Eliana Osborn

I’m terrified of wrongful imprisonment. To be the only one who knows the truth and have to live every day in a cell, wondering, why, god, why? [...] Sitting hooked up for gadgets to monitor every aspect of my mind and body, in a small room without any distraction, I see how a person could lose herself — or the truth — for a moment.

...But not in the way you'd think.

1. Borrow a child.

Self-care is important. Massages are a good form of self-care. Too bad I keep thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner.

Size, like age and salary and whatever else, is just a number. Pretending numbers don’t measure things isn’t helpful. I’m 38 years old: That isn’t good or bad, but it IS different from being 18 or 50.

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 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.

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

When I’m staring at the wall trying to keep my cool when my 6-year-old is hysterical about the tiny bump on his finger, I attempt to channel some of the good parts.

After years in apartments that should have been condemned, even these sad restroom facilities were vast improvements. And so we stayed, the husband and I, vaguely embarrassed when guests stayed over and commented on the bordello vibe of the bathroom.

Then we had a kid. No working bathtub suddenly seemed like a big deal. And the functional bathroom spaces weren’t places you’d want to hang out. There’s a lot of bathroom time once you’ve got tiny humans. (You’ve been warned.)