The First Year
The First Year

The first time I sat in the waiting room, I faced a wall full of Christmas cards and birth announcements.

The second time I sat in the waiting room, Chris sat next to me, reading a book I bought him, which exclaimed in bold letters on the front, “We’re pregnant!” I held a clipboard and grilled him about his family’s medical history. When the doctor turned the monitor screen to face us, Chris couldn’t help but move closer, wanting to get as good a look at our little gummy bear as possible. But he didn’t let go of my hand, and for the first time he was pulled between me and our child.

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MotherhoodKristina BuschMotherhood, Growing up, pregnancy Comments
The Yarn is the Same
The Yarn is the Same

(Sometimes I forget).

I have a body. I remind myself stretching, the pops releasing my back before climbing into bed. I roll my wrists, tiny muscles spent from crocheting. We’re working on our relationship, my body and me. I’m working to listen better; my body, in turn, agrees to shout less. I’m trying to forgive the things it will not do, the question mark of grief that whispers, “I can’t.”

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MotherhoodKristina Buschmiscarriage, Infertility, Motherhood Comments
Reminder: Be Durable Polyester Carpet In the Next Life
Reminder: Be Durable Polyester Carpet In the Next Life

All “business professionals” crawl under their desks to cry, their bank account overdrawn (again), munching candy that coworkers slide beneath the plywood desktop. We all decorate our cubicle walls with drawings by our children, photos of our families, and potted plants that we fail to water, then revive, then fail again. All of us place small plastic goats to the left of our desktops that scream when we push down on them—wild, ugly, depraved screams that fill the room, saying “I’m okay. See? I’m fine.” Screams that ease laughs from workers drowning in hyper-focus, drowning in code, drowning in editing edits.

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Women at WorkJulia Nusbaumwomen at work, workplace, writing, technology, mental healthComment
ODD JOB
ODD JOB

“Hey Ref! You’re making calls out of your aaass!” the father of a nine-year-old kid in a game I was officiating yelled at me at the top of his lungs, adding a two-handed, open-palm slam against the glass for emphasis.

Handing off the puck to my officiating partner, I skated to my designated position, which happened to be a spot on the ice fairly close to where that parent stood, still pressed against the glass. Slowly, deliberately, I leaned forward with my hands on my knees, focusing on the impending puck-drop—and giving that parent a good look at the region from which my calls were coming.

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Women at WorkKristina Buschsexism, sports, Working women, feminism, confidence Comment
Great Expectations
Great Expectations

I donned an orange safety vest and sparkling new hard hat fresh from its cellophane wrapper and trudged up the wide, steep incline under a blazing California sky. My gait was off-kilter, too much weight in the front of my steel-toed boots. The Sony camera slung across my body hit my back every step I took, like a stranger trying to get my attention. I shoved my small notebook and pen into my jeans back pocket and swung the camera around, securing it with my right hand. Up and up the bridge deck I climbed, all the way to the end, halfway across the San Francisco Bay.

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Women at WorkKristina Buschsexism, Working women, writing, feminismComment
Eight Fascinating Facts About the Heart
Eight Fascinating Facts About the Heart

In the pre-dawn silence, before the sun wrests the veils of frost from our windows, I hear someone running down the hall—small, naked feet sprinting toward my bed. I’m only half awake, half expectant, but when I feel the mattress dip under the pressure of new weight and a warm body pressed against my back, I know it’s my son and I know he’s had another bad dream. Maybe it’s Captain Hook again or Shredder, the knife-toting villain from the Ninja Turtles.

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Mental HealthJulia NusbaumMental Health, womens stories, healthcare, anxiety, depressionComment
Weekly Rituals
Weekly Rituals

From October 2020 until February 2022, every Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. until 11:15 a.m., I dedicated my time to taking a shower. My weekly Wednesday ritual also included my virtual therapy session at 1:00 p.m., so I began my day changing out the week-old unwashed pajamas to shampoo and deep condition my hair, shaving my legs, and exfoliating my body. As I undress, starting with my crew socks, I focus on my parent’s medicine cabinet. Although not my bathroom, this is my childhood bathroom, as there is one shared shower. Next, my black sweatpants and long sleeve-stained John Mayer tour shirt from 2017 hit the blue tile.

