Somebody's Mom

• Carolina Wren
• Mourning Dove
• Common Grackle
• Northern Cardinal
• House Sparrow
• Blue Jay
• Monk Parakeet
• Red-bellied Woodpecker
• Great Crested Flycatcher
• Northern Mockingbird
• Brown-headed Cowbird

No one would ever accuse Dallas, Texas of being an oasis of nature. In fact, it's pretty concrete-y. There is one man-made lake, a dirty river, and couple of nature preserves, but by and large it is highways and byways and strip malls and parking lots.

My little neighborhood sits in the heart of Dallas, on the heart's east side. Running about it are plenty of squirrels, lots of bunny rabbits, some coyotes on occasion. As far as birds, we see blue jays and mourning doves, and a shit ton of grackles. Which is why when I stepped out my back door last night, just after the sun went down, to hear the loud song of a bird I'd never heard before, I stood in shock. What was that??

I whipped out my phone and started recording. Here's the video.

It was quite loud compared to other bird calls I've heard. And so different. I had to figure out what it was. So, I did some digging online, first asking what bird I might hear at night in Dallas. I knew it wasn't an owl. Once I saw a chuck-will's-widow as an option I googled it's song and knew that's what we were dealing with.

Then I went to look at photos and was shocked to learn that it is big! It is the largest member of the nightjar family in North America.

And its mouth is crazy-looking!

They are nocturnal birds who don't make nests, but instead lay their eggs on the ground. They come out at night to hunt and their large mouths act as a vacuum to suck up small birds and even bats.

Last thing: They are called chuck-will's-widows because that is the sound they make. It's onomatopoeia.

Anyway, anytime I come close to something this unique in nature in Dallas, I get excited. And I just had to share.

I've been in therapy for more than 18 years. I've had a whole host of therapists, which I will try to remember and summarize below:

-The first therapist's office I ever stepped into was in Berkeley, California. I chose her because she worked on a sliding scale, and she was what I could afford. She was extremely green, and I was extremely mentally unwell, so it was not the best match. She'd not yet developed enough skill in kicking off sessions, so when I came in she just kind of...stared at me. Cocked her head to one side and waited for me to talk. It was unnerving, but we persisted.

When I told her that I needed to stop our sessions, that I could no longer afford to come in, she took it personally. She got visibly angry and told me she believed I was terminating because "we were doing the hard work" and I was running away from it. Which was not the case. This interaction left me feeling guilty and, frankly, soured on psychologists.

-I saw another therapist, in San Francisco, who recommended EMDR to help me process traumatic memories. She explained that I'd need to be free from smoking cannabis for at least 48 hours for the EMDR therapy to be effective. I couldn't go more than a handful of hours at a time without getting stoned off my face, so I left her practice and never went back.

-Then there was the guy in SF who I saw in the basement of his house out in the Sunset. After two sessions he read my litany of diagnoses from a sheet of paper without looking me in the eye: generalized anxiety disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Had I been honest about my daily drug use I'm sure he'd have listed substance abuse disorder in there, as well, but I kept that part to myself.

-One of my favorites was the shrink in the Mission District of San Francisco, who was stylish and direct ("Please have your check fillout out and ready to go prior to coming into my office."), and who introduced me to the Enneagram. She based her entire practice around it, which is unconventional to say the least, since it is not an evidence-based modality. Nonetheless, I enjoyed our sessions and would have continued going to her had I not moved to New York. (I'm an Enneagram 4, by the way.)

-After moving to New York, there was my therapist in SoHo, who was average at best. She gave me life advice, which is not really what a therapist is supposed to do. I was pregnant when I was going to her and she told me no less than 10 times "don't become a short-order cook" for my kid. I remember leaving her office with a wet, swollen face from crying, and I'm sure the space to vent helped, but our entire relationship was unremarkable. I ended up ghosting her.

-After giving birth my cannabis addiction grew a second head and became a monster like I'd never seen before. I needed help. I sought out a therapist, this one on the Upper West Side, who specialized in substance abuse. I spilled it all in my first session, told him everything about how bad my use had gotten. With the other therapists I would hide how much I used, terrified of being told to stop, but with him I laid it all out to bare. In our second session he couldn't remember my name. "Stephanie, right? Drinking problem?" I didn't have a drinking problem, and my name is not Stephanie. I never went back.

