The Company I Keep

On fearing loneliness, finding independence, and learning to like the woman I’m alone with

There was a night, not so very long ago, when I sat in my bedroom at my parents’ house and cried because I was afraid I would never find someone to love me.

I had dating apps open on my phone. Several of them, actually. I had downloaded one, then another, then another, as though the problem might simply be that the right man was hiding on a platform I hadn’t discovered yet.

I swiped. I read profiles. I held conversations. I waited for replies. I wondered why someone hadn’t messaged back, why someone else had disappeared, why finding a decent man seemed to require more research than obtaining a federal mortgage. It had become practically a full-time job.

And I was miserable.

I remember feeling desperate. Not necessarily for any particular man, but for the certainty that there would eventually be one. Someone who would choose me. Someone who would stay. Someone who would make the future feel less frightening.

I had spent so much of my adult life believing that happiness required a partner. That being single was a temporary condition to be corrected as quickly as possible. That somewhere out there was a person I needed to find before I could finally relax and feel secure.

And sitting there in my parents’ house, staring at a screen full of strangers, I was terrified that I might never find him.

It wasn’t just loneliness. Loneliness I could understand. Loneliness was missing having someone to talk to at the end of the day, someone to hold me, someone who knew the small details of my life without having to be told. This was something bigger.

I was afraid of the future.

I couldn’t imagine growing older without a partner. I couldn’t imagine making all the decisions, carrying all the responsibilities, and navigating everything life might throw at me without another adult beside me. I couldn’t imagine that a life without romantic love could still be a happy one.

And so I searched.

I searched when I was tired. I searched when I was discouraged. I searched after disappointing dates and conversations that went nowhere. I searched even when the process itself was making me unhappy. Every new match represented a possibility. Every promising conversation offered a little relief. Maybe this one. Maybe this was the person who would finally make everything feel okay.

And every disappointment brought me back to the same frightening question.

What if there wasn’t anyone?

I wish I could tell you that something extraordinary happened that night. That I put down my phone, dried my tears, and suddenly understood that I was enough on my own.

I didn’t.

I probably kept swiping.

That’s the thing about becoming independent. At least for me, it wasn’t a dramatic declaration. It wasn’t a sudden realization accompanied by empowering music and an entirely new personality. It happened so gradually that I almost missed it.

There was no defining moment. No particular morning when I woke up and decided I was no longer afraid of being alone. I can’t point to a conversation, a date, or some profound realization that changed everything. I just slowly started living differently.

I stopped treating the dating apps like an obligation. I stopped feeling as though every evening without a conversation was another evening wasted. I started pausing my profiles when I didn’t feel like dating, deleting apps when they became exhausting, and returning when I actually wanted to meet someone. I came and went as I pleased.

This might not sound particularly remarkable, but for someone who once felt almost frantic about finding a partner, it was an enormous change. I no longer felt compelled to keep looking simply because I was afraid of what might happen if I stopped. I began to realize that I didn’t have to respond to every message. I didn’t have to pursue every possibility. I didn’t have to keep a conversation alive just because someone was willing to have one with me.

And I certainly didn’t have to convince myself to want someone simply because he wanted me. I could be selective. I could be uninterested. I could decide that I would rather spend an evening reading a book than making small talk with another stranger. I could decide that I didn’t want to date anyone at all for a while.

And nothing terrible happened.

The world kept turning. My life kept moving forward. The future didn’t suddenly become smaller because I wasn’t actively searching for someone to share it with.

In fact, it began to feel bigger.

Because somewhere in the middle of all this, I was building a life. I was raising my boys. Working. Writing. Making plans. Buying a house. Choosing furniture. Imagining holidays and ordinary evenings and all the little things I wanted our future to hold. I was making decisions that once would have frightened me. I was handling problems I didn’t know how to solve until I had no choice but to solve them. I was discovering that I could do difficult things without a partner beside me.

There have been moments when I’ve wished someone else could take over. When I’ve been tired of making decisions, tired of worrying, tired of being the person responsible for figuring everything out.

I don’t want to pretend that independence is always easy. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Sometimes I would love to hand someone a problem and say, “Here. You figure this one out.”

But I’ve also learned something about myself that I didn’t know before.

I can do it.

I can make the decisions. I can solve the problems. I can navigate the uncertainty. I can be scared and overwhelmed and completely unsure of what comes next, and I can keep going anyway. I’ve done it over and over again.

And the more capable I’ve become, the less frightening the future has started to feel. Not because I know exactly what it holds. But because I finally trust myself to handle it.

And perhaps most surprisingly, I’ve discovered that I actually enjoy my own company.

I like my routines. I like having time to read, write, watch television, or do absolutely nothing. I like deciding how to spend my evenings without having to consult anyone. I like the quiet. I like the freedom. I like being able to make plans and change them. I like not having to explain why I want to stay home. I like the small, ordinary pleasures of a life that belongs to me.