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Mental HealthGuest Usermental health, Recovery, hope, disabilityComment
Despair and a Desk
Despair and a Desk

The despair is back. It’s so familiar that its return is almost comforting like seeing an old friend until you remember that friend is misery. I am miserable.

It is mid-February. I have made it through the big three without incident: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. My sober family had a party on January 2 to celebrate getting through the holidays without a drink and hopefully a minimal amount of amends. I proudly celebrated one year of sobriety on January 8.

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Mental HealthGuest UserMental Health, alcoholism, sobriety, addiction, Recovery Comment
Lilas Blanc
Lilas Blanc

I smell her in a cosmetics store on the other side of the world. It hits me in waves that test my balance and fuck with space-time. For a moment, I half expect to turn the corner and see her browsing the next aisle, filling the air with the sweet fragrance of her perfume laced with the lingering scent of her last cigarette.

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Love StoriesJulia NusbaumComment
The Fear and the Falling
The Fear and the Falling

An intensely painful stomach ache kept me awake that night. Every time I lay down, my head spun and nausea swelled in my throat. I ran from the tent to the portable toilet a handful of times. I desperately wanted to vomit. And I tried. But I couldn't. We were scheduled to have five hours of sleep that night, but I managed to get only an hour and a half. I'd felt so strong, almost invincible up to this point.

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Love StoriesJulia Nusbaumlove stories, modern love, africa, hikingComment
The Love I Deserve
The Love I Deserve

I often wonder at the definition of first love. Many acquaint it to different people, for different reasons. Could I acquaint it to the first crush I ever had? Well then that would have to go to Orlando Bloom as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings. Do I count it as the first heart pounding, late night longing, tear-jerking crush I ever had? Well, that would have to go to a boy named Chase at the tender age of twelve, whom I was infatuated with for quite some time. Though he never liked me back, and while it was fun to crush on and spend nights talking about him with my girlfriends, I don’t think I could call it love. No. My first love belongs to my first boyfriend.

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Love StoriesGuest Userlove story, love life, love, love at first sightComment
A Sense of Us
A Sense of Us

Vinegar-soaked fish and chips in a London pub, our families escaping the summer heat in 2006. You, me, your brother, my sister, all of us in a dark wood booth beside a window. English bric-a-brac, the smell of Guinness. In the spring, we’d both graduated from the University of Oklahoma and turned twenty-two within months of each other, which meant we’d known each other half our lives.

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Love StoriesGuest Userlove story, love, story, loss, broken heartComment
A Weekend Away
A Weekend Away

He had been in Montana for seven days before she got there. He was there with a group of guys—one he had grown up with, the others he had fished with before, on the same river. The house was up on a mesa and they had rented it for ten days. It was her first time in Montana, her first trip away from her children in over a year. She didn’t do any of the planning, but rather showed up feeling as if she was joining in on someone else’s vacation.

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Abortion StoriesKristina Buschtravel, vacation, abortion, motherhoodComment
Last Word
Last Word

There’s an old Hebrew proverb that says before a child is born, the angel Gabriel whispers the secrets of the world in their ears. He tells them everything about God, life, love, the universe. Then he kisses them on the forehead, the child is born, and they begin to forget all the wisdom that was granted to them.

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Abortion StoriesGuest Userabortion, love, childlossComment
From Bordeaux to Montgomery
From Bordeaux to Montgomery

“Let’s see what your fortune holds,” my sister Lynn said, brandishing a pack of tarot cards.

A recent college graduate, I was off to France to spend a year as an au pair. She laid out the cards carefully—we were just messing around; neither of us really believed it—and put on a good show. Lynn explained each card with gravitas, knowing nods and occasional sighs. I don’t remember what card came—the naked Star? The Wheel of Fortune?—when her eyebrows jumped up to her hairline and she announced “You will come home pregnant.”

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Abortion StoriesGuest Userabortion, travel, women, Young Adult Comment