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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Month in Review: October 2026

October 2026 in Review

October is usually one of my favorite months of the year. I love everything about fall, from the pumpkins and Halloween festivities to the spooky traditions we've been enjoying since the boys were little. This year, though, I spent so much of the month consumed by the house situation and other stresses that I felt like I was barely participating in the season at all.

But looking back, we actually did quite a lot. There were pumpkins, hayrides, Halloween parties, time with friends, and some pretty wonderful moments with the boys. There were also medical mysteries, an ongoing mortgage saga, and enough secondhand furniture shopping to furnish a small Victorian mansion. Somehow, amid all the chaos, October turned out to be a pretty memorable month.

October, As It Happened

The never-ending house saga: October began with an enormous amount of stress surrounding the appraisal of our future home. What should have been a straightforward step in the mortgage process had turned into weeks of corrections, reviews, unanswered questions, and uncertainty. I spent the first half of the month contacting USDA employees, advocating for myself, and trying desperately to keep the purchase from falling apart. The sellers had even relisted the house and were holding open houses while everything remained unresolved. Eventually, we received another long-awaited yes, submitted a revised offer, and signed another contract amendment. On October 29, my revised mortgage commitment letter finally arrived. We're still waiting to close, but after everything that happened, that letter felt like an enormous victory.

A house full of treasures (without the house): Despite not having the keys yet, I continued furnishing our future home through Facebook Marketplace and secondhand finds. I picked up a beautiful bedroom furniture set, two vintage record players, a $30 king bed frame with a $20 box spring, and all sorts of smaller decorative treasures. My aunt helped tremendously with pickups, including my fireplace. One of my favorite finds was an enormous set of Christmas china for just $25! More than anything, I loved watching my visions for each room slowly come together. I can practically see the finished spaces in my head. Now I just need an actual house to put everything in.

Holden's busy social calendar: We attended an open house at his new school and went to a friend's birthday party at Get Air. He's such a social little guy and seems to have friends everywhere he goes. We also worked together to build a commemorative kit of Cindy's house (the baboon I've been obsessed with for years who passed away). Ruben, Cindy's "brother" who runs the account, shared a photo of Holden with the creation on his Facebook page, which has more than 3.5 million followers. As an unabashed fan girl, I may have been even more excited than Holden.

Two very different parent-teacher conferences: Both conferences were held over the phone. Caleb's teachers absolutely raved about him. His math teacher even said, "I've never seen anything like this. He gets hundreds on everything!" I know how bright Caleb is, but hearing his teachers recognize it is always wonderful. Holden's conference was slightly less glowing, but I really like his teacher and think they'll have a good year together.

All things Halloween: I took advantage of a day off from work and school to visit Blodgett Farm with my mom and the boys to pick pumpkins. We attended the town's annual Halloween party, where the boys tried out their ridiculous inflatable costumes, and went to the trunk-or-treat event at Holden's school. We also made our annual trip to Powers Farm Market for the spooky hayride, followed a week later by trunk-or-treat and dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I had my annual Hocus Pocus night with my friends, too. I kept feeling like I wasn't getting into the season the way I normally do, but looking at everything we managed to squeeze in, I suppose we did pretty well after all.

Halloween morning runners: On Halloween morning, Holden participated in a kids' Halloween dash while Caleb opted for the full 5K. He hadn't been running in months, so I wasn't sure how it would go. Naturally, he went out there and finished in 39 minutes. That boy never ceases to amaze me.

A medical mystery: I spent much of October dealing with a mysterious lump that became progressively worse. Urgent Care initially suspected a lipoma and referred me to dermatology, but the earliest available appointment was in December. After I sent pictures to my primary care doctor, she suspected an abscess or infected cyst instead. Unfortunately, her office couldn't see me until December either, and referred me right back to Urgent Care. By the end of the month, I was still uncomfortable, getting worse, and without a definitive answer.