There was a time when I would have interpreted an evening alone as evidence that something was missing. Now, sometimes, it’s exactly what I want. I can spend an entire evening doing nothing particularly remarkable and feel perfectly content. I can read for hours. I can watch something ridiculous on television. I can write. I can browse antique furniture that I absolutely do not need and will probably attempt to purchase anyway. I can enjoy the simple pleasure of not having anywhere to be and nobody to impress.

And I don’t spend the entire time wondering why there isn’t a man beside me.

That’s new.

I think I spent so much time being afraid of ending up alone that I never considered the possibility that I might actually enjoy my own company. I had always imagined independence as something I would have to endure if I couldn’t find love. A consolation prize. A way of making the best of a situation I hadn’t wanted. I never imagined it might become something I genuinely valued. Something I might even be reluctant to give up.

Because somewhere along the way, the way I thought about relationships began to change.

I still want love. I still want companionship, affection, and someone to share the ordinary details of life with. I want someone who makes me laugh, who understands me, who wants to build something lasting together.

But I no longer want a relationship simply to avoid being alone. I want one because it adds something wonderful to a life I already love. And that changes everything. It changes how I date. It changes what I’m willing to accept. It changes how I respond when something doesn’t work out.

I can still be disappointed. I can still get my hopes up. I can still feel hurt when someone doesn’t choose me, or when a connection I was excited about turns into something less than I’d hoped. I’m not immune to any of that. But I no longer approach every new conversation as though my entire future depends on its outcome.

If someone doesn’t work out, I’m disappointed. Sometimes I’m hurt. Sometimes I wonder what happened or whether I did something wrong. But eventually, I return to my life.

And my life is still there.

The boys are still there. My work is still there. My books, my writing, my plans, my ridiculous collection of antique furniture. The home I’m building. The future I’m looking forward to. None of it disappears because a man doesn’t choose me.

I think that was something I needed a long time to understand.

For years, I imagined happiness as something I would eventually arrive at with another person. I thought I needed someone beside me to feel safe, secure, and complete. I thought being alone meant something had gone wrong. And perhaps that’s why the dating apps became so consuming. I wasn’t simply looking for someone I liked. I was looking for someone who could make the uncertainty go away. Someone who could reassure me that I wouldn’t be alone forever.

But no stranger on a dating app could have given me the kind of security I was searching for. Even if I’d met someone wonderful, I would still have needed to learn how to feel safe in my own life. I would still have needed to learn that I could stand on my own.

And somehow, without realizing it was happening, I did.

I bought a house on my own. I built a career. I made plans for my children. I started imagining a future that didn’t depend on whether someone else decided to be part of it. I began furnishing rooms for the life I wanted to live, not the life I hoped someone might eventually give me.

And somewhere along the way, the fear began to loosen its grip.

I don’t know exactly when it happened. I only know that the woman I am now feels different from the woman who sat crying in her bedroom, desperately swiping through dating apps because she couldn’t imagine being happy alone.

Sometimes I think about her.

I think about how scared she was. How desperately she wanted reassurance. How convinced she was that something essential was missing from her life. I wish I could go back and tell her what I know now.

That she would be okay.

That she would do things she never imagined doing alone. That she would discover strengths she didn’t know she had. That she would build a home and a future and a life that felt like her own. That she would still want love, but she wouldn’t need it to believe that good things were ahead.

And perhaps most surprisingly, that she would come to enjoy the very thing she was so afraid of.

Her own company.

I’m still sitting in that same bedroom at my parents’ house. So much around me looks the same. But I no longer spend my evenings desperately searching for proof that someone, somewhere, might want me.

I have things to do. Books to read. Stories to write. Children to raise. A house to turn into a home. Plans I’m excited about, with or without anyone beside me. 

I still want love in my life. I’ve simply learned that my life doesn't have to wait for it.

And the remarkable thing is that, while I was waiting for someone to share my life with, I was already building one worth living. It's happening in the home I'm creating, the children I'm raising, the stories I'm writing, and the future I'm imagining for myself. It's happening whether or not there's someone beside me to share it.

For so long, I'd been looking at my life in terms of what was missing. I hadn't given nearly as much thought to everything that was already there, and I'd given even less thought to the woman trying her best to hold it all together. 

Perhaps learning to appreciate the life I'd built was also teaching me something about the woman who had made it. I'd spent so long searching for someone whose company would make me happy, that I'd almost overlooked the person who had been here all along.

I'm still getting to know her. I'm still learning to appreciate her, to forgive her, and to be a little kinder to her.

And maybe, one day, I'll learn to love her the way I've always hoped someone else would.

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The Widow of North Street

On Victorian fantasies, questionable acquisitions, and a husband who never existed

I am 37 years old, have never been widowed, and am inexplicably furnishing my home as though my wealthy husband died in 1893.

I don’t know exactly when this happened.

Until recently, my decorating style was decidedly country. Primitive furniture, Americana, rustic accents. I loved all of it. I spent years collecting things that made my first house feel warm and lived-in, with a distinctly old-fashioned farmhouse aesthetic.

And then, apparently, I changed centuries.

I no longer want to live in a farmhouse.

I want to live in a Victorian estate.

Preferably one with a substantial inheritance, a mysterious family history, and a housekeeper who knows things but refuses to discuss them. Unfortunately, my actual circumstances are somewhat less glamorous.

