As Robin survived trauma, love and gunfire over on NBC, I was completely devoted to Erica Kane, Luke and Laura and the rest of ABC’s daytime lineup. Waiting tables at night was conducive to watching soap operas – so that’s what I did between acting class, aerobics at Sports Connection, and auditioning for beer commercials. My main takeaway from the auditions being that while it was important to be tall and blonde, it also behooved one to tell dirty jokes on cue and have big bouncing boobs. Let’s just say I failed miserably at both.

While Robin was swashbuckling with Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, I too shared the big screen with Mandy Patinkin. Although I had no idea who Mandy Patinkin was—him being a respected stage actor from New York—and me an aspiring Hollywood actress. Everyone in my acting class was really impressed. Well, excuse me! It’s not like I’d ever seen him in People. On set he wasn’t wielding a sword. And he was always in full makeup. He was an alien cop. With a giant alien head. Give me a break.

The movie was called Alien Nation. It was billed as James Caan’s big come back. And it was going to be my big break. I could feel it! I had one line. One glorious line. One line that was going to change my life! I’d finally get my SAG card. I’d be much more desirable for all those uppity casting agents. Or that’s what my agent promised. My agent had a client that had a recurring role on Who’s The Boss. A recurring role with lines!

I was so going to be a star!

And the next time I saw Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis at Chalet Gourmet on Sunset, I’d say hi and we’d chat about the biz. I wouldn’t have spy on them from the wine aisle with a bottle of Sutter Home White Zin stashed in my purse. Seriously, a role of a lifetime!

Here’s what you don’t know. When your scene is with the two stars of the movie, you’re basically a star too. You spend a lot of time in your trailer. The PA, that’s production assistant, is constantly checking to see if you need anything. Diet Coke? Cool Ranch Doritos? Reese’s Pieces? Diet Coke? It’s almost annoying. Someone stands in for you while they light the scene. Not to brag, but my stand-in wasn’t drunk. I’m looking at you James Caan! It’s no surprise shenanigans take place on set. Seriously, way too much downtime. I tried to imagine what Robin did in her trailer. I couldn’t paint my fingernails though. My character wouldn’t be caught dead in nail polish. I’d already memorized my line. I was pretty bored. I drank a lot of Diet Coke.

After hair and makeup, the PA, again production assistant, walked me down the street to the retro burger joint. The set was all lit up. The extras, those are the people hired for the background, milled about on the sidewalk. The normal, everyday people driving by gawked. I thought about waving to them but decided to play it cool.

The director wanted us to run through the scene before shooting it. Totally makes sense.

Action!

Two cops walk up to the window to pick up their food order from me. One is a newcomer (read Mandy Patinkin, alien cop) and the other human (read James Caan). I hand them each a Styrofoam food container. The camera pans as they open their containers for the big reveal, wait for it. I’ve messed up the order. Crap! I’ve given the newcomer cop a burger and the human cop beaver. Brilliant writing. Yes, that’s right, my first movie role was “kid at the burger stand.”

Much like he did for Princess Buttercup, Mandy Patinkin protected me from evil. There was no swashbuckling involved, but he did shame James Caan ruthlessly for making rude sexual remarks to me on set. Something about the last thing he’d eaten being pussy. Whatever. Dirty old man. But clearly Mandy Patinkin and I were now friends. He’d probably mentor me for years to come. Hollywood is ALL about relationships.

The movie premiere was held on the lot at 20^th Century Fox. I wore a black Betsey Johnson slip dress and took my best friend. It was mind-blowing to see myself up on a huge movie screen. I think my bestie actually screamed. It could have been the death grip I had on her arm. We got wasted on Champagne at the after-party. We hung out with the guys from Warrant. It was a pretty epic night. Things were happening. I could feel it!

The next day I was hungover for my one and only lunch shift, but I muscled through, comforted by the knowledge that my day job days were numbered. Unfortunately, despite having my SAG card, the offers didn’t pour in. Or even auditions for that matter and eventually my agent stopped calling altogether.

Robin starred in a bazillion movies.

I got a job at the hot new restaurant in Santa Monica, took writing classes, and wrote short stories on my word processor. My first short story collection was called Rice Cakes and Cowboy Boots.

Robin married Sean Penn and had babies.

I moved to Seattle. I dated a string of really good guys. And a few duds. I fell in love with a guy ten years younger than me. We talked about getting married. We bought a house. We talked about babies. We broke up.

I have a lifestyle PR company. I’m CEO and President.

I read in People that Robin’s now married to a guy eighteen years younger than her. I guess she wins, although she did only play the role of president, so maybe it’s a draw.