A surprisingly wonderful musical: I saw BOOP! The Musical with my friend Larry as part of the new Broadway season. I hadn't been particularly excited about this one, but it completely surprised me. I loved it! Later in the month, Larry and I also met up for dinner at Rohrbach's. This was a social month for me!

A couple of firsts: I went to my first escape room this month with a friend, and it was intense! So much fun, though. I also carved pumpkins with my friend for the first time in years. Sometimes it's nice to rediscover things you haven't done in a long time... even though I still absolutely suck at carving! Another first that wasn't particularly great was that this was my very first Halloween not trick-or-treating with the boys in their entire lives. They were with their dad this year since it was a Saturday night. They had fun though, and I had chicken wings and an early bedtime. 

Christmas movie season begins: October officially marked the start of my annual Christmas movie marathon. Unfortunately, I've been unusually exhausted lately and have been going to bed much earlier than normal. Usually, I can manage a Christmas movie almost every night, but I only finished two this month. A rather disappointing start to my favorite viewing season!

A little personal progress: I ended October four pounds lighter than I ended September, continuing the progress I've been making throughout the year. Even with everything else going on, it was nice to see that number moving in the right direction. I hit a big milestone too, with 50 total pounds lost. 

What I Watched

October brought some unexpected favorites, a disappointing documentary, and the official beginning of Christmas movie season. Here's the quick rundown.

TV Shows

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat ★★★★★
Prime Video · 2026 · Season 1 (8 episodes) · Episodes 6–8 · Finished October 10 · Complete
An unsuspecting employee finds himself surrounded by actors during a company retreat. So funny and absurd! This series is becoming a favorite, and I could absolutely see myself rewatching it.

Docuseries

McMillion$ ★★☆☆☆
HBO Max · 2020 · Docuseries (6 episodes) · Episodes 5–6 · Finished October 9 · Complete
The story of the elaborate fraud scheme behind McDonald's Monopoly promotion. I was excited about this one, but it was disappointing, dragged considerably, and took me far too long to finish.

Documentary Films

Class Action Park ★★★☆☆
HBO Max · 2020 · Documentary film · Finished October 10
A documentary about the notoriously dangerous Action Park amusement park in New Jersey. Amusement park accidents fascinate me, and I'd wanted to see this for a while. Interesting and enjoyable, but not a standout.

Movies

Sinners ★★★★★
HBO Max · 2025 · Movie · October 24
Twin brothers return to their Mississippi hometown in the 1930s and encounter a terrifying supernatural threat. Watched this with a friend on his recommendation, having never even heard of it. Awesome, surprising, and an unexpected five-star watch!

Christmas Movies

A Second Chance Christmas ★★☆☆☆
Great American Family · 2026 · Christmas movie · Finished October 14
Two divorced parents find themselves stranded together when a snowstorm disrupts their family Christmas plans. I enjoyed the forced-proximity romance, but the heavy-handed religious messaging was too much for me.

'Tis the Season for Setups ★★★☆☆
Hallmark · 2026 · Christmas movie · Finished October 21
A lighthearted holiday romance featuring family relationships, opposites attracting, and a single mother. Cute, with two romances and welcome representation, but ultimately an average Hallmark movie worth watching once.

Favorite Watch: Sinners ★★★★★

Star ratings are reserved for completed movies, documentary films, and completed seasons or docuseries. Shows still in progress aren't rated until I finish the season.

Coming Up in November

November could be a very big month for us. Or it could be another month of waiting. At this point, I've learned not to make too many assumptions about how things are going to unfold!

• Closing and moving, hopefully! The biggest thing on my mind is finally closing on our house and beginning the move. After everything we've been through to get here, I'm desperately hoping November is the month we finally get our keys.
• More medical appointments. Unfortunately, my calendar is filling up with doctors' appointments again. I'm hoping for some answers to the health issues I've been dealing with.
• Christmas movie marathon. The holiday movie season is officially underway, and I'm hoping to make up for my rather disappointing October viewing numbers. Ideally, I'll be watching an absolutely unreasonable number of Christmas movies.
• Bingo night. We missed our monthly community center Bingo in October because we were waitlisted, but we'll get back to it this month. I'm sure the boys will be thrilled. Not.
• Two Thanksgiving runs. Caleb will be participating in our annual Turkey Trot, although I'm sitting it out this year. We also have the town's Turkey Run, which Holden and I will be joining him for.
• Thanksgiving plans. Everything depends on the house. I'd love nothing more than to host Thanksgiving in our new dining room, but if we haven't moved yet, we'll celebrate at my mom's instead.