I am a single mother of two, employed by the State of New York, and purchasing an older house in a small Western New York town with the assistance of a USDA mortgage. There is no inheritance. There is no housekeeper. There is certainly no deceased wealthy husband. There is, however, a very ambitious decorating plan.

It began innocently enough.

The house has a room I intend to turn into a library. A real library, with bookshelves and antique chairs and a fireplace. I have always wanted one, and the prospect of having a room devoted entirely to books was almost enough to make me forget the considerable financial commitment involved in purchasing the rest of the house.

Naturally, I began looking for furniture.

And somewhere between searching for a bookshelf and discovering antique fireplaces, I lost all sense of proportion. I wanted carved wood. Ornate details. Brass accents. Rich colors. Furniture that looked as though it had survived several generations of family scandals.

I found a pair of magnificent Victorian chairs that I thought would look beautiful flanking the fireplace. They were enormous. My library, unfortunately, is not. It measures approximately nine and a half feet wide. This did not initially discourage me. I simply began exploring increasingly creative furniture arrangements, apparently operating under the assumption that the laws of geometry were more like suggestions.

I wanted the chairs. I wanted the fireplace. I wanted a room that looked as though an elderly aristocrat had spent forty years accumulating rare books and refusing visitors. What I had was a narrow room and a tape measure.

Reality is frequently disappointing.

I have also considered Victorian sofas, antique buffets, and various other pieces of furniture whose dimensions suggest they were designed for rooms considerably larger than mine. Some of these pieces do not even look particularly comfortable. This is apparently no longer a significant consideration.

I have reached a point in my decorating journey where I am willing to sacrifice lumbar support for historical atmosphere. I don’t necessarily want furniture that invites people to sit down. I want furniture that makes people feel they should ask permission first.

The deeper I ventured into Victorian decorating, the more particular I became. I didn’t want just any fireplace. I wanted one with character. I didn’t want furniture that looked new. I wanted furniture that looked as though it had witnessed things. A marriage. A death. An inheritance dispute. Possibly a scandal involving the gardener.

I also developed an alarming interest in antique objects whose original purposes are only vaguely familiar to me. Old typewriters. Ornate mirrors. Decorative fireplace screens. Brass fixtures. I recently found myself researching whether a typewriter would be historically appropriate in a Victorian library.

This is the sort of question that now occupies my evenings. Not whether the house has sufficient electrical outlets. Not whether I have remembered to arrange utilities. Whether the typewriter is historically accurate.

I have begun to suspect that I am taking this entire historical fantasy a little too seriously.

After all, I am not restoring a grand estate that has been in my family for generations. I am furnishing an ordinary house in Le Roy, New York. I will not be receiving callers in a drawing room or summoning a maid to bring tea. I will be answering emails, helping with homework, and asking Alexa to play music while I fold laundry.

And yet, I find myself considering whether a particular chair looks sufficiently aristocratic.

I imagine the widow of North Street would be a formidable woman. She would have excellent posture, an extensive personal library, and a reputation for being difficult to impress. She would wear elaborate dresses, maintain a small circle of acquaintances, and occasionally stare out the window with an expression suggesting that she knew considerably more about her husband’s death than she was willing to reveal.

She would certainly not tolerate cheap-looking furniture.

She would also probably have someone else responsible for moving it.

This is where our circumstances differ considerably.

My imaginary widow has servants. I have a small SUV, a tape measure, and an aunt with a truck. The widow can simply point at an enormous antique cabinet and instruct someone to place it beside the fireplace. I have to determine whether it will fit through a doorway, whether it can be transported without damaging the upholstery, and whether the seller is willing to answer a message.

The widow has inherited wealth.

I have a mortgage.

The widow has a grand estate.

I have a room that is nine and a half feet wide.

Nevertheless, I believe we share an appreciation for fine furnishings.

There is also the question of how this elaborate historical atmosphere will coexist with the actual people who live in the house. My children, for example, are unlikely to appreciate the distinction between an authentic Victorian antique and a piece of furniture that simply looks old. They will probably be more concerned with whether a chair is comfortable, whether the Wi-Fi works, and whether they are allowed to eat snacks in the library.

I can imagine myself explaining that a particular piece of furniture is quite old and should be treated carefully.

They will ask why I bought it.

I will explain that it has character.

They will ask whether they can put their feet on it.

The widow would undoubtedly be horrified.

I will probably tell them to take their shoes off.

And then there is the matter of my romantic prospects. A proper Victorian widow might spend her afternoons awaiting correspondence from a distinguished gentleman who owns a considerable amount of land.

I do not have a distinguished gentleman. I have several gentlemen on dating apps, which is arguably a more exhausting situation.

At least in 1893, a woman could reasonably expect a suitor to write a letter. Today, apparently, I am supposed to be impressed when a man sends a message containing three words and no punctuation.

Perhaps the widow had the right idea. Acquire a fortune, furnish the house beautifully, and spend the rest of one’s life reading books in peace.

Unfortunately, the fortune remains elusive.

