Deborah Edgar

Today marks another trip around the sun. Sixty-nine of them, apparently. One short of 70. Which feels impossible, because in many ways I still feel like the girl squinting toward the horizon asking, “What’s that?” When I look back, the landscape of my life is anything but simple. There were childhood years shaped by fear and confusion, living under the shadow of a narcissistic mother and abusive stepfather whose cruelty left marks that took decades to understand and even long

More snow is predicted for Sunday. Seriously? It’s Friday. And the headlines read like a weather roulette wheel: Maybe a flake. Maybe more. Rain, turning to snow. How much? Nobody knows. It could be one flake or an avalanche. Anybody's guess. Literally. It would be funny if it didn’t feel like everything else. Because it’s not just the weather. It's grandmothers stolen from their beds in the middle of the night. An arrest overseas while we politely ignore corruption at home.

I didn’t always understand what self-love really meant. For most of my life, I thought love was something you earned - through productivity, through proving, through showing up for everyone else first. I thought love was something that came from the outside in . From relationships. From validation. From being chosen. After all, that's what I was taught as a child being raised by a narcissistic mother. I believed I had to earn love. It wasn't until Jon and I met that either of

Some weeks don’t just feel heavy. They feel jolting. This past week has been one of those weeks for me. I've experienced the weight of our broken world, some health issues I wasn't expecting but must face, and the impact of a fall on ice that just made everything worse. And that's just a few highlights. It doesn't include the "little" things that fall to the bottom of the pile but add significantly to the heap. It's been one of those months the last few days. I won’t pretend

When I was a little girl, I was shamed by my parents for nearly everything - my appearance, my thoughts, my feelings, my body, my actions. Shame wasn’t an occasional experience; it was the atmosphere. It was deeply ingrained. And, so, it became something I carried into adulthood. It's something that still shows up quickly when I make a mistake. Because of that, I’ve had to work hard to untangle the difference between shame and regret. They can feel similar, but they lead us i

For years since Jon’s death, I have asked him for signs. Not small ones. Not subtle ones. I asked for bold clarity , something unmistakable that would let me know he is still near, still guiding, still witnessing my life as I live it forward without him. There have been bold moments as well as quiet reassurances and gentle nudges. Many of them. This past weekend, it happened again. On Friday night, a Facebook friend sent me a private message. She told me she had been reading

I used to think my life was a series of broken chapters - stories that didn’t connect, losses that didn’t make sense, wounds that never quite closed. I thought I was just surviving one thing after another. But standing here now, I see it differently. I wasn’t breaking. I was becoming . Every grief, every unraveling, every moment I thought I was lost was quietly shaping the woman I am today. This is not the story of what happened to me. This is the story of who I chose to beco

We don’t talk enough about identity loss. The darkest part of grief, loss, loneliness. The moment when life quietly - or violently - strips you of who you thought you were. Whether we feel a sense of identity loss from the death of a loved one, a relationship ending, a job loss, or a host of other losses, the sense of losing ourselves and having to reinvent ourselves is an added layer of grief on top of grief. And it's real! I’ve had three of those moments in my life. And eac

As we lean into a new year, I keep hearing people talk about getting it right . The right plan. The right timing. The right version of themselves that will magically appear on January 1st. Spoiler alert: that version does not exist. And if it does, she’s probably exhausted and a little annoying. Here’s what I know for sure: nothing is resolute. Life is fluid. Circumstances change. Energy changes. Motivation comes and goes. Some days feel inspired and expansive. Other days… we

There’s a quiet week that lives between Christmas and New Year's day. .A strange, suspended stretch of time where the calendar technically moves forward, but no one is quite sure what day it is. Tuesday might be Friday. Friday might be Sunday. Is there such a thing as December 47th? Emails can wait. Showers are optional. Seriously, they are! It’s the in between . The decorations are still up, but the adrenaline is gone. The leftovers are still around, but we’re starting to ey