Healing comes in many forms, and in my life, traveling has been one of the greatest forms. In my memoir, Under The Orange Blossoms, travel as a young girl changed my perspective and gave me hope for my future. Throughout my life, travel has and continues to bring healing. It has played such a central…
I have often wondered if my teachers or neighbors had suspected that I was being sexually abused as a child. I’m not sure if they had suspicions and didn’t do anything about it or if they really didn’t see the signs. Considering the lack of awareness around sexual abuse at that time, I don’t blame…
I had the wonderful opportunity to share openly about my childhood sexual abuse with Kirsten Duncan on the An Unexpected Launch podcast. In this podcast we discussed how the abuse stopped, what my children thought about their grandfather and how it impacted their lives. I shared how I found the right therapist and the types…
It’s been a while, friends! This blog started a little over a year and a half ago, and while you may have wondered where I went, I have been very much here in this space, just not on the blog as much as I have wanted to be! When this blog started, I knew that…
Every other week, I stop by my father’s retirement home, to refill his pill boxes. I have always managed his medications and find it to be a straight forward process and a simple way to care for him. I hadn’t seen him for weeks because I had been traveling, but in part, because I didn’t…
I’ve had multiple people comment on my composure in the video interviews of my father. To prepare for the interviews, I anticipated all the ways that my composure could affect him, and I made a conscious effort to remain calm and poised. I wanted my father’s responses to not be influenced by my tone of…
I was so inspired by this story I heard on the news this morning. There are everyday heroes locally and globally who are speaking up against sexual assault. These voices are not just personal stories, but they speak for the voiceless. These stories show how far many have come, but also, how far we have…
The first time I shared with my husband, Mark, that I had been sexually abused as child was within the first few months of when we started dating. I wanted him to know about even the most painful parts of my life. He had lots of questions which I was prepared for, but I was…