Category: Doing Divorce

I spy the basket full of folded newspaper pages. They are the pages pulled from The Oregon Coast Today and Lincoln City News Guard – two local papers my dad picks up from the grocery store on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  In my six-month absence from a coastal visit, the accumulation is large.  Comprised only of 5 star or highest difficulty puzzles, my dad has silently offered the challenge and I feel wonderfully loved.  It takes me back to the beginning of this tradition with my dad from another spring break visit with him on the coast.  Eleven years ago, when

“Mom, I need to go to the doctor,” Sophia matter-of-factly stated.  “Something isn’t right.”  I didn’t spot the signs.  Amidst the pandemic taking away her first real day of high school, her 14th birthday having just passed, and navigating new friends and classes remotely, I can say it would have seemed impossible to know.  But I have been beating myself up for the not knowing, not seeing, and not being present to her.  I am her mom.  I am supposed to see and know before she does. She revealed she had lost 15 pounds off of her already small frame. 

“Anna!  I don’t know why you won’t listen to my advice.  I am telling you this for your own good.  You need to know how to advocate for yourself!”  I was getting on her for something inconsequential.  Telling her she should do this, she should do that – reciting by heart the common refrain heard around the world in households between mothers and teenage daughters.  In response, she picked up the bullet journal she was artfully drawing in as we had been chatting and walked out of the room. I had just squandered a rare moment when she had sought

Divorced nearly 30 years ago, Susan shares how a horrific accident reminded a divorced couple of the one thing they could always agree on.  He opened his eyes and saw the stars. The roof of his Prius was gone. His hand dangled from the end of his arm.   Benjamin had safely driven west over a thousand miles en route from Los Angeles when the teen driver heading the opposite direction crossed over the median of I-80 and hit his car head on.  The miracles were many and immediate. Being a half mile from the exit to Kearney, Nebraska where the sign read “Hospital.” Being life-flighted to

“I hate him,” she sent the text in a fury.  It came across my screen like an arrow, not so much aimed at my heart but at least my shoulder, causing me to metaphorically wince.  “What happened?” I replied.  She told me the tale – none of the details relevant – because all my heart hurt about was her distress, sadness, and pain. All kids experience this at some point about each of their parents.  And if you are sitting there smugly reading this and thinking my child will never hate me – let me tell you the day is

The pandemic has not been kind to couples.  The physical, financial, emotional, mental stressors of remote working/learning/socializing is taking its toll.  It is certainly taking its toll on all individuals, but for those couples who pre-pandemic were on shaky ground, the pandemic has now rocked their foundations to the core.  I know this because our divorce team has been serving as the first responders to relationship damage.  Our clients are crushed.  Divorcing during a national crisis is not for the faint of heart.  Co-parenting during COVID is a game changer parents could not have seen coming and as amplified the challenges of raising

Despite the COVID pandemic, my Thanksgiving this year was downright crowded I mused.  The day included Oliver, Willie, Mac (my cats) and me, myself, and I.  That got my count to my second hand at least.  Big sigh.  Lucky for me, I have had years – 10 to be exact – practicing solo traditions and holidays.  For many of you, this was your first year feeling the sting of a family tradition jarringly altered as families chose to avoid travel, decline big gatherings indoors, and to keep risk of exposure out of our homes.   If you felt the ache of

I lay on my couch too listless to pick up the book I want to read or even to pick up the remote to watch a new murder docuseries I had saved.  Maybe I will turn on music – but my phone is on the dining room table.  I remember I need to take the garbage to the curb – eh, it can wait another week.  I am numb. I am scared, worried, and uncertain about my future.  I feel this now thinking about the country I love.  I felt this in 2011 when I was in the midst of

I was sitting in my sadness wishing away the state of the world.  Halloween isn’t going to be the same this year.  My Thanksgiving table will not host my parents or my children.  My December traditions will resemble, at best, hollowed out holidays.  These sorrows seem petty next to the messages from my friends tearing further at my heart: a mother-in-law in the hospital likely due to COVID most surely facing her final days, an infant granddaughter rushed to the hospital for breathing difficulties, a suicide attempt, depression, anxiety, and distinct despair.  It is too much.  I am too emotionally

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn into the United States Supreme Court August 10, 1993.  That same month, I moved out of my parents’ home and into my first college dormitory.  That month, my dad made sure I had opened my first credit card to account for any emergencies.  I walked into college with my future and possibilities ahead of me to work toward any career path that tempted me and with a full expectation of being equally treated alongside my male classmates.  Little did I know at the time, that Justice Ginsburg, during the decade I was born, was working tirelessly as an ACLU litigator to pave