Once or twice a year I get a residual check from Alien Nation. It always makes me smile. The last check was for forty-six cents. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Kirsten Graham runs a boutique lifestyle PR firm in Seattle. She’s currently querying agents for her debut novel, a coming-of-age story with a dash of romance set amid the golden haze of 1980s Southern California beach culture. When not on the tennis court perfecting her net game, she’s busy writing her second novel. You can follow her journey on Instagram @KLG.Writes.

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My normal body shape does not include long, thin, shapely legs. I am short (5’ 2”) and my legs are more “tree trunk” shaped. My knees are not prominent - they blend into the trunk of the tree. Before this past weekend, there were only two times in my life where I have loved how my legs have looked in a photograph. The first time was in 1994 after I returned home from a college graduation trip to Europe in June with my friend, Jennie. We toured London, France, and Spain. It was unseasonably cool in London and France, so just about every photo of me from these two countries consisted of me in my Levi’s 501s, and a well loved army green Eddie Bauer jacket. But in Spain, it was warm and sunny, and I could finally wear the Summer wardrobe I packed for the trip.

Flipping through the package of developed photos from the Fotomat in the K-Mart parking lot, I froze as I saw a picture that Jennie took of me at a plaza in Spain. I’m wearing my favorite tan shorts from Old Navy, a cute butter yellow v-neck t-shirt, and my Birkenstocks. A gigantic black fanny pack my parents suggested I take on the trip was resting on my hips. I guess I had to have somewhere to keep my traveler’s checks safe from all those pickpockets I was warned about ad nauseum. The square was filled with white doves and two were resting on my arms. Holy shit. My legs looked great! I was starting to develop a tan, my knee caps were defined, and it was obvious that I had a prominent thigh gap. The holy grail of amazing legs in my opinion.

The only problem - I weighed 90 pounds at the time. It was my second go-round with anorexia and I was seeing an eating disorder therapist. I wanted to go on this trip so badly that I made a deal with my Dad to weigh 90 pounds by June, meaning I had to gain 5 pounds. In the back of my mind, I planned to lose the weight when I returned, but somehow, with the help of my therapist, I was able to put anorexia on the back burner for fifteen years.

A month before my 39th birthday, I ran the Salt Lake City Marathon. I didn’t acknowledge it at the time, but I was clearly anorexic again. I was a new mom with a new hobby to lose the baby weight and keep me in shape. As anorexics do, I took it too far. I weighed 107 pounds. My husband took my photo with my kids at the finish line. This was the second time I honestly liked how my legs looked. I was thin, yes, but at least my legs had some flattering muscle tone and my knees were not chubby.

As I aged, the sub-115 “lifetime” weight goal I proudly held at Weight Watchers for nearly 10 years became impossible to maintain. A running injury, Covid, and a new puppy changed how I worked out. And then came perimenopause and menopause. I stopped running and as a lot of women in their 50s do, I joined a Pilates studio and added weight training. I now weigh 10 pounds more than I have ever weighed as an adult. My old anorexic “tricks” to lose weight do not work. I feel stuck in a body I don’t recognize anymore.

But this past weekend, we took a quick group photo at the end of a relaxing family beach vacation in California. I didn’t think about where to stand or how to position my body. I just smiled at the camera because I was happy to be with the people I loved. Looking at the photo in the car on the long drive back to Utah, I zoomed in on my legs. I didn’t hate the way they looked. It felt good to accept my body the way it was in that moment. I know that I won’t always feel that way looking at every photo of myself, but it felt like a first step in learning how to show myself love, kindness, and acceptance. Everyone deserves that.

—-----------------

Misti Milner lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and two dogs and has two adult children in college. She is working on a memoir about her experience with anorexia and growing up on the fringes of Mormonism in Utah. She is a commercial real estate agent who enjoys the outdoors, traveling, exercising, and spending time with her family.

You can find her on Instagram @mistimilner and Substack:

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“Yes honey. Like when you get dirty, I make you change in the garage so you don’t get the house muddy?” He looked so cute in his short sleeve shirt and short pajama set. The white set with the green collar and zoo animal prints scattered all over the fabric. He loved the monkeys the best, often pointing to the monkey eating a banana. His stick straight hair was wild – standing up in all directions. “Mom why were you and dad in a mud fight?” “Oh, we were just being silly.” My eyes widened in terror having to answer for the sins of his father. Oblivious that this interrogation was far from over.