More than anything, I'm hoping November brings us home. I've spent so much of this year imagining what our lives will look like once we're finally there. I'm ready to stop imagining and start living it.

♥

See you next month.

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Previously Loved

On secondhand treasures, the stories they carry, and making them ours

A few weeks ago, I bought a set of floral pictures for fifteen dollars. I found them on Facebook Marketplace. They were pretty, old-fashioned, and exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for as I furnish our new house. I arranged to pick them up, paid the seller, and brought them home.

Attached to the pictures was a handwritten note. The seller thanked me for buying them and told me to enjoy my pretty pictures. Then she added something else. They had belonged to her Grandma Rose.

And just like that, my fifteen-dollar pictures became something more than fifteen-dollar pictures.

I don't know who Grandma Rose was. I don't know where she lived, how long those pictures hung on her walls, or whether she picked them out herself. I don't know if she loved them or if they were simply there, part of the familiar scenery of her everyday life. But I know they were hers. And now they're mine.

I've spent the last several weeks buying secondhand furniture and decorations for our new house. A lot of them. An arguably unreasonable number of lamps. I've driven all over Western New York, negotiated prices with strangers, arranged pickups around work and the boys, and enlisted my aunt in what has become a rather extensive furniture-retrieval operation.

I've bought things for a few dollars and things for a hundred. I've found pieces that look like they should cost far more than I paid. I've brought home things I know exactly where to put and things I bought simply because I loved them and figured I'd find a place eventually.

I'm especially drawn to old furniture. Ornate woodwork. Curved legs. Floral upholstery. Heavy dressers. Oval mirrors. Things that look like they might have been sitting in someone's grandmother's house for the last fifty years. Sometimes, that's exactly where they've been.

At first, I thought I was simply discovering a new decorating style. I've always liked old things, but my previous home was decorated in a primitive, country style. This time, I find myself drawn to something different. Victorian furniture. Romantic details. Rich wood tones. Delicate flowers.

I want a library with an ornate fireplace. A bedroom with vintage lamps and floral bedding. A dining room with beautiful old furniture that looks like it has hosted a hundred family dinners. I want a house that feels collected rather than purchased all at once.

And somewhere along the way, I started to realize that I might love these things for reasons that have very little to do with decorating. I love their stories.

One afternoon, I bought a little Victorian portrait for eight dollars. The seller was an older woman who told me it had belonged to her mother. That was all. No elaborate explanation. No remarkable history. Just a small picture that had once belonged to someone else.

I don't know whether it hung in a bedroom or a hallway. Maybe her mother passed it every morning without giving it a second thought. Maybe she had chosen it carefully because she thought it was beautiful. Either way, it had been part of her life.

When my aunt and I went to pick up my thirty-dollar king-size bed, we met a sweet older couple. My aunt loves old people. She has a way with them, and within minutes, the four of us were laughing and joking as though we'd known one another much longer than the time it takes to load a bed into a truck.

They helped us carry the pieces outside. They found some twine in their barn so we could secure everything for the drive home. And somewhere between the furniture and the twine, we learned about their lives.

They had bought the bed at an estate sale. They'd hoped their son would want it, but he didn't. They seemed mildly irritated by this development, which I found amusing. Apparently, even grown children have a way of disappointing their parents over furniture.

They had been married for about thirteen years. His first wife had died, and his current wife had actually worked with her. I found this particular detail rather scandalous, although I suppose thirteen years of marriage suggests everyone involved had made their peace with the arrangement.