I have also considered whether my sudden fascination with Victorian furnishings says something profound about my personality. Perhaps it represents a desire for stability, permanence, or a connection to the past. Perhaps I am drawn to the craftsmanship and history of objects that have survived longer than many modern relationships.

Or perhaps I have been possessed by the spirit of a nineteenth-century widow. At this point, I am keeping an open mind.

What I do know is that I am enjoying the entire ridiculous process. I love searching for unusual pieces, imagining their histories, and figuring out how to incorporate them into a house that was not designed to accommodate the furniture of the landed gentry. There is something particularly satisfying about finding an object that has already survived a century or more and giving it another place to belong.

Even if that place is considerably smaller than the one it was originally intended for.

Of course, the finished result will probably be less historically accurate than I imagine. My beautiful Victorian library will contain electrical outlets, modern lighting, and a phone charger. There will be no household staff. There will be no elaborate afternoon teas. There will almost certainly be a child sitting in an antique chair watching YouTube.

And I will be there, drinking a large McDonald’s Diet Coke, wearing sweatpants, and wondering whether the room could possibly accommodate one more piece of furniture.

I may not have inherited a fortune. I may not have married a wealthy gentleman. I may not even have enough room for all the furniture I want.

But I am determined to have a library worthy of a woman of considerable means, even if the woman in question is currently checking her bank account and negotiating with strangers on Facebook Marketplace.

And if the furniture is uncomfortable, the room is overcrowded, and absolutely nothing fits the way I imagined?

Well. 

Nobody ever said being a wealthy Victorian widow was easy.

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The First Christmas

On holiday traditions, a house not yet ours, and the memories I can’t wait to make

I have already purchased the Christmas dishes.

Eight place settings, purchased for $25 on Facebook Marketplace, although I expect to set the table for six. I’ve thought about the table runner, the placemats, the chargers, and what kind of centerpiece might look best. I’ve considered whether the dishes will coordinate with the dining room furniture and how everything will look beneath the warm glow of the lights.

I have not yet figured out where the Christmas tree will go.

I also do not technically own the house yet.

But I have the dishes.

For several weeks now, I’ve been imagining our first Christmas in the new house. Not just Christmas morning, but the entire season. The decorations, the traditions, the food, the movies, the ordinary evenings that somehow become extraordinary simply because it’s December.

I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about a holiday that is still two months away, in a house I haven’t moved into, with furniture that is currently scattered across various locations in Western New York.

But I can see it.

I can see the Christmas tree glowing in the living room, although its exact location remains a matter of some concern. I can see the dining table set beautifully, the dishes I’ve already purchased finally serving their intended purpose. I can see appetizers spread across the kitchen counters, family gathered around talking, the boys wandering in and out, and me feeling slightly overwhelmed because I have apparently decided to become a woman who hosts Christmas.

I’ve never been much of an entertainer. I’m an introvert. I like quiet. I like my routines. I like knowing that I can retreat to my own space whenever I want. And yet, I find myself looking forward to having people over.

Not constantly, of course. Let’s not get carried away.

But for Christmas? Absolutely.

I don't know exactly who will come or how many places I'll actually set. It might be just a few of us around the table. But I want the house to be warm and inviting. I want the table to be beautiful. I want there to be plenty of food, even if I end up making far too many appetizers because I have no idea how to estimate how much people will actually eat.

I want the sort of Christmas gathering where everyone feels comfortable, where the lights are soft, the food is good, and nobody is particularly interested in leaving.

Although I reserve the right to become interested in their departure after a reasonable number of hours.

I’ve said before that I want my house to look and feel like a Hallmark movie. And I mean that quite literally. I’ve spent years watching those movies, admiring the beautiful homes with their enormous Christmas trees, glowing fireplaces, perfectly decorated mantels, and dining tables that seem perpetually prepared for a holiday feast.

The women in these movies always seem to have lovely houses. They bake cookies in immaculate kitchens. They decorate with an effortless elegance that suggests they have never once wrestled with a tangled strand of Christmas lights. Their homes are warm and welcoming, filled with traditions and memories and people who arrive carrying beautifully wrapped presents.

Usually, there’s a handsome man involved, too.

He might be a widowed Christmas tree farmer, a small-town veterinarian, or an inexplicably successful businessman who has returned home to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

I haven’t managed that particular detail.

But I’ve got the house. I’ve got the boys. I’ve already bought the Christmas dishes. And frankly, I think I’m doing pretty well.

Of course, I understand that real life does not operate according to Hallmark’s production schedule. My kitchen will not remain spotless while we prepare food. Someone will probably spill something. The boys will argue over something ridiculous. I will almost certainly discover that I’ve forgotten an ingredient, a serving utensil, or an entire dish. And there will be no handsome Christmas tree farmer arriving at my door to help me hang the lights.

Unless he happens to be selling an antique buffet on Facebook Marketplace. In which case, I suppose anything is possible.

But the perfection isn’t really what I want.

It’s the feeling.

That sense of warmth and belonging. The glow of the lights against the windows. The sound of people talking in another room. The smell of something cooking. The comfortable clutter of a house being lived in and loved.