*

The night had started out innocent enough. We hosted a send-off party for Jason’s friend Brian who was moving to Tampa. Brian and his new girlfriend Charlotte were jumping in the moving truck and hitting the road the next morning. Their friendship spanning over 15 years, began a little rocky with normal high school rivalry rifts, evolving to a closeness that neither of them expected. Needless to say, it was a bitter sweet night filled with laughter, libations, and connection amongst friends. Brian had been head-hunted to help with a new start-up, and he was eager for the opportunity, and maybe an excuse, to leave behind the baggage of his tormenting job, past relationships, and the grief of losing his mom to ovarian cancer. Of course, Jason and I were going to miss Brian like crazy, but we knew that change is necessary for growth and Brian needed this change to rebuild.

They had known each other since high school, were even roommates for a few years, and had lived no farther apart than a 12-block radius over the last decade. They were funny friends, not only because of their differences in politics, but their appearance as well. Jason’s span reached 6’4 with Brian’s height topping out at 5’8. Both were particular about their clothes and made sure they kept a neat and clean look with their designer jeans and boutique plain white or black t-shirts. Their relationship was raw and real – never holding back any punches. Jason would poke at Brian for being a Republican by loading his front yard with Hilary and Obama election signs and Brian would return the favor of his own kind.

So many stories and laughs. There was the night of the massive snow cock. Following our annual Christmas Party, and well after midnight, Jason and co. snuck over and created a giant snow penis in Brian’s front yard. They pulled his Christmas lights from his bushes to outline the massive member, roughly 15’ long and 4’ wide, and then turned on the hose and sprayed water over it to make sure it was rock hard for days. Brian had left the party early to pursue a love interest at the bar – so it was the perfect time to torment him. Brian’s cab dropped him off around 2am that night, and when his eyes focused enough to see what laid in front of him, he shrugged his shoulders and went to bed. He was too inebriated to know how to start fixing the mess. The following afternoon, when Brian finally had the energy to tackle the project, he walked outside and stood on his front stoop. Snow shovel in hand. Carolers happened to be walking past, when his crochety neighbor lady simultaneously yelled “pervert” adding that his yard art was offensive. Jason got a well-deserved call that evening. “Thanks a lot, you prick. As if my neighbor didn’t hate me enough, I’m sure the carolers from Cathedral were really impressed.”

There was also the night their friend group went to see Pete Yorn play at the casino. “I’ll pay for the rooms with my Hilton points” Brian generously told the guys. He would soon learn that no good deed goes unpunished. After the show had ended, the group separated and Brian went with another friend to the bars, while the remaining guys returned to the hotel. It was there that they pulled the prank of all pranks. They set up wake up calls every 15 minutes, starting at 4am, telling the front desk that Brian had a sleep disorder making it hard for him to wake-up. Someone dropped an unwrapped Baby Ruth Candy bar and coffee grinds into the toilet. They unplugged every single lamp and pulled the mattresses off the beds. The black-out shades were drawn. Furniture was carefully propped against the door so that it was difficult to get in. When Brian finally returned to his room, after tripping over furniture, he blindly located a corner and spent the night curled up because he couldn’t see anything without lights. To add insult to injury, his iPhone was dead so he couldn’t use the flashlight to find his way. The hotel phone started ringing at 15 min increments after 4am, but Brian couldn’t actually find the phone to unplug it. At one point, once he smartened up and opened the shades, he went to use the bathroom. When he saw what looked like a massive dump in the toilet, he projectile vomited. The car ride home was a quiet one, with Brian’s anger permeating the interior, and the rest of the guys with pounding migraines as evidence of the fun they had. Once the temperature had come down, and Brian shared his version of events, even Jason admitted they may have taken things a bit too far.

So yeah, Brian was going to be missed. And maybe the part that was going to be missed the most was growing up and letting go of being a drunken idiot and the childish pranks with the one person who seemed to laugh the most at his own expense. Or the last-minute texts to grab a quick dinner and make it an early night, which usually ended up with us staying up way too late drinking and talking on our back patio with music playing too loud. Given the turnout of the send-off party, he was going to be missed by many people.

