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Tag: Angela Dunne

Angela Dunne

Bad Mom

(This photo was taken a week before my divorce was final) I was crying so hard that the hair above my ears was soon soaked as I lay on the table.  In what felt like a desperate act, the month before my divorce was final, I went to see an intuitive, Sue, to help me on the path toward healing.  Truthfully, I think I just wanted someone to tell me that finalizing my divorce was the right thing to do.  I thought she would look inside my soul and read the crystal ball and tell me that I was making
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Just Breathe

My breath has been taken away by the long anticipated kiss and by the excruciatingly true critique of my work. It evaporated both at the realization of betrayal by a lover and at my first sight of Lake Cuomo as the train rounded the bend in the Italian Alps. Despite leaving me on occasion, I appreciate that my ability to breathe deeply has been a loyal friend. Roland Heinrichs was my first formal teacher of breathing. The South High choir director hailed the diaphragm as the source of all sounds beautiful. My singing never landed me a solo, so I
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Of Mice and Divorce

“We have to ask our client if she has 100 mice in her house.”  My paralegal, Lori, said matter-of-factly as my mouth dropped open a bit, “What?” I uttered in my normal you-have-to-be-kidding-me voice.  “Opposing counsel called today and was informed by her client (the soon to be ex-spouse of our client) that their six year old daughter had reported to him on the night prior that there were 100 mice in her mom’s house.  So some dollars were spent on legal fees confirming that in fact, my client did not have 100 mice in her house. Advice that Lori
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A Stranger Scenario

“Whatever, Mom!” and up went her eyes rolling into her forehead.  My hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as I forced myself to focus on keeping my Irish temper at bay.  My eleven-going-on-twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Anna, had just disclosed to me that she had, let’s say, not been as helpful when a teacher asked for assistance as I thought she should have been.  When I said so, this prompted my first experience with both a “whatever” and an eye roll.  Double whammy day.  I knew to be quiet and let her sit with it. Later that evening, she came
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Fully Flushed

Do you seek the feeling of pure, unadulterated accomplishment?  I discovered the secret a weekend or so ago and here is the step-by-step guide: 1. Have a broken toilet that will not flush. 2. Google and watch approximately five videos of guys in garages telling you how you can fix anything (you can do it!). 3. Take a trip to Home Depot to acquire $4 parts. 4. Put hand in disgusting back end of toilet for the first time in your life and remove and reinstall brand new shiny red flapper thing. 5. Flush toilet. 6. Start fist pumping and
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Angel Oak

We crossed over cobblestone sidewalks on King Street, arm in arm, with warm chocolate covered praline samples melting in our mouths.  We toasted our near thirty years of friendship over dinners of seafood, grits, and fried green tomatoes. We marveled at Rainbow Row and smooshed up against each other in a horse drawn carriage traveling through the historic streets of Charleston.  We shopped through the city market and found necklaces depicting the South Carolina Angel Oak that we soon thereafter adopted as a symbol of our friendship and bought for treasured twin tokens. Traci and I hadn’t seen each other
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Courtroom Care

I could feel it before I could see it.  I knew immediately that something was off.  I walked down the courthouse corridor, unaware at first that I was walking directly down the battle line.  I spotted my client and his family nervously waiting for me.  I did not recognize, because they were strangers to me, that his wife and her relatives sat on the bench opposite.  As soon as I stopped and stood before my client and his family I could see them all avoiding any direct glances over my shoulder.  The “other side” was behind me.  The tension bore
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New Year, New You, Not Really

Two weeks before the new year:  Everything is dusty.  Everything.  Even my paperclips.  There is a constant clamoring of hammers, drills, and ladders scraping across the floors in the office.  My office belongings are packed up in boxes all around me.  My email has been disastrously down for an entire week right before Christmas when I fear my clients may need me most.  My team is on edge with the transition looming over us and wearing us thin.  Everything feels off.  I am a clockwork kinda person.  For every season, holiday, birthday, whatever day you can count on me to
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O Christmas Tree

We set off on what I declared to be a great family adventure.  We were going to romantically tromp through a tree farm and cut down our own magical Christmas tree.  And we did… sort of.  In reality, the trees were pre-cut and Anna sighed at the lack of snow on the ground.  We tried our best to ignore the frosty wind making our faces and fingers hurt while we searched for the perfect tree.  But boy did we find it. When we got home and the tree barely fit through our front door, I realized all too soon that
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Finding Fairness

She stared out the passenger window of my car with a steady stream of tears trailing down her cheeks.  I gripped the steering wheel to steady myself wishing for any way to make this bearable for her.  It was two days before Thanksgiving and I was driving Lori, my paralegal of 15 years, to the hospital where her daughter-in-law was losing her first baby at 24 weeks of pregnancy.  Lori was trying to find strength for her family and as she grappled with the loss of her first granddaughter.  “It isn’t fair,” she whispered into the world as I realized
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