I want the kind of home that feels especially beautiful at Christmas, not because every decoration is perfectly placed, but because the people inside it are happy to be there.

More than anything, I keep thinking about Christmas morning.

I picture Caleb and Holden coming down the stairs, excited to see what Santa has left beneath the tree. I picture wrapping paper everywhere, presents scattered across the floor, and the boys talking over each other as they open their gifts.

Caleb is getting older now, nearly twelve. Holden is eight. They’re at different stages of childhood, with different interests and different ideas about what makes Christmas exciting. I know these mornings won’t last forever.

There will come a time when they sleep later, when the presents become more practical, when the magic changes into something quieter. Eventually, there may be Christmas mornings when they aren’t both sleeping under my roof.

I don’t particularly like thinking about that.

But perhaps that’s why this first Christmas feels so important to me. I want to give them a Christmas morning they’ll remember. I want them to wake up in their own bedrooms, run downstairs, and find the tree glowing in the living room of the house we finally get to call ours.

I want them to feel that this is home.

Not a temporary place. Not somewhere we’re staying until the next chapter begins.

Ours.

I want to make traditions here. Maybe some will be familiar, things we’ve always done. Maybe others will be new, little rituals that begin accidentally and somehow become part of our family history. I want them to remember the way the house looked at Christmas, the excitement of coming downstairs, the meals we shared, and the ordinary moments that seemed insignificant at the time.

And I want those memories for myself, too. I think that’s an important part of this. I’ve spent so much time thinking about the kind of childhood I want to give my boys that I sometimes forget I’m allowed to want things for myself.

And I want this.

I want to decorate my own house. I want to decide where the tree goes, what dishes we use, what food we serve, and how many Christmas decorations constitute an unreasonable amount. I want to curl up on my own couch with a blanket and a Diet Coke and watch Hallmark movies without worrying that I’m disturbing anyone. I want to leave the Christmas lights on simply because I like looking at them.

And I want to sit in the quiet after the boys have gone to bed, surrounded by the soft glow of the tree, and enjoy the particular peace of a home that belongs to us.

For the past two years, we’ve been living with my parents. They’ve given us a place to land, and I’m grateful for that. But there is a difference between being welcomed into someone else’s home and having one of your own. There are things you don’t do quite the same way. Decisions that aren’t entirely yours. Routines that have to accommodate other people. Small freedoms you don’t even realize you miss until you begin imagining having them again.

And Christmas is full of those small things.

Where to put the tree. When to decorate. What music to play. Whether to leave the lights on all evening. Whether to make an elaborate dinner or spend the afternoon eating leftovers and watching movies.

I want to make those decisions.

Not because anyone has prevented me from enjoying Christmas, but because I’m ready to create something that belongs to the three of us. Something that reflects who we are now.

I’ve thought a lot about what this house means to me. I’ve written about the search, the uncertainty, the disappointments, and the seemingly endless process of trying to make it ours.

I’ve fought over an appraisal. I’ve worried about deadlines. I’ve researched financing and closing procedures and all the complicated details that stand between wanting a house and actually owning one.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ve been buying Christmas dishes.

There’s something almost ridiculous about it.

While I’ve been waiting for government approvals and paperwork, I’ve been thinking about whether a lace placemat would look nice beneath a dinner plate. But perhaps that makes more sense than it seems. The paperwork is how I get the house.

The Christmas dishes are part of why I want it.

I don’t want a house simply to have a mortgage, a deed, or a place to put all the antique furniture I’ve been collecting. I want a place where our lives can happen. Where the boys can grow up. Where we can have ordinary evenings and lazy weekend mornings. Where I can turn on music while I clean, read in my library, and sit on the couch doing absolutely nothing.

And where, once a year, I can make the entire place look as though a Hallmark production crew has been given unlimited access to my Christmas decorations.

I know our first Christmas won’t be perfect. The house may still be a work in progress. There may be boxes I haven’t unpacked, furniture I haven’t found, and walls that still need decorating. I may discover that the Christmas tree doesn’t fit where I imagined it would. The table might not look quite the way I pictured it. I might burn something, forget something, or decide halfway through preparing appetizers that I have dramatically overestimated my enthusiasm for hosting.

But I don’t think any of that will matter very much.

Because the boys will be there.

The tree will be there.

And I’ll be there, in the house I’ve spent so long dreaming about, watching the life I’ve imagined finally unfold around me.

I’ve watched hundreds of Hallmark movies about people finding their way home for Christmas. Sometimes they inherit a house. Sometimes they return to their hometown. Sometimes they fall in love with a handsome stranger who owns a bakery, a Christmas tree farm, or an improbably profitable inn.

My story has involved considerably more federal paperwork.

And, so far, fewer handsome strangers.

But I think I like our version. A mother. Two boys. An old house filled with secondhand furniture, Christmas lights, and more holiday dishes than strictly necessary. No grand romantic rescue. No perfectly scripted ending... just the three of us, exactly where we belong.

And somewhere in the dining room, a table already set for Christmas.