She also had a room in their house filled with teddy bears. A thousand of them, she told us. A thousand. I have an unreasonable number of lamps, so perhaps I'm not in a position to judge anyone else's collections.

We laughed. We talked. They helped us tie down the bed. And then we thanked them, climbed into the truck, and drove away. That was it. But think about how much we'd learned in those few minutes. A previous marriage. A death. A second marriage with an unexpected connection to the first. A son who didn't want the bed. A room full of teddy bears.

We had arrived as strangers looking for a piece of furniture, and for a little while, they'd let us into their world. We would never see them again. They would go back inside their house, and we would go home with a bed. But now I knew a little about the people who had owned it.

And every time I look at that bed, I'll remember the couple who helped us load it, the twine from their barn, and the thousand teddy bears I never got to see.

That's been happening a lot. I bought a floral comforter from an older woman who invited me inside her house. She had company over for dinner, and the whole place smelled like tomato sauce. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said Grandma's Little Angels. It was such an ordinary scene. People visiting. Dinner cooking. A grandmother in her own home. And there I was, a stranger who had come to buy her bedding, briefly stepping into the middle of it.

Then there was the fireplace. I'd been searching for an ornate wooden electric fireplace for my library and having very little luck. Sellers weren't answering me. The ones I found were too expensive, too wide, or simply not what I wanted. Finally, I found one for $150.

My aunt went to pick it up for me, and apparently, somewhere in their conversation, she told the seller a little about my life. Later, the woman sent me a message wishing me and my boys well. She told me that thirteen years earlier, she had been in the same position. Divorced. Two boys. She had never regretted it. Never looked back. Life was better.

I had bought a fireplace from a stranger, and she had given me a little glimpse of a future I was still trying to build. She didn't know me. She didn't know what the last two years had been like, or how much it had taken to get to this point. But she knew something about starting over with two boys. And she wanted me to know that things could turn out beautifully.

I think I'll remember that every time I look at the fireplace.

I've always loved stories. I love reading them. I love telling them. I love listening to other people tell theirs. I spent fourteen years working as a librarian. I studied English and library science. I've been writing about my life for years, collecting little moments and turning them into essays because I can't seem to help myself.

I find stories everywhere. In the ridiculous things my children say. In the ordinary moments that somehow become unforgettable. In the things that go wrong and the things that finally go right. I suppose it makes sense that I would eventually start collecting furniture with stories, too.

Most of the time, I only get fragments. A grandmother's name. A mother's picture. A couple with a thousand teddy bears. A woman who raised two boys on her own. I don't know what happened before or after those little pieces of information. I don't know the full histories of the things I'm bringing home. And I never will.

But I like knowing that they had lives before ours. That someone else chose them, lived with them, dusted them, moved them, and made room for them. Maybe someone saved up to buy them. Maybe they were wedding gifts. Maybe they were handed down through generations. Maybe they were just furniture.

The dining table where everyone ate breakfast. The lamp someone switched on every evening. The dresser that held a child's clothes until that child grew up and moved away. Ordinary things, quietly witnessing ordinary lives. And eventually, for one reason or another, it was time for them to go. That's how they found their way to me.

Our house has a history of its own. It belonged to the same family for more than sixty years. Six children grew up there. When I first saw the listing, it described a home filled with happy memories. I remember being struck by that.

The house wasn't just four bedrooms, one bathroom, and a collection of rooms I was already mentally rearranging. It had been somebody's whole world. There had been birthdays and Christmas mornings. Arguments and apologies. Homework at the kitchen table. Children running through the rooms. Ordinary Tuesdays that nobody thought to remember. I imagine there were difficult years, too. Every family has them. The house had held all of it.

When I walked into the kitchen for the first time, something about the place felt right. I couldn't explain it. I just knew I wanted us to live there. Maybe part of what I loved was that it already felt like a home. Not a blank space waiting to become one, but a place where a life had already happened. And now another one was about to begin.

