (Yes, I have issues with Amazon and their proprietary audiobook model, but it’s a crutch for now.) I’m listening to history books about 1968 for research on my novel with Deborah—which I might finish in three years at this rate. The parallels between the social upheaval of the ’50s/’60s and today are striking, but that’s a topic for another post.
The point is: if you want to cut back on something—sugar, caffeine, news—you’ll have more success if you replace it with something else. For me, listening to audiobooks engages different senses and keeps me from reflexively opening news apps. Will it last? I don’t know. But for now, it’s helping.
And really, that’s all any of us can do—take it one step at a time, stay positive, and find small ways to make the chaos manageable.
Stories
This is a selection of the stories I am most proud of, for various reasons – but mostly from a craft point of view. Of course it is also a personal thing, but I also like to think I got it especially “right” with my writing on these, that I really hit my stride. Let me know what you think.
Newly revised, if there ever was a story about how painful and beautiful it can be to be parents for an autistic child, this is it. The story is featured in my upcoming print collection and is about Carrie and Jon’s attempt to arrange a camping trip that won’t give Michael a meltdown. Takes place in the late summer of 2015.
One of my first stories from the now-retired Depending on the Morning Sun site, and also featured in my upcoming print collection. This one is about the friendships we have as adults and how challenged they can become if we also have to work and be a special needs family. In the story, Jonathan discovers that his friend/colleague, Ernesto Rodriquez, has kept an important secret from him because he didn’t want to “bother” Jon … Takes place in the summer of 2015.
This piece of flash fiction is a very old story that I have polished over the years, before I really developed Carrie’s relationship with her long-dead stepbrother. I think it works very well as an emotional standalone about how we feel about the people who have passed, what they have meant to us and how memories can sometimes become more real than reality itself. Takes place in the fall of 2016 but it could be anytime, really.
Probably one of the best stories from a craft POV, although authors are notoriously bad at judging the quality of their work. (So feel free to judge me if you read it!) Anyway, this is quite a long story that I originally intended to pitch to a magazine but never got around to it because I did not have the time or wherewithal. So I’ll just leave it for you here to enjoy. It is about Jon’s brother, Dave Reese, and that time he was kidnapped by rebels in Mali when he worked for an aid organization there, and all of this thoughts about the unfairness of life (and death) and how to deal with both. Takes place in the fall / winter of 2015/2016.
Last but not least, among all the stories I have ever written, I think this is on par with “Joan in the Dark” when it comes to writing something that just “clicks”. So again, I am first and foremost judging it from a craft POV but I also have a particular attachment to the story for its own sake and for what it is about – you know that time when you and your high school friends were about to leave high school for the big scary world and had all sorts of hopes and dreams about how to do it? (Oh, and lots of unsolved relationship baggage from those heady years in high school?)
Well, this is that story, and it takes place New Year’s Eve 31 December 1997, and stars a young Carrie, her long-lost friend Lin and their on-off friends / romantic entanglements – Alan and Lars. I have a lot more stories from that era both in the drawer and on the site, so I expect to come back to them later – full on 1990s-style with Doc Martens boots and Gangsta rap, but for now, I will leave you with this, one of my favorite stories from that time.
*
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
Share a Thought