I’ve spent so much time imagining what that first Christmas will look like. The tree. The presents. The food. The movies. The boys coming down the stairs. But I think the moment I’m looking forward to most might be the quiet one.

After the presents have been opened, after the food has been eaten, after everyone has gone home or gone to bed. When the house is still, the Christmas tree is glowing, and I’m sitting on my own couch, looking around at everything we’ve finally made ours.

No more imagining.

No more waiting.

Just Christmas.

At home.

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You'll Have to Help Me Stir (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on Brownie Batter, Future Plans, and Casual Discussions of My Death

Setting: September 2026 — At the kitchen table with Holden, who apparently has some concerns about my long-term availability

Holden likes making brownies with me. Mostly because Holden likes eating brownies.

The other night while making a new batch, he was sitting at the table stirring the batter with great confidence. Eventually, he decided he was finished and handed the bowl over.

I looked down. There was still a layer of dry mix sitting at the bottom, so I stirred a little more. Holden watched me like I had just performed some kind of advanced culinary procedure. Apparently, he had genuinely believed the brownies were completely mixed.

Then he looked at me and said, very thoughtfully:

“If you’re still alive when I’m old enough to make brownies, you’ll have to help me stir.”

I stopped.

There are a lot of things a mother expects to hear while making brownies with her eight-year-old. A casual acknowledgment of her eventual death is not necessarily one of them.

“IF I’M STILL ALIVE?”

He did not seem particularly concerned. This was apparently just an important logistical detail.

Someday, Holden will be old enough to make brownies by himself. Someday, he may still struggle to get all the powder off the bottom of the bowl. And apparently, if I have managed to remain among the living, I will be expected to report for duty.

I laughed because the whole thing was so absurdly matter-of-fact.

But underneath it was something unexpectedly sweet. In Holden’s imagined future, he is older. I am older. He is making his own brownies.

And he still assumes I will be standing nearby, holding a spoon and finishing the stirring when he thinks he is done.

This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.

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The Family We Became

On the life that was growing around me while I was still looking backward

For a long time after my divorce, I thought of the three of us as what was left.

I never said it exactly that way. I would have told you we were fine. That the boys were happy. That we had routines and birthdays and holidays and school nights. That we laughed plenty. That life kept moving.

But somewhere underneath all of that was a quieter belief I did not examine very closely.

We used to be a family of four.

Then we were three.

And three felt, somehow, like subtraction. Like the original thing had broken apart and the boys and I were the portion that remained.

I spent years staring at the door that had closed behind us. I noticed what was missing. I noticed the shape our family no longer had. I imagined that eventually something would happen that would make us feel complete again. A new house. A partner. Another adult at the dinner table. Some future version of life that would finally feel settled enough to count.

Meanwhile, our actual life was happening all around me.

It was happening in the living room, where Caleb made ridiculous trivia games for the TV and somehow convinced the rest of us to play them, including my parents, whether anyone wanted to or not. It was happening while all of us learned about robots and 3D printing together, through failed prints and adjustments and more failed prints, until eventually Holden decided there was apparently a market for this and started taking custom orders at school.

There were phases that became part of the family calendar without anyone ever formally declaring them traditions. For a while, Holden and I made brownies almost every week, and the whole family rated them. Then came the cookie dough croissant era. The year before, there had been the Charlie Brown Christmas phase, when Caleb made popcorn every night and watched it over and over while he and Holden copied the characters’ ridiculous little dance moves and laughed at the same parts every time.

There were bingo nights at the community center, family dinners out at the Chinese buffet where Holden enthusiastically tried crawfish and then discovered that octopus was a very different experience. There were a million tiny McDonald’s runs because I wanted a Diet Coke and the boys wanted fries. There were nights we all sat around the living room and listened to Caleb play his french horn and then clapped while he waited for it.

There were all these little rituals we returned to again and again, too.

There were Tuesday night bargain movie nights and Caleb deeply offended by the expectation that he share the popcorn. 

For dinner, he requested steak often enough that you would think we were operating a small steakhouse, while Holden regularly went back for second and third helpings of nearly everything.

Outside, they rode their shuffle carts up and down the driveway, occasionally peacefully and occasionally with the kind of sibling conflict that ended with Holden screaming at Caleb that he was an ugly bastard.

A beautiful family moment.

And then there were all the ways they kept becoming themselves.

At Seabreeze, Caleb became fearless about rides while Holden, normally the child I would expect to fling himself toward danger without much discussion, was suddenly tentative. 

Caleb started middle school this year perfectly brave about the entire thing. I was the one sitting in the car at drop-off, watching him walk toward the building amongst all those bigger kids and thinking about how impossibly small he looked.

Then he walked in.

Just like that.

Another version of him gone. Another one beginning.

Holden rode the bus for the first time this year and came home announcing that he loved it, as if he had personally discovered the concept.

And all through those years, my parents were there too.

That matters.

For a long time, I viewed living with them mainly through the lens of what it represented: the place we landed after my marriage ended. Temporary. Necessary. The place I eventually wanted to leave. I had been thinking of these years as the space between one life and the next. A temporary stop along the way in the story of the three of us.