The last of the guests left around midnight, and me being a person that can’t sleep with dishes that need washed and trash thrown out, I found myself cleaning up the clutter of the party. Throwing beer can after beer can into the garbage and loading the dishwasher, I started soaking the caked queso in the crockpot and put leftovers in the fridge. Jason was being flirty and asked if I wanted to have one last drink in the garage to wind down. To reminisce. The kids, 4 and 2 YO at the time, were both sound asleep. ‘Why not?’ I told myself. Afterall, hanging out in the garage wasn’t new to us. Our routine was to blare Springsteen through Jason’s vintage amp, tell stories, and allow the giggles to settle in. I was fun and happy when the warmth of the wine settled in. And on this particular night, Jason kept moving in closer and closer, which is typical behavior for him after one too many whiskeys. He pulled me in and lifted the back of my dress to catch a peek of my underwear. “You know Meg, we haven’t done it in the garage yet. Let’s get naked.” He started kissing my neck. “Jason, the kids are upstairs. What if we get caught?” I playfully pushed him away trying to be the voice of reason. “Come on, I know you want to” he said as he pulled me back in. Truth is, he knows I’m an easy lay, so it didn’t take much to get me naked. He gently pushed me up against his vintage ’61 Corvette and I took off his shirt. He dropped his pants. We were kissing. That’s when the door opened….

*

About a year later, Parker and I were driving to our neighborhood grocery store, when he started asking questions from his booster seat in the back. “Mom, remember when dad was naked in the garage?” I froze. “Um, yeah, I do. We had that big mud fight.” My eyes diverted their attention to his cherub face via the rearview mirror. “Why was dad naked there? We don’t have a shower in the garage.” Heart beating rapidly, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, while thinking ‘Why isn’t he asking Jason these tough questions’, I replied “Well buddy, dad was really dirty. I didn’t want him to track mud into the house.”

Over the course of the next 6 years, Parker intermittently brought up the mud fight asking similar questions that eventually evolved to “I don’t remember seeing any mud on dad” or “When did it rain?” “It wasn’t raining or muddy that day.” “I’ve never seen you in a mud fight before. You don’t like to be dirty, so why did you get in a mud fight?” The questions came quick and rapid, usually when it was just him and I in the car. Typically driving to the grocery store - A place of comfort for us both it seemed. All of these questions demonstrated that our son had been completely and utterly perplexed by the whole situation, and he wasn’t going to let it go until he figured out why his dad was naked in the garage. Eventually, around the age of 9 or 10, well beyond the booster seat years, with Parker now riding in the front passenger seat of our Buick Enclave (the quintessential family ride), he turned to me and said matter-of-factly “Mom, I know exactly why you and dad were naked in the garage.” I looked over. We made eye contact. There was a short pause while I considered my response. My eyes twinkling. “Well, I guess you can stop with all of the questions.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Megan Woita lives in Lincoln, NE, with her husband and their two teenagers. She is an animal lover with an absolute obsession with their two English Labs and reincarnated cat, Clifford. Together with her husband, they operate a boutique residential construction company, and she also daylights as a Real Estate Agent. Megan has a humorous take on her time spent working in the insurance industry, as well as short stories about the everyday hiccups in life. Because, after all, It’s always something...

You can find her on Instagram: @meganwoita and Facebook: Megan Woita

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Jennifer was coming over tonight! Jennifer was our main babysitter when our parents went out. Jennifer was older – in high school. She was the same age as my best friend Tracy’s older sister, Becky, but Jennifer was nice to me. She was bubbly and happy and would play games and watch TV with me. She was kind to my baby brother who usually had to go to bed soon after she arrived (and didn’t always want to). She was patient. She didn’t yell at us or call us names like Becky did. Becky would scowl at Tracy and me when we were playing anywhere near her. She never hung out with us (only with her boyfriend Keith); she wouldn’t even let us listen to her KISS records, because she thought we were too young and the lead singers spit fire and blood, which was not appropriate for young, impressionable 4th graders. We listened to the Grease soundtrack, and in one of the songs they said “shit”, and there were bare butts in the movie. We could handle a little bit of theatrics.

Jennifer always let me stay up late. She would make popcorn, or we would have popsicles when she was over. Best of all, I would get to have a Swanson’s TV dinner on babysitter nights. A TV dinner was a luxurious meal for any 9-year-old, and it was also a meal that I could cook myself. The meal was frozen in an aluminum tray, wrapped in foil. Each tray had 4 separate segments with a unique food item in each section. The tray was placed in the oven for 15-20 minutes and then once ready, you would have a piping-hot 4-course meal ready for you to eat. Piping-hot also meant scalding the roof of my mouth, but it was worth it. My favorite dinner was Salisbury Steak. I had no idea what Salisbury Steak was supposed to be, but Swanson did. They had created an oblong piece of meat similar in texture to a hamburger, smothered in silky brown, salty gravy that would linger in your mouth before sliding warmly down your throat. The second course was mashed potatoes, followed by corn kernels that you could mix together with that luscious gravy. And the final course: a gooey chocolate brownie.

