Eliana Osborn

They were horrible.

There are some days of parenting that are magical, full of unicorns and four leaf clovers and lottery winnings. Those are the moments when I catch myself, just for a second, feeling content and happy and looking around trying to freeze things. Out of 7000 days, those maybe make up five a year.

I wanted to write a book last summer. Then I realized what a terrible goal that was and modified accordingly.

Being a person of faith isn’t cool. It is very personal to me and not something I like to talk about a lot, which goes counter to the whole idea of ‘sharing the good news of the gospel.’

I always have a small piece of my brain on mom mode, no matter what else is happening. I have no problem with this, since that is how humanity has survived.

I’m not broken by this therapy failure. Jane wasn't the person to help me at this point of my life. Someone else WILL be.

My main reason for doing reading testing, enduring a bus ride to a field trip about weapons engineering, and other thrills? Stalking.

When did I discover that sterilization isn’t as cut and dry as it seems? While sitting in a hospital gown, signing my life away, awaiting surgery.

I’m proud of you right now, even with all the sadness. Proud of you for heading to rehab, leaving the kids, the man, the house — all of it — to get on top of things. Doing it instead of just thinking about it, talking about it even, hemming and hawing? That’s pretty badass.

The most important things my mother taught me included work from Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Wham! and Whitney Houston.