But the boys were not growing up in a waiting room.

They were growing up with their grandparents woven into everyday life.

This chapter mattered too.

My parents were there for the trivia games and brownie ratings and dinners and movies and 3D-print experiments. They were there at the community center and the Chinese buffet and all the ordinary places that slowly became part of our family history.

They were there in quieter ways, too. Holden learned to grill with my dad. He became interested in yardwork, helping (and harassing) the neighbor, and taking it seriously enough that my mom bought him his own little rake. 

These were not the kinds of moments I thought of as important at the time. They were just part of living there. But they feel important now, looking back.

So much of our life was made of little things that felt ordinary while they were happening. And somewhere along the way, the five of us had built our own rhythm out of ordinary days. My parents were part of the noise, the routines, the jokes, the things the boys were learning, the nights when somebody was annoyed and the nights when everybody laughed until something became a story we would keep telling.

I was so focused on eventually moving forward that I did not always recognize how much life we were already living. I think that is why it took me so long to understand what had changed.

Sometimes the new thing takes years to recognize because you are still looking at the empty space where the old thing used to be. I spent a long time noticing who was no longer there. Too much time.

And while I was looking backward, the boys kept growing. Becoming braver, louder, funnier, more complicated. Becoming new versions of themselves right in front of me.

And somewhere in all of that growing, we were changing too.

The three of us were becoming a family in a shape I had not yet learned how to recognize. By the time we started looking for a home of our own, I was finally beginning to see it.

We drove all over Western New York together, from one possibility to the next, the boys in the back seat while I calculated commute times, mortgage payments, electric bills, and whether I was about to fall in love with another house that would eventually belong to somebody else.

They walked through strangers’ houses with me and immediately began imagining themselves inside them. They picked bedrooms. They had opinions. They noticed things I missed. Holden walked into the kitchen on North Street, pointed at the wall, and announced, “Look! They have one of those old phones.”

Caleb began planning the technology before the house was even ours. Which Echo would go in which room? What would go in his bedroom? What could connect to what?

Of course he did.

We talked about where things would go. What mornings might look like. Where we would eat. Where we would watch TV. Which room belonged to whom. And sometime during all of that, something shifted. The three of us were not looking for a place where we could someday become a family again.

We were looking for a house for the family we already were.

That difference feels enormous now.

For years, when I imagined family, I think I was still picturing the old outline. Mother. Father. Children. A house. A certain arrangement of people. And anything different from that felt like the altered version. The after.

I thought the boys and I were what remained after something ended. But when I look back now, that is not what I see. I see Caleb furious about his popcorn. I see Holden asking everybody to rate another batch of brownies. I see my parents reluctantly participating in a trivia game Caleb created five minutes earlier.

I see two boys flying around the driveway and one of them shouting something so wildly inappropriate that I still laugh when I think about it. I see McDonald’s bags in the car. Steak requests and third helpings. Failed 3D prints beside the successful ones. Middle school drop-off. The first bus ride. Bingo cards. Roller coasters. Cookie dough croissants. Thousands of completely ordinary moments that never looked important while they were happening.

But they were.

They were the life.

I think I spent too long staring at the closed door behind me. At the marriage that ended. At the family structure that changed. At the version of adulthood I thought I was supposed to have. Meanwhile, life kept moving forward without waiting for me to name it.

The boys kept growing into people I could not have imagined yet. My parents kept showing up. We kept sharing dinners and going places and arguing and laughing and inventing traditions nobody had planned.

We made a beautiful life.

Not the one I expected.

Not the one I originally chose.

But ours.

Seeing that made me realize something else, too. For years, I had been waiting for some future moment when I would finally feel like we were whole again. I thought maybe it would happen when I bought the house. Maybe when we moved. Maybe someday, when another person joined our life. But I was wrong about that.

We have been whole all along.

I had just spent so long looking back at the family we had lost that I almost missed the family we had become.

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Smile, or Else

On spooky hayrides, empty threats, and reluctant smiles

Every October, I take the boys on a "spooky" hayride they’ve been going to since they were little. It’s not particularly scary. There are animatronics scattered throughout the woods, some Halloween decorations, and just enough spooky atmosphere to make it fun without traumatizing anyone.

The boys had been begging to go, so on a Thursday night, despite the fact that it was a school night, I agreed. But first, we had another Halloween event to attend: the trunk-or-treat at Holden's school.

Holden wore his giant inflatable dinosaur costume, which is apparently both a Halloween outfit and a personal safety device. Toward the end of the event, he tripped over a clump of grass and dirt along the sidewalk and went down. Just completely toppled over.

Fortunately, the dinosaur was fully inflated, so instead of hitting the ground, he essentially landed inside his own personal airbag. He wasn’t hurt in the slightest. There are apparently some practical advantages to dressing your child as an enormous inflatable reptile.

After that, we headed to Powers Farm Market for the hayride. We pulled in a little after seven, and the place was absolutely mobbed. Apparently, half the county had also decided that Thursday was an excellent night to take their children into the woods. I was not expecting that.

