Every day I interact with young people who are struggling to get through another obstacle life has thrown in their path.

I try to teach my teenage son that every experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. . .

The part I leave out right now, is that sometimes the pain of that growth is so debilitating that your heart is begging for another way to “learn the lesson”.

It presents the opportunity to look back at choices we’ve made in the last year, decade…or decades as life tumbles on.

Supporting our children during the vulnerable years of middle school can leave us as unsure as they are. The only thing I could think to say to my son is “Middle school is funky”.

As we have become a world beautifully filled with blended families and men and women stepping in to be an additional blessing to a child’s life, I have had many conversations with friends and colleagues about how to navigate this.

We are all souls on a human journey. We cross paths with one another along the way, to support and be supported.

The child support (control) is gone. I am completely free. I am a survivor.

It’s not that I don’t give a “F—“. It’s that I so deeply care about truth and possibility that I don’t have room for games and manipulation

When we arrive at an age where there are most likely more years of life behind us than ahead, reflections come more often and decisions feel more intense.