There's something strange and wonderful about that. A family spent more than sixty years making memories in those rooms. Then one day, the house went up for sale, and a woman with two boys walked through the front door and started imagining a future there. Me.

I wonder what the people who lived there before us would think of the changes I'm planning. The Victorian library. The floral bedroom. The retro den. The enormous number of lamps. I hope they'd be happy to know the house will be full of life again.

I think there's another reason I'm drawn to things that have been previously loved. I'm starting over. Not in the way I imagined I would be at this point in my life, and certainly not on the timeline I would have chosen.

There was a time when I already had a house full of furniture. I had a decorating style I loved. I had rooms arranged the way I wanted them. I had a life that, at least from the outside, looked settled. Then everything changed.

For more than two years, the boys and I have been living with my parents. We've been safe and loved and fortunate to have somewhere to land. But we haven't had a home of our own. And now, after everything it took to get here, we're finally going to.

I've been thinking so much about the things I want to put inside it. But maybe what matters most isn't whether the furniture matches perfectly or whether I find the right mirror for the library. Maybe it's that I get to choose. I get to decide what our home looks like. I get to bring things into it because I think they're beautiful, because they make me happy, or because they remind me of something I can't quite explain.

And I get to make a life there with my boys. A new one. Not a recreation of the life we had before. Something different. Something ours.

Someday, Caleb and Holden will be grown. I don't like thinking about that very much, but I know it's coming. They'll have their own homes and their own lives. They'll remember things about our house that I might never think to write down.

Maybe Caleb will remember a particular chair where he liked to sit. Maybe Holden will remember the fireplace in the library. Maybe they'll remember the floral lamps, the old mirrors, or the dining room furniture I spent so much time trying to find. They probably won't remember what any of it cost.

They won't know that a picture belonged to Grandma Rose, or that an older woman once owned the little Victorian portrait, or that the fireplace came from a mother who had raised two boys on her own. To them, those things will simply be part of home. The furniture that was always there. The rooms where we lived. The familiar objects in the background of their childhood.

And maybe, many years from now, they'll tell someone about them. Maybe one of those pieces will end up in one of their homes. Maybe they'll keep something because it reminds them of me. Or maybe they'll eventually sell it to a stranger who is furnishing a house of her own.

And if they do, I hope they'll tell her a little about where it came from. I hope they'll tell her that their mother loved old things. That she bought far too many lamps. That she spent months driving all over Western New York, filling a house with secondhand treasures because she wanted to make something beautiful for her family. And that she loved stories. Especially theirs.

I don't know all the stories these things could tell. I know only fragments. A grandmother named Rose. A mother who once owned a little portrait. A woman who raised two boys on her own.

But I know what happens next.

They come home with me. And somewhere between the old stories and the new ones, they become part of ours.

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From Murder to Mistletoe (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on True Crime, Christmas Movies, and a Very Abrupt Personality Change

Setting: October 2026 — On the couch, somewhere between unsolved murders and small-town Christmas miracles

My television viewing habits are a little... feral.

For approximately ten months of the year, I watch murder shows, true crime, psychological thrillers, educational documentaries, and Grey’s Anatomy, where the doctors have collectively experienced more trauma than most small countries.

I like dark things. Disturbing things. Creepy things. Stories about people doing absolutely unthinkable things to other people. Give me a bizarre disappearance, a psychological mystery, or a documentary about something deeply unsettling, and I’m happy.

What I do not watch the rest of the year is anything remotely heartwarming.

Romantic comedies? No. Feel-good family movies? Absolutely not, unless it's with the boys. I am apparently allergic to wholesome entertainment for most of the calendar year.

But every summer, I begin meticulously preparing for my annual personality transformation.

While the sun is still blazing, I begin to research and compile Christmas movie schedules, track premiere dates, organize everything by network, and build my annual watchlist. I know exactly when the season begins, and I look forward to it for months. Apparently, abandoning my usual television preferences requires considerable advance planning.

This year, the big day was October 10th.