Before getting in line, we made our way into the market, where we immediately lost all sense of restraint. Powers has fresh cookies, cider slushies, and whoopie pies, so we descended upon the place like three raccoons who had just been released into a bakery. We were there for a wholesome family Halloween activity, but apparently we also intended to purchase half the dessert inventory.

Eventually, sufficiently stocked with treats, we got in line for the hayride, and Holden immediately began behaving like someone who had never been allowed in public before.

There was a wooden platform nearby, which he apparently interpreted as an invitation to repeatedly jump on and off it. He was swinging his glow stick around, yelling, and generally making it impossible for me to stand quietly for more than twelve seconds.

At one point, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” came on.

“Michael Jackson! Hee-hee!” Holden announced, doing his best impression of Michael Jackson’s signature high-pitched squeal. Then he went right back to whatever he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

There were also sheep nearby, which Holden decided needed to be harassed.

“Look what I have!” he called to them, holding out his hand.

His hand was empty. It contained none of the food the farm sells to visitors to feed the animals.

Apparently, he had moved on to psychologically tormenting livestock.

By this point, I had probably yelled at him ten times. Caleb, meanwhile, was standing there like a middle-aged man waiting for his appointment at the DMV. I turned to him for some adult companionship and commiseration.

“All I do is yell at Holden. He’s always doing something.”

Caleb nodded solemnly. He understood.

Eventually, we boarded the hayride, and I foolishly assumed that being seated on a moving wagon would limit Holden’s opportunities for trouble. It did not.

“Holden, sit on your butt.”

“Holden. On your butt.”

“Holden!”

After the third warning, I accepted that sitting properly was apparently beyond our capabilities that evening.

Somehow, we survived the hayride. But before we could leave, there was one final obligation: our annual photograph. Every year, I take a picture of the boys in front of the same decorated arch at Powers Farm Market. It’s become a little tradition, one that I intend to continue whether or not my children cooperate.

Holden, naturally, was happy to participate. Caleb, on the other hand, has reached the age where being photographed is apparently a violation of his constitutional rights. Getting him to agree to a picture is difficult enough. Getting him to smile is an entirely separate negotiation.

“If you don’t smile for this, I’m not bringing you next year,” I warned.

He smiled.

And then immediately began protesting.

“Hey! You can’t do that! You can’t refuse to take me places because I won’t smile!”

He continued arguing the point long after the photograph had been taken, apparently determined to establish that my parenting methods were fundamentally unjust. And it was in that moment I realized I was doing one of the most stereotypically mom things imaginable: making a completely empty threat to obtain photographic evidence that my children were having a wonderful time.

For the record, I did get my picture, even though I would not have remembered the threat a year later. But apparently Caleb wasn’t willing to take that chance.

With our annual photograph secured and Caleb’s objections duly registered, we finally headed home. On the drive, Holden noticed flashing police lights ahead. Someone had been pulled over.

“Mom! Did you see that?”

The enormous collection of flashing red and blue lights? Yes. Yes, I had.

“They’re looking for you,” I told him.

“Why?” he asked solemnly. He was genuinely concerned.

“Because they heard you were bad on the hayride.”

There was a moment of silence. And then Caleb burst out laughing.

Caleb. My serious, practical, humorless, frequently unimpressed child, who had spent most of the evening silently enduring his brother’s nonsense and protesting my unreasonable photography requirements.

He absolutely lost it.

“Duuuuuude!” Holden protested.

And then I started laughing, too.

A few minutes later, I put on Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” a song that apparently activates something in my brain because the second it starts, my head begins bobbing involuntarily. Caleb joined in with his usual ridiculous rendition of the opening.

“Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa…”

He sings it in this exaggerated, completely ridiculous voice that makes it impossible for me to take the song seriously. Neither of us can explain why we do this. We just do.

Then, since Halloween was approaching, I followed it with “Thriller” and “Monster Mash,” and our car became a traveling collection of questionable musical choices.

By the time we got home, Holden had reached his official verdict.

“BEST NIGHT EVER!”

To be fair, Holden declares something the best day, best food, or best experience of his entire life approximately once a week. His standards for greatness are remarkably flexible.

I’d spent much of the evening telling him to stop doing things. Stop jumping. Stop swinging his glow stick. Sit down. Behave. And somehow, none of that had diminished his enjoyment in the slightest.

Caleb had spent the evening tolerating his brother, questioning my parenting decisions, and reluctantly smiling for a photograph. But somewhere between the imaginary police investigation and Justin Bieber, even he had let his guard down.

I thought about the three of us laughing in the car. Caleb’s ridiculous singing. Holden’s indignant “Duuuuuude!” The kind of laughter that happens without anyone trying to make a memory out of it.

I’d taken them out on a school night, spent half the evening wondering why I’d agreed to it, and come home with two happy boys.

Someday, I suspect I'll miss these ridiculous, ordinary evenings. The constant reminders to behave. The bickering. The moments when my patience was wearing thin. Because as exhausting as these nights can be, they belong to a chapter of our lives that won't last forever.

Someday, I won't have two little boys laughing in my backseat anymore. And I'll wish I could have just one more night exactly like this one.

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