Tool Two: Music

As a teenager, my toolbox of comforting tricks grew to include music. My whole world changed in the mid-80s, when I got a Walkman for Christmas and my first music tapes: Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. My life had changed dramatically when both my parents...

Tool One: Books

I learned very early on in life that you need to create a toolbox filled with your personal coping mechanisms, the things that help you survive through the hardest days and the biggest challenges. As a child, my first shelter from the big, scary world was books....

Tools of Survival

Like most women, my life has had many phases that feel like completely different lives, rather than different chapters within one, single story. In life’s crazy, unpredictable, maddening way, I have journeyed from feeling sad and lonely due to childhood divorce;...