On October 9th, I was still watching my usual assortment of murder, mayhem, and deeply disturbing human behavior. On October 10th, I was suddenly invested in whether a woman named Holly could save her family’s struggling Christmas tree farm before the annual holiday festival.

There was no transition period. No gradual easing into lighter entertainment. A switch simply flipped somewhere in my brain, and my entire television personality changed overnight.

Murder was out. Mistletoe was in.

Apparently, I contain two entirely different people. One wants to understand the darkest corners of the human psyche. The other wants to know whether the handsome widower who owns the bakery will make it to the Christmas tree lighting in time. Neither seems particularly concerned about the other.

For the next two-plus months, I watch nothing else. Give me the small towns, the fake snow, the suspiciously attractive single dads, and the career-driven women who inexplicably abandon their successful lives to open bakeries.

I want all of it.

The strangest part? I don’t even love Christmas itself all that much. I enjoy it, sure. But the shopping, the obligations, the chaos? I could take or leave much of it.

The movies, though? The movies are my favorite part.

And when Christmas season ends, I’m genuinely a little sad. I’ve spent months in a world where every problem can be solved with a town fundraiser, a heartfelt conversation, and one perfectly timed snowfall.

Then January arrives, and I reluctantly return to my regularly scheduled programming.

Which is usually homicide.

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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What Was Meant for Us

On fate, fierce belief, and finally coming home

There are things you hope for. Things you wish for. Things you want so badly that you convince yourself they might happen.

And then there are things you just know.

I knew about the house almost immediately. I remember standing in the kitchen during our first visit and feeling something I couldn’t quite explain. I had walked through plenty of houses before, imagining furniture arrangements and mentally calculating what I could afford. But this was different. I could see us living there. Not hypothetically, not someday, but actually living there. I could see our lives unfolding inside those specific walls.

Caleb and Holden chose their bedrooms that very first night. And somewhere between the kitchen and the upstairs hallway, I decided something, too.

This was our house.

I believe, at least to some extent, that certain things are meant to be. That sometimes life puts something in front of you for a reason. I don’t necessarily believe everything happens for a reason, or that wanting something badly enough guarantees you’ll get it. I’ve lived enough life to know better. But I do believe there are moments when something feels so unmistakably right that you have to pay attention.

And this was one of them.

Unfortunately, the universe apparently hadn’t consulted the USDA.

In August, our offer was accepted. Our contract was signed. We were moving forward with all the excitement in the world. And then the appraisal came in shockingly low. The numbers weren’t working, our plans came crashing down, and decisions were being made by people I’d never met. 

For weeks, everyone around me was gently preparing me for disappointment. My real estate agent told me we might have to let the house go. My mother encouraged me to start looking at other options. Everyone was trying to protect me from getting hurt. I understood that. They were being reasonable, and there were plenty of reasons to believe they were right.

But I kept telling them the same thing.

This is our house.

I said it when things looked promising and when things looked terrible. I said it through tears, sleepless nights, endless phone calls, and days when I could barely concentrate on anything else. I wasn’t calm. I wasn’t particularly optimistic about the process. I was scared, exhausted, and occasionally convinced I was going to lose my mind.

But somehow, underneath all of that fear, the certainty remained.

And because I believed it, I fought for it.

I challenged the appraisal. I compiled sixteen pages explaining why I believed it was wrong. I questioned errors, researched comparable properties, made phone calls, sent emails, and kept pushing when the answers weren’t coming. I became relentless in a way that probably surprised some people, although anyone who knows me particularly well might argue otherwise.

I could fight the numbers. I could question the process. I could advocate for myself. What I couldn’t do was control the outcome.

That was the hardest part.

While I was fighting to save the deal, the sellers relisted the home and held two more open houses. I had to sit back, sometimes in tears, knowing that strangers were walking through the rooms my boys had already claimed as their own. People were opening closets, looking out windows, and imagining their own furniture in the spaces where I had already imagined ours.

