Dear Dad,
First of all, I want to let you know that I love you and forgive you for what I am about to write to you. It is difficult to talk about but it I must say it: I had known that you’ve been watching porn since I was about twelve.
And so, I wanted to let you know exactly what your porn use has done to me. You may think that this effects only you, or maybe just the relationship between you and mom. But it has had a profound impact on me and all my siblings as well.
I found your porn on the computer just when I was starting to become a young woman. Firstly, it seemed very hypocritical to me that you were trying to teach me the value of what to let into my mind in terms of movies, yet here you were entertaining your mind with this junk on a regular basis. As a result, your talks to...
Lifestyle
Dear Mama,
I’m talking to you. Yes, that’s right, you:
the working mama who feels sick on Sunday afternoon because you report for duty Monday morning at 0800 and the thought of leaving your baby makes your heartache,
the mama sitting in the oncology ward next to your sick child, helplessly watching while toxic chemicals are pumped through your baby’s veins,
the mama whose husband just left you with a slew of hungry mouths to feed and a mortgage you know you can’t pay,
the nursing mama who is so tired you fall asleep sitting up because that baby eats and eats and then eats some more,
the overwhelmed mama with a house full of kids and school work and laundry and dirt and dishes,
the mama who drives hundreds of mile a week to and from sporting events because God gave your kid a...
2,273
Dear X,
I'll get right to the point.
You have a telltale crust of white powder around your nostrils, and everyone in the room is a little too embarrassed (or a little too high) to say anything about it. You're slinking off to more and more bathrooms and backstages these days, and returning with that red sting around your watery, shifty eyes. You're scanning the room to see if anybody knows. Guess what: Everybody knows, and no one but you is laughing.
Cocaine has become Seattle music's open secret, the affectation of choice among the hipsters, hacks, and hangers-on who are so desperate for glamour that they'll recycle just about any tired-ass rock cliché you can name if it'll buy them 10 minutes of feeling authentic. Like booze, crystal, and any number of other trendy intoxicants of...
2,368
Dear Hannah,
I’ve missed you, the way I miss my best friend, or my dog after I’ve been out of town for too long. While you were away, I even made a list of movies and TV shows that I, and others like me, could watch in your absence. But nothing really satisfied me, not even Welcome To The Dollhouse or those super-duper suspenseful episodes of Homeland. Not to sound cheesy or anything, but you are one in a million.
Right now, at this very moment in my life, you are the one character on TV, or anywhere for that matter, that truly gets me. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. Of course I’ve had my share of favorite TV characters, and those I’ve felt “in-sync” with, like Angela Chase, Lindsay Weir and, yes, even Miranda Hobbes. But none of these ladies come close to how...
2,335
Dear Ms. Curtis:
I’d like to start by thanking you for all the work you have done to rejuvenate the dilapidated housing stock around the Twin Cities and elsewhere. The work you do is incredibly important and I admire your courage in completing projects in neighborhoods which others have written off. These communities are worth investment, and I’m glad that you have highlighted how strong and vibrant they are, regardless of what we might hear through the media. I believe that your efforts will contribute to a renaissance in these neighborhoods, and for that we should be grateful.
I, too, consider myself a preservationist. I’ve been volunteering with the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota and Preserve Minneapolis for over four years; I graduated with a master’s degree in Historic...
2,759
Dear Irene,
I was alerted to the pending release of your book, Impossible Motherhood, by a friend and when I read the summary, I thought: "Wow. That's intense."
I read in another article that you feared your "self-described 'abortion addiction' will be misunderstood" and that you only scheduled "closed-door interviews and will not do a book tour." You also had to make "sure all public property records do not reflect [your] name, so [you] cannot be targeted at [your] home."
You are quoted as saying: "I am worried about my safety and the hate mail."
I just want you to know that I'm sorry you had to take these steps to protect yourself and your family (though I am very glad that you did) and I want to let you know that I'm thinking about you and wishing you well.
Beyond the...
2,787
You're more than my hero, you were my first friend, my best friend, my No. 1 supporter, my fellow Chipotle-addict, AND my mom. This one is for you, Mom.
Dear Mom,
I want to first say how much I love you and that I am so grateful to have you as my mother. I can never repay you for all you've done for me and my brother and all of the sacrifices you made to ensure we had everything we needed. If no one believed in us, you did no matter what our dream was at the moment (except when you didn't support my dream of owning a zoo). Thank you for supporting all of my decisions, thank you for never judging me out loud for said decisions even when you didn't agree with them--yes, I mean the septum piercing and the tattoo. Thank you for being my shoulder to cry on. Thank you for all of the...
4,988
Dearest Nora (and thanks for the Passover card),
My last two posts at my blog for Psychology Today—"The End of Addiction" and "End Alcoholism—Bomb Spain" — have raised some consternation. Are they supposed to be funny, or what?
In the first, pretending to be a community college instructor, I point out that the endless optimism of neuvo-neuro theories of addiction are really rehashes of theories long past—all of which have had no actual impact on addiction. Addiction doesn't exist at the neuro-level. Addiction is given meaning— really only experienced—in a social and historic context, as I explained in The Meaning of Addiction in 1985.
This has been proven continuously in the case of alcoholism. In my "Bomb Spain" post, I begin by quoting the typical modern medical formulation...
2,499
Dear teenage Brittany,
I wish you had known some of these amazing YA heroines back then like I do now. I’ve only been reading young adult for a few years now — only after passing all of those awkward teenage years (sorry. Things are still awkward as an adult… but you do learn to handle them better, I promise) — and I wish I had a time machine to send these books from the present into the past. I know you could have learned a lot from these amazing authors and the characters that even now feel like they could have been you or your best friends. I wish I could have saved you a little grief by having these books as a way to work through some of those less-than-pleasant moments (although I can’t save you from those moments themselves).
I wish you could have met characters like Anna from...
2,538
Dear Members of the NH General Court, Chair of House Finance Committee Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Hillsborough District 2:
Thank you for your service and for holding these hearings.
My name is Marty Boldin. I am a person in long-term recovery and for me that means that I have been living life, beyond addiction, since 1987, one day at a time.
I am also a member of the board of directors for HOPE for New Hampshire Recovery and New Futures. I aScreen Shot 2015-03-26 at 9.07.49 AMm the recovery representative to the Governor’s Commission for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery. I am a Dean’s Fellow and Doctoral Student at the Boston University School of Social Work. Before now, I served for 10 years as the Director of the City of Manchester Office of Youth Services,...
6,072