-I've been with my current therapist for over seven years. I first started seeing him in the Meatpacking District in a basement office with bizarre art on the walls. But he left that practice and we've been doing telehealth (Facetime) calls ever since. I got sober while in his care, and getting sober healed about 90% of my problems. Turns out the anxiety I was trying to manage with weed was -- what do you know? -- being exacerbated exponentially by the weed. I finally found one that stuck.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll be in therapy forever. Maybe. It wouldn't be the worst thing.

It's been more than two decades -- 26 years, give or take -- since I started blogging. In that time I got a job as a professional blogger working in newsrooms, which morphed into work as a social media strategist, which is work I still do today. What was once Diaryland became Geocities which became Typepad which became Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, paid social, social listening, social analysis, influencer marketing, employee advocacy, full-funnel social intelligence. It happened slowly and all at once. And while I appreciate the skill and breadth of knowledge social media marketing takes in 2026, I miss just typing into a box without overthinking it and hitting publish. I miss writing about whatever. I miss the simplicity of storytelling without an audience in mind. Just expression for the sake of it. No algorithm to track, no specs to keep in mind, no video-first approach, no legal sign-off, no brand consistency considerations, no link in first comment, no engagement rate to calculate, no earned media value, no cost per click, no UTMs.

So, here we are. Or, at least, here I am. Back to my blogging roots. Except now I'm somebody's wife. Somebody's mom. Pushing 50 and wondering how I strayed so far from this hobby that brought me so much joy in the early aughts.

I had a lot more time back then, I know that much. In fact, as I type this, my daughter is two feet away, tying her orange belt around her gi in preparation for her martial arts class. Tying the belt is hard for her, she's just learning to do it herself, and she's frustrated, and like many humans do when they are frustrated, she is expressing that frustration outwards, onto me. And in a moment she's going to ask me to do her hair.

And so, I will (I did) put down this laptop and brush out her tangles, and she will tell me it hurts with anger in her voice, even though the brush barely moved through her locks, and I will say (I did say), tersely, "do you want to do it?" And I will (I did) immediately regret this, because it was unnecessarily harsh.

"Am I allowed to say 'ow'?" she will respond, and I will (I did) grow even more annoyed, the urge to hand her the brush and insist she do it herself rising within me, but I will (I did) pause, I will (I did) take a deep breath and say nothing. And then I will (I did) concede, internally, that yes, she is allowed to say 'ow,' and I will be (I was) glad that she feels empowered to say how she feels, to express her frustration in this house, in front of me, at me, even though it triggers my own irritation. Because that means that she feels safe and loved, and that's my highest goal as her mother, to ensure she always feels safe and loved.

This is the work I do now, in addition to the social media marketing. The work of undoing generational trauma, the work of regulating my nervous system so that I don't dole out verbal daggers which will embed themselves into her musculature. We don't want that.

It's a full time job trying to mother her in a way that won't leave long-lasting damage, and it's the most gratifying, all-consuming work I'll do in my life. It is a spiritual practice, an ego death, a maiden voyage.

And it is impossible to get right. I fail at it in a dozen tiny ways every day. A snappy retort here, a too-deep sigh there, a plate placed too loudly on the table before her. And she will (she does) say, "Are you okay, Mama?" And my heart will break again, for the dozenth time that day, that she felt the need to ask.

It is for her, really, that I am writing this. I have noticed that my life is lacking a good amount of joy. I am allowed very little space. And it is when I have space and joy in my life that I am a better mother. A resourced mother. A mother with room to pause, an inclination to laugh, an ability to be present. And so I've gone looking for it.

I used to outsource joy, turn to substances for it, but they turned on me, so I cut them out of my life, every last one. I'm out here raw-dogging reality in this godforsaken decade of decay, and my light is pretty dim, I'm not going to lie. I work, I parent, I sleep, I repeat. And it is not enough. There is no play. There is not much to look forward to. And so I'm reigniting the things I once enjoyed. Writing stories. Making art. Finding whimsy where I can. And not worrying about the worry that comes with opening up like this, on Al Gore's internet, where anyone with 5G can read it. I will say to you like I say to my daughter: I may be cringe, but I am free.

There is value, for me, in expression. It makes me feel alive. Writing this gives me a sense of purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning that is not a report deadline or the need to pack a child's lunch. It's just for me, myself. And it brings me joy. And with a little bit of joy I can give more freely to the person I love most in this whole wide world, a little girl who deserves a happy and fulfilled mother. A mother she doesn't have to check on. A mother with a little wiggle room. A mother with a point of view, a little something to say.