Dinners on regular nights had become boring and bland. We used to have great food for dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, hamburgers and Bon Bon’s Rice (a cheesy rice casserole named after my grandmother), tacos or enchiladas, and my favorite: beef stroganoff, which was strips of meat covered in a thick, white gravy, with rich, buttery noodles. And there was usually some sort of dessert - cookies, ice cream or sherbet, or something special like strawberry shortcake. But then, Dad started to run marathons for exercise and started a new health food kick. Dad had always been big and athletic - he was 6ft 4”, and played football in high school and college, and then rugby when I was little. He was always worried about getting fat though. He would tell us about how he got teased when he was younger for being a fat kid, but then his body grew to fit the weight he had carried as a kid. Dad’s football and rugby and now marathon running kept him active and our new family diet would keep us all healthy.

Dad’s health kick was turning our once delicious dinners into less magical times. Instead of the hearty helpings of spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread, my mom started preparing baked, boneless chicken breasts with Lawry’s seasoned salt and baked zucchini. My beef stroganoff slipped away from our family menu, never to be seen again. Even snacks and dessert items were removed from the pantry: the stash of ginger snaps and fig newtons my dad would indulge on each night after we kids were asleep had disappeared.

Babysitter nights usually meant that I didn’t have to worry about my stash. I started keeping my stash, hidden deep in my closet, when the good food in the house began to disappear. My stash included treats like Halloween candy, and sweets purchased from the corner store where we went afterschool to play Space Invaders. Now that our house addition was finished, my parents and my baby brother slept upstairs, out of earshot of anything, except the telephone. I was able to creep in the kitchen at night to find some sort of snack – something more satisfying, as I was always craving something after dinner. Sweet or salty would do the trick, but I often had to be creative to figure out what it was I needed.

Sometimes it was Saltine crackers with a smear of margarine; sometimes a few spoons of liverwurst from the tube in the fridge. The stash in my room was exclusively sweets – candy bars that I would purchase for 25 cents; candy cigarettes from my friends: props for impromptu re-enactments of “Grease”; jaw breaker hard candy given to me by the nice older man at the church on the corner. The stash never lasted long though – I would go through it and then suffer without anything to quell the urges. At these times, I would simply grab the containers of sugar from the kitchen pantry and eat spoonful after spoonful, until my tongue felt thick and tired, and my cravings slipped away. These late-night adventures always ended the same way – I would be full of sugar with a heaping serving of shame. I would feel like a thief who could never be discovered. An innocent-looking child with a horrible secret that no one could know. A vampire food-freak.

But babysitter night was different. I could eat my TV dinner and have popcorn and play games. I didn’t need my stash on these nights. And Jennifer could have her boyfriend visit her in the backyard after my bedtime while they smoked cigarettes, and I would never tell. We all have secrets, after all.

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Hilary Duff and I are BFFs. She just doesn’t know it.

For years, she was consigned to a 20-gallon plastic storage bin, one of many holding my children’s youthful treasures. Peppered with old rat droppings and strategically located on an upper shelf of my garage, Hilary’s container didn’t see the light of day for at least 14 years, poor dear. She was unearthed during the summer of 2017, when a divorce demanded I sell our home.

My son, Ben, was now in grad school in Connecticut, and daughter Liz was getting her career started and living with me to save money. Lizzie—my forever ally, my sidekick and sushi partner—is the only person in the world I know without a mean bone in her body, an instinctively kind and generous earth angel who finds a way to be upbeat in the worst of times.

There had been lots of promises made after my husband and I split up. I will never take your home away from you, Barbara! Never! That was the second biggest lie. Everyone had lost enough. But, alas, amnesia set in five years after I discovered his boyfriend with his pants down. Literally.

At our dissolution meeting, with attorneys present, I was given a 30-day-notice to list the house—or else. Or else what? I don’t know. I’d be out on my ass? He’d go after me for spousal support? Both were distinct possibilities, and I was scared shitless! It sent me spiraling into frenzied fear. “Where would I go?” “What could I afford on my own?” I wracked my brain with possible scenarios of buying him out but there was no way with two college tuitions to be paid off at the same time. Enter salvation.

My friend Lisa, a home stager, recommended Kathy Gardner, LA real estate agent extraordinaire, to handle the sale.

Kathy was oodles more than that—she became my friend, my sanity saver, my spirit guide and a continual holder of hope that I could weather this next huge loss and find a little place where I would, again, create a garden for hummingbirds to come nest. I was lifted, weightless really, by her and so many women who showed up to hold one hand and lift my spirit with the other. I quickly found that women friends become sisters in times of crisis.

