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“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” I thought about this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. as I visited the Canadian Museum for Human Rights last week. Because as we have seen time and time again throughout history, humankind has survived. We have fought for what’s right, and we have slowly made progress. We have, through adversity and war and civil rights violations and catastrophes, maintained hope. And that’s what a visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is truly about: our ability to hope, to dream, and, ultimately, to triumph.

Today is the 11th anniversary of This Battered Suitcase. I’d be lying if I said that I felt OK about it all, and that I still have the confidence that things would go back to “normal”. It hits me like a ton of bricks a few times a day: the dream job I worked for for almost two decades is gone, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back to where it used to be. The last year has brought with it massive waves of anxiety, and on some days, I can’t even turn on my computer, let alone try to write anything meaningful or coherent.

I was in the dating world for about twenty years before I met my boyfriend, Jon. With those twenty years came a lot of experience, both for the better and for the worse. I’ve been ghosted after three months of dating, I’ve dealt with intermittent reinforcement, and I’ve been in my fair share of rocky relationships. But the most common dating experience I’ve had? Love bombing. I only recently realized exactly what love bombing is, so I thought I’d share the warning signs and how to avoid it. Because – trust me – love bombing never ends well.

In a recent blog post called “Here Are All the Things I Haven’t Accomplished this Year in Self-Isolation”, I reflected on all the yoga I didn’t do. All the canning, the crafts, the reading and the writing I thought I’d tackle and then just… didn’t. The one thing I did do consistently… other than watch TV, eat two-bite brownies, and watch IG reels of cute dogs? Make limoncello. That’s right, I learned how to make limoncello at home.

This is how your heart breaks: slowly and deliberately, and then all at once. A story about falling in and out of love.

Just a couple of days ago, I turned 33. Technically, I turned 33 while flying over the Atlantic Ocean, flying from the gorgeous Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, something that I had…