Author: Abby Rosmarin

Trigger Warning Ahead: Discussions of Assault -- “Ay Vamos” starts playing and my chest seizes. It’s the kind of visceral response that the wrong song at the wrong time can only trigger. Songs are time capsules with melody and I’m instantly transported back in the end of 2014. The eve of things. The tide pulling… Continue reading Consent →

I recently got a chance to review a box from Alltrue, and I was really pleased with both the box and the company’s mission. Firstly, Alltrue is a quarterly subscription box with an eye towards sustainable, ethical, and altruistic practices. It aims to foster women’s empowerment, support charitable brands, and go about international trade in… Continue reading Alltrue: a subscription box on a mission →

"I feel like I'm in the interlude between acts in a play." I say that to multiple friends, some who are going through similar experiences, and some who are not. "I'm in the interlude between acts," I say. "And I know the second act is going to look vastly different from the first. But there's… Continue reading Interlude →

I broke down crying on the North Cascade Highway. The mountains had reduced me to a blubbering mess. One hand on the steering wheel, one to my mouth, sobbing persistent, overwhelming, beautiful tears. “The world is such a beautiful place,” I say to myself, by myself. “And I am so grateful to get to be… Continue reading Hoy Tengo Ganas →

“Think of what your most pressing crisis was, right before the pandemic.” I have to smirk. I remember this time, last year. The innocent juxtaposition, like the opening scenes of a disaster film. The world before the virus made landfall, when I was consumed with the creeping inevitability of a situation — the hope that… Continue reading Replacement →

Within the first two punches on the heavy bag, I feel something well up within me. “Oh, I’m apparently angry,” I say, with all the detached objectivity of a biologist studying their animals. “Don’t lose your form over it,” my husband warns, the man who not only tells his Icarus when she’s flown too close… Continue reading Anger →

“Out of all these memories, what do you think is the message from them that you want to undo?” “That I’m not worthy of love,” I tell my therapist. We have moved from emotional mapping to figuring out the baseline for my EMDR. “And what would you want to replace that message with?” she asks.… Continue reading Innate →

"Now this -- this can be put in its box, we can put its lid on it," says my therapist. "And we can leave it in the closet, and only return to it when we want to." I smile -- although she can't see it, through my mask -- and continue my deep breaths. I… Continue reading Emotional Mapping →

I went outside to find Hecate sprawled in the run, motionless. My rooster had been alive the day before -- the crowing had been an audible announcement of that. There was no sign of trauma, of attack, of illness. In some ways, my rooster looked like they were taking a peculiar nap. It was the… Continue reading Platform →

When the woman who had been my grandmother for the last decade died, I went to the ocean. It wasn't planned. I just knew I needed a drive. And I drove. I wove through backroads like I have countless times before, when my soul would be stirring and the only remedy was making the scenery… Continue reading Hindsight →