Lisa ordered a cosmetic house-lift to ensure I could squeeze every last dollar out of the sale—and no one says “no” to Lisa! So I pinched every penny to make those changes, and miraculously, I earned the money to match the demand for it. A gift from a benevolent universe?

My oldest sister Joan, a building contractor (and my childhood protector), arrived from Sacramento to commandeer the ladder, and the two of us replaced rain gutters to cut costs while Liz, ever the cheerleader, commemorated the moment of us hoisting a wooden beam onto the roof with a social media pic captioned, “My mom is a badass!” While painters, handymen and electricians came and went, Lizzie continued thinning out bookshelves and closets.

Then the pal brigade appeared on cue. Kelly tackling the tangle of chaos in my garage, Judy and Suanne packing dishes. Tossing, tossing, tossing. Lisa’s voice ringing in my ear-- “If it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it!”

Then the familiar brainstorm would visit once again. “How the hell does he get out of doing all the grunt work and still reap all the benefits?” A newfound rage took hold of me. Rage born from the horrifying and depressing truth: in 28 years of marriage, I had meant less than little. I spent sleepless nights obsessively spinning, trying to lasso those thoughts, begging the bearded dude in the sky to prevent me from swallowing the poison of resentment once more. I made yet another call to Nancy, my trusted friend and confidant, her generous ear always open to one more rant while gently guiding me out of the pit. My self-esteem was in the toilet, and breaking through the denial of how dependent I had been on my husband for my sense of self-worth was both shocking and humiliating. Painting red flags green I had, in fact, willingly and painfully surrendered any notion of being truly loved to keep my family together and paid dearly for burying my head in the sand.

To help with the move, Ben came home from grad school for a couple of weeks. Cloaking his sadness, he offered instead some desperately needed comic relief as he and Liz bravely culled through their 23 years of memories making impossible decisions about what to keep or toss, and to prepare for an epic garage sale.

One afternoon while entering the garage, a sound flew like spit in the air. “Phffft!” Then, “What the hell is this doing here?” My now too-cool son, incredulous that one particular memento coexisted among his things, held up an 8 x 10 headshot of a sultry blonde Hilary Duff complete with an “I-just-had-sex” disheveled hairdo and her autograph, punctuated with a heart-shape that hooked to the tail end of the “y” of her name. Her piercing stare insisted, “You got this, girl!” Poor Hilary had been suffocating among Ben’s blue terrycloth stuffed sleep doll named Buster, a coveted golden Charizard card, and a Kobe Bryant bobble-head.

“Where did that come from?” he scoffed, as if the picture was covered with cooties.

“Oh, probably one of those movie screenings with your dad. Don’t you remember when you guys met her, and she signed that autograph?”

“Nooo!” he answered in his bored, middle school boy-voice masking a crush. Liz piped in.

“I loved Lizzie McGuire—she was my favorite—I remember!” Eye-rolls. We laughed between our tears, then sorted through other memories and tossed and re-packed box after box.

For every day after that until Ben got on the plane to go back to school, and throughout the entire move with Liz by my side, Hilary was center stage. Hilary made her first appearance resting on my pillow after a long day. Ben’s attempt at finding some levity through the pain. Next, she greeted me in the medicine cabinet, then the hallway closet.

Pretty soon we started taking turns to find the most creative and unexpected hiding places for Hilary—a competition to see who could make whom laugh the hardest. Laughter! Manna in the desert!

Hilary saying “hi” from inside the oven, Hilary smiling in the pots and pans cupboard, Hilary taped to the bathroom mirror, “Good Morning!” Hilary winking from Ben’s guitar case, Hilary chillin’ on the Adirondack chair on the patio. Hilary perched near Ben’s sports trophies in the garage. Hilary drowning in a box of CDs, Hilary propped on a driveway table overseeing our garage sale, Hilary showcased on the back of the Offer-Up buyer’s truck who came to take Ben’s desk. Hilary posed in a photo op with my realtor Kathy.

And finally, on the sad day of our move Hilary—taped to the front of the moving truck— a proud figurehead as we paraded down Arcola Ave, and through our neighborhood saying our goodbyes to the moms I raised children with. Hilary at the helm, proclaiming a silent, steadfast “Onward!”