In my mind, Caleb and Holden’s bedrooms had belonged to them since that first evening. I knew which room would be whose. I had already started thinking about beds and dressers and the little details that would make those spaces theirs. And now other families were being invited to imagine the very same thing.

It was agonizing. I knew the sellers had every right to protect their interests, just as I was trying to protect mine. But understanding something logically doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

More than once, I wondered whether I was being foolish. Whether I was so attached to the idea of this house that I had lost the ability to see the situation clearly. I wondered whether everyone else could see something I couldn’t.

But every time I tried to imagine walking away, something in me resisted. How do you give up on something when every part of you is telling you that it belongs in your life?

I couldn’t. So I kept going. I sent email after email. Made call after call.

And then came the signs.

Twice, in two completely different places, I happened to notice street signs for North Street. Another time, I saw the words Lee Roy somewhere unexpected. Each time, I smiled to myself.

It’s a sign.

I know there are North Streets everywhere. I know coincidences happen, and that our brains are particularly good at noticing things we’re already thinking about. I understand all of that perfectly well. But I also believe there’s room in life for a little magic. For the possibility that not everything meaningful needs to be explained away. Maybe those street signs were nothing more than coincidences. Maybe they were little reminders to keep believing. I don’t know, and I don’t particularly need to.

I liked thinking the universe was quietly agreeing with me.

The strange thing is that my certainty never made the experience easier. I think, in some ways, it made it harder. If I had believed this was simply a nice house that I might or might not get, perhaps I could have accepted the possibility of losing it more gracefully. But I didn’t think it was simply a nice house.

I thought it was ours.

And every setback felt like someone was trying to take away a future I had already begun to see.

I thought about the boys upstairs. I thought about Christmas mornings and birthday dinners and evenings when we’d all be home, doing our own things under the same roof. I thought about having a place that belonged to the three of us. A place where we could settle in, spread out, and finally stop living in anticipation of the next chapter.

I had spent so much time imagining that life. And for the first time, I could picture exactly where it would happen.

I don’t think believing something is meant for you means you can sit back and wait for it to arrive. Sometimes you have to work for it. Sometimes you have to make yourself heard. Sometimes you have to challenge an appraisal, compile sixteen pages of evidence to support your case, and hope that the people making the decisions will listen.

And sometimes, after you’ve done everything you possibly can, you have to accept that the rest is out of your hands. That was where faith came in for me. Not the kind that promised everything would turn out exactly as I wanted, but the kind that allowed me to keep hoping when I had every reason to be afraid.

Eventually, after weeks of fighting, waiting, and wondering, we found a way forward. The numbers changed. The obstacles that had seemed insurmountable began to fall away.

Last week, I signed an amended purchase contract. The sellers signed it, too. We had already signed a contract back in August, when my offer was first accepted. At the time, I thought the hardest part was behind us. I had no idea how close we would come to losing everything we'd been celebrating.

And now, nearly two months later, we had signed again. A new agreement. A second chance at the same house.

We haven't closed yet. There are still things to finish, and after everything that's happened, I'm reluctant to declare victory too soon. But the deal is back on track. The house I had been told I might have to give up is going to be ours. Again.

For the first time in weeks, I can stop thinking about how to save the house and start thinking about actually living in it. I keep thinking about that first evening in the kitchen. About the boys choosing their rooms. About how ordinary it all seemed at the time, three people walking through an old house, looking at walls and windows and closets.

None of us knew what the next few months would bring. We didn’t know about the appraisal or the open houses or how many times I would cry over a place we didn’t even own yet.

All I knew was how I felt standing there.

I suppose I’ll never know whether this house was truly meant for us, or whether my determination helped make it ours. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was some combination of the two. But I like to think that sometimes, when something is meant for you, you recognize it before you understand how it’s going to happen.

I recognized this house before I knew what it would take to get there. Before the numbers worked. Before anyone could promise me anything. And I held on, not because I knew how the story would end, but because I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t over yet.

I knew it in my bones.

And soon, we’ll be home.

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