We can create our own family. And we can find romance with our friends. According to the Greeks, philia or tribal love is the highest form of love there is.
Relationships
How to Make a Rainbow Out Of Motherly Love
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” -Maya Angelou My daughter loves rainbows, so I want be forever arching with colors for her. She doesn’t yet know that rainbows are more...
Is Passionate Love Worth Your Sanity?
I’ve been reading through my old writings, you know all the ones about passionate love and passionate love lost. They made me slightly famous, after all, back in the day. I wrote these essays and poems as a single woman living in San Francisco, passionately seeking...
I’m Sick of People Preaching “Self Love” and Here’s Why
“Now is a time for self love,” said the bead-wearing yogi instructor. “Prioritize yourself, love thyself.” I was on a retreat trying to replenish my identity after separation and new single mamahood. “Take time for yourself.” “Do what YOU want” says, like, everyone....
To Be What You Want to Be, Stop Wanting and Doing….
Do. Have. Be. Do Be? To Be? No I am not talking about the Doobie Brothers. Or Hamlet. I’m talking about the struggle we have in ourselves. We all want to Be something, right? Be happy. Be wealthy. Be beautiful. Be calm. Be secure. Be loved. Oftentimes it feels...
How to Survive (and Enjoy) Going to a Wedding Solo …
Going to a wedding solo, without a date, always feels a bit uncomfortable. Kinda like you are the clownfish in a sea of coupled up lovers and schools of old friends. I just went to a wedding in southern Idaho where I only knew ONE person, the groom. The groom always...
Are Your Memories Real, Even When Disputed by Family?
Dueling Memories I’m back in Montana with family. One of our favorite pastimes is to recount old stories and memories of our late relatives, those loveable yet fallible characters that came to Montana for homesteading, gold, and other adventures. Of course, because...
I Asked 13 People Who Taught Them to Love; Their Answers Will Surprise You
How we love shapes who we are and how we relate to the world. It often dictates how we view ourselves and what we think we can achieve. So where did this start? Who or what taught us about love in the first place? Was it a romance that spun us out of control? Was it a...
Why You Can’t Find the One (and Why It’s Ok): Part 3
“And then like that, he was gone. Why is it so hard to keep the one, after we find them?” asked Katie. Katie had just experienced another heart wrenching breakup. She’s been chasing “the one” for 20 frantic years. Career, social life, and self identity were hastily...
When People Don’t Want to Hear Your Truth
Other people shut down my truth “Look at the abundance you have. Get a grip, Heidi.” I spit out my coffee. Woah. I was being accused of “broadcasting my woes” as a one dimensional banshee. These weren’t the type of Instagram comments I expected at 6am. The comments...
2020 Destroyed My Life, So I’m Creating a New One
2020 Destroyed My Life as I Knew It. Before the 2020 pandemic, I had a committed partnership, a house in a beautiful neighborhood and a cush job in innovation where I was flown to New York to speak at conferences. As I walk out of the pandemic in Spring 2021,...
Please do this one thing for me …
Please tell me you see me. Please notice my breaths and efforts. Currently I feel invisible and alone. We all do. How can you see me, you ask? What exactly should you notice? Anything, as long as it’s specific. 1. Praise me for keeping the kids alive another day. One...
Releasing Unforgivable Hurts
“Every marriage suffers unforgivable hurts,” I remember my mother saying. I was young at the time and had no idea what she was referencing. Nor did I want to know. I preferred to think of my parent’s marriage as perfect. Hurts, sure, yes. But I imagined them fleeting...
How the 2020 End of Days is Slowly Killing Me
It was the end of 2020 end of days. Pantone Orange 9-2020. Images of the orange sky in California went viral. Looking at the sun confused my daughter. She thought the orb in the sky was a bleeding moon. She wanted to give it a band-aid. I didn’t know if the earth...
Three Signs You’re Too Lazy For Love
During my years of singledom I blamed San Francisco’ urbanity, technology, and Peter Pan inhabitants for my interminable alone state. Then it dawned on me…perhaps the the dating problem wasn’t external…perhaps the problem was ME. Lazy, egotistical, impetuous me. If...
‘Knocked Up’?! How I embraced a non-linear life…
“I’m hoping this is a false alarm.” I texted the positive test results to my cousin. “Holy Shit!” was her immediate response. But it wasn’t a false alarm. I was pregnant. I was pregnant, not married, in an uncertain relationship, and just started a demanding new job...
Why You Should Give Your Lover an Onion
While Shelly was single she was always jealous of the coupled-ups that posted their romantic evenings on Instagram every February 14th. Love, the ‘head-over-heels, roll-down-the-hill kinda love’, was all she wanted out of life. Every night before she went to bed she...
Women Need to Date Carpenters Like Men Date Yoga Instructors
Every woman I know in San Francisco says the same thing. “He has to be this much taller and make this much more money. I mean, I’m tall and successful, so he should be MORE tall and successful. I’m WORTH IT, right?” Worth what? Someone ‘better’ than you? Men never say...
Why You Can’t Find the One: Part 2
Find the one? No? Well neither has anyone else. Nine months ago I wrote a post that went more viral than a Trump Tweet. It was covered by four publications and seen by over a million readers, all interested in understanding one thing — “Why You Can’t Find the One.”...
How a Powder Day Threatened my Friendship
It was a powder day in Tahoe. For ski aficionados a dusting of fresh powder means you drop the rest of your life to get on the mountain. That day we had more than dust. It was four feet of white smoke. I left my Truckee house without making coffee, greedy for frosty...
Do We Do it For Love or Money?
I always wondered if the size of a woman’s diamond ring was inversely proportional to her marital happiness. Perhaps I’m jealous. Or perhaps I’ve finally decided a simple left hand leads to greater life satisfaction. But I wasn’t always this way… Manhattan 2004 A...