Today, Hilary resides in the bedside table of the guest bedroom in my townhouse where Ben stays when he visits from his new home in New York. With each visit, at some point, Hilary shows up to hang with the family once again. Back-and-forth: Hilary on my pillow, Hilary in Ben’s guitar case, Hilary inside my shower stall, Hilary taped to the inside lid of the guest bathroom toilet seat, Hilary taped to a dining room chair, Hilary on Ben’s guitar stand, Hilary greeting me on the wall as I descend the stairs to begin the day. It never gets old.

Whenever Ben comes for a visit, Hilary’s mystery appearances become my reminder that laughter is as essential as fresh air, that pain is fleeting, that love is forever. Thank you, Hilary Duff, my spirit goddess, who reminds me not of what is lost, but what endures.

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When the minute hand hits twelve, I get six ice chips.

Not water. Not coffee. Not even a real sip. Just six small shards of ice.

Only a month ago, by this time, I would have already packed my daughter’s lunch, dropped her at school, reminded my husband, again, to take the trash to the curb, and reveled in some alone time during my bumper-to-bumper commute to the college where I teach.

But not today. And every day since I woke from a two-week coma. What should have been routine surgery turned into a near-fatal flesh-eating infection with a ten percent chance of survival.

I beat the odds.

Paralyzed below the neck, but alive.

Now the highlight of my day is when the surgeons’ peek beneath the gauze covering the enormous hole in my abdomen, the site of the infection and ongoing cleanup, managed by wound vacuums attached to me at all times. They offer approving “ooohs” and “ahhhhs,” like they are admiring a home renovation.

This isn’t my first rodeo with strangers seeing me naked, but it is a personal best for volume. I only wish I had the foresight to shave my legs before setting this record.

The rest of my day is spent watching the clock’s secondhand tick forward. Audible, rhythmic, and relentless, until the minute hand moves again as I inch closer to my next ration.

Six ice chips an hour.

Like many reliant on ventilators, I developed a swallowing dysfunction. Drink the wrong way and I could get pneumonia. For me, that is a death sentence.

But the doctors, nurses, and speech pathologists, the coalition I privately call the “swallow sticklers,” do not know me.

Sure, I can barely talk. Every word comes out like I gargled gravel, thanks to damaged vocal cords. Harvey Fierstein sounds smooth by comparison. But I would be careful. Delicate. Responsible. I would not chug water like a teenager trying to get drunk for the first time.

Still, no food. No drinks. Just six ice chips an hour.

Emerging from a coma is a trip, literally, with a few unexpected perks. In my coma dreams, I lived out childhood fantasies that would probably keep a therapist busy, involving my longtime political hero, Joe Biden.

Long before he was a household name, while most pre-teens in the mid-eighties were reading Tiger Beat and swooning over Michael J. Fox, this pint-size political pundit wannabe was watching the Iran-Contra hearings, where Joe Biden presided like a boss.

In that purgatory between consciousness and unconsciousness, I spent time with Joe. A meeting of like political minds. He’s a very good hang.

But waking up is harder than dreaming.

The kaleidoscope of emotions is fragmented and blurred. Gratitude flickers and disappears. Grief settles in, heavy and persistent. I miss my life with a physical ache. I miss moving without thinking. I miss being useful.

And I am so thirsty.

I deserve a drink of water, basic hydration, for all that I am going through.

Moving from bed to chair, inches away and close enough to touch, now requires a sling attached to a ceiling track, the kind of thing that looks like it belongs in a gym class, baggage claim, or a medieval torture chamber. A sturdy canvas folds me into a stork-like package and deposits me at my destination.

And then there is physical therapy.

My therapist, whom I privately call Frau Blücher, has the same German accent and ability to inspire fear as her namesake from Young Frankenstein. She is also a passionate evangelist for veganism.

Frau extols the virtues of veganism to everyone she encounters, including me. “It tastes just like beef,” she assures me. Or chicken. Or cheese.

A note to anyone speaking within earshot of someone who cannot eat, and in case the feeding tube in my nose is not obvious, do not talk about food. Not even vegan cheese, which I promise neither melts nor tastes like the real thing. When you are not allowed to eat, even bad food sounds incredible.

Her therapies involve a stainless-steel table to simulate standing, a cross between an electric chair and equipment enjoy by uninhibited sex positivists. My upper body was strapped in with sturdy leather restraints. Safety first.

I looked less like a patient and more like The Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter awaiting Clarice, while enduring a lecture on tofu.

All of it, the dreams, the fear, the indignities, make me ache for my life beyond these cinderblock hospital walls. I cling to the idea that this is temporary. That recovery, however long, will end in something recognizable. That one day this will become a story I tell, not the life I am living.

Patience has never been my strong suit. That has never been clearer to me than now, as a patient.

I want my ice chips now, just as I want my old life back. I want a glass of water. I want my body back. I want the life I had before I knew how quickly it could disappear.

Instead, once every hour, I get six ice chips. I let them melt slowly. Stretch them out. Make them last.

They are small, but they are something. A promise, however fleeting, of what could be.

A body that moves without thinking. A voice that doesn’t fight its way out. Hands that reach, gesture, hold.

For a few minutes, my throat softens. My body remembers something simple and human.

Not a glass of water.

Not even close.

But something.

And for now, that has to be enough.

Jenny Tatsak is a communication professor who studies what people say, what they mean, and what goes unsaid. Her writing circles resilience, family, survival, recovery, and the absurd little truths that surface when life comes apart. She writes about remaining yourself when the story gets rewritten, often through the lens of a pop culture hot take. She’s on Instagram @jennyuneditedwrites

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Confession. I can seldom resist a good Instagram quiz. One of my favorite sources for them is Autostraddle @autostraddle, the queer culture and society website. Their latest quiz, by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya @kaylakumari, asks, “Which Hacks Character Are You?”

Of course I took it, and of course I answered honestly. Once I finished all the questions and hit submit, I felt an adrenaline rush. The thrill of waiting to find out who I am.

Within seconds I had my answer. I was DJ: “God you’re a mess, but we can’t help but love you.”

And for anyone who doesn’t watch Hacks, DJ is Deborah Vance’s (Jean Smart) daughter.

I was quite surprised by the verdict. For all my character flaws, I had never considered myself a loveable mess. But who am I to argue with the findings of a ten-question quiz?

Putting aside the fact that I am a psychoanalyst and have been in practice for thirty-two years, I still need Instagram to consider the possibility that I may be unconscious of my own loveable mess qualities.

Just to be sure, I took the quiz a second time. I answered the questions differently, but still in ways that felt true to me. (And, by the way, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya gave excellent options for every question.)

This time the verdict was Randi: “No one can ever guess what you’re about to say, and that’s beautiful.”

Randi, played by the hilarious and inimitable Robby Hoffman, made more sense to me. Not knowing what I am about to say is, in fact, something I am often accused of. And not always negatively.

Anyhow, my point is that online quizzes can sometimes feel as revelatory as insights gained in therapy. Obviously, I know the difference between Instagram quizzes and psychoanalysis. Still, there is an overlap. Both invite us to not edit ourselves. And both give us hope that if we can answer questions honestly enough, something true might be revealed.

Which is why I find myself wondering, what if, in the training of becoming a psychoanalyst, in addition to learning Freud and psychoanalytic histories, we also studied the art of the online quiz?

For instance, what if there were quizzes called:

• Are You Ready to Be a Psychoanalytic Candidate?

• Which Television Therapist Are You Most Like?

• Are You an Envious Person?

I’m not suggesting we replace traditional psychoanalytic education with Instagram personality tests. But there is an overlap. The desire to know ourselves.

In the end, I’m still not sure whether I am more like DJ or Randi. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Being told by an online quiz that I am both a loveable mess and beautifully unpredictable is oddly satisfying.

Like psychoanalysis, an Instagram quiz will always offer me another way of experiencing myself.

Many thanks to Autostraddle Quiz: Which Hacks Character Are You? and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Rachel Newcombe is a psychoanalyst on Orcas Island WA. She is a genre-bending writer who explores ways creative non-fiction, poetry, and flash fiction can be an aspect of scholarly writing.

She can be found on X where she writes daily micro-fiction with the group #vss365. She’s also on Instagram @rachelnewcombe8

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We began as strangers in Stefanie Wilder-Taylor’s online writing workshop, eight women showing up every Wednesday with pages, nerves, opinions, and the kind of stories that do not stay quiet forever.

Each week, we read our work aloud. We listened. We gave feedback. We asked better questions. Slowly, the Zoom squares became familiar faces, and the familiar faces became a community.

What unites us is a desire to tell the truth: untidy truths, painful truths, funny truths, and the truths that have spent too long behaving themselves.

Through conversation, revision, and the occasional well-placed interruption, we have unearthed the stories that demanded to be told. Our lives intersected in unexpected ways. We stopped being strangers. We became writers who could trust one another with the messy first draft and the honest second one.

That’s What She Said is where we bring those stories into the open.

Here you’ll find heartfelt essays, quirky musings, and sharp observations across fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and whatever genre best tells the truth.

We’re glad you’re here.

We publish new work twice a week. It’s free, always.

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor’s Writing Workshop: stefaniewildertaylor.com/classes

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