This maps with some of what I've been learning, fills in a few gaps, and also strikes me as not quite 'enough.'

There's a bit of frustration that comes when you recognize many of the 'levels' and would aspire to reach them, but life circumstances have kept you in an altogether different level.

I'd warrant that moving between levels, living between them, even, is essential and where many of us actually might be. Levels are fairly subjective, after all. What is important to one person isn't necessarily important to another.

For me, the different levels aren't really what I find…

I have ADD and memory issues. I’ve tried many tools over the years to help me remember my life. Bullet journaling was one of the first tools that really ‘clicked’ for me and I’ve been using it for around four years.

For the uninitiated: bullet journaling is a simple method of organizing your life, a productivity system, and a journal all-in-one. You can start with just a notebook and a pen. Because it is so adaptable, some people go overboard trying all the pieces of the system without mastering the basics. Rapid logging is one of those basic things.

It’s…

I rarely question what another writer writes. We all have opinions. Disagreement is good for the soul — it helps you know where you stand on issues you might otherwise not have thought about.

Sometimes, though, I’ll read something and a part of it sticks out to me. Either it resonates with me or it nudges me to consider another point of view. Maybe I disagree with it entirely. Maybe I disagree with part of it.

In questioning what another writes with ease, I am not questioning their words as much as my own thoughts. Sometimes, I don’t like where…

My memory is a sieve — in that, I don’t remember half of my life.

No exaggeration; I know things happened and I remember emotions and feelings but rarely specifics, like what a person said or other details that make the event more memorable.

My therapist and I have had some intriguing conversations about why my brain mocks me like this. Early trauma. My lizard (read: ADD) brain. Fibromyalgia memory fog. All the above.

Unfortunately, having a reason doesn’t matter when I still have to live with the consequences.

What Consequences?

I don’t remember many of the important things that have happened…

Two kids under 2-years-old.

Over a dozen therapy appointments a week. A specialist appointment or two thrown in for good measure.

I was a young wife and mother too tired to care about dishes or laundry, barely hanging on to the edge of my own sense of overwhelm. My Aunt and Uncle would show up out of the blue … sometimes to watch the kids, sometimes to push a $20 my way even though they barely had anything extra themselves. (We lived on $12,000 a year for a family of five, in a trailer on the edge of town)

I’d…

I’m used to being forgetful. I’ve spent years coming up with solutions for all the things I kept forgetting.

Then I started forgetting parts of my life.

A few years back, my husband and I were rearranging all our digital files and discovered some pictures from around 18 years ago. I recognized myself and my kids in the pictures, but I remembered nothing else about them — the people, the place, nothing.

Just the Wake Up Call I Needed

I realized that I needed to get a handle on how I tracked my memories, my emotions, and my life.

I started bullet journaling and that helped my…

Imperfect Christianity is looking for contributions from new and established writers.

The purpose of Imperfect Christianity

I looked for a home on Medium for the middle-of-the-road Christian. You know, the kind of Christian who reads their Bible, hopes to learn, tries to go to church (when they can), but isn’t a church leader, biblical scholar, or theologian.

I wanted a home for Christians who had questions, who wanted to talk through those questions, and who wanted to keep learning about their faith.

And that’s it — that’s the purpose of Imperfect Christianity.

We’re a brand new publication so you would be joining something new and…

I’ve lived with depression for over 20 years.

About 18 Years Ago, I ‘Spiraled’

We had two boys under two-years-old with over a dozen therapies a week, several specialist appointments every week, and so many diagnoses.

It was amid all this therapy and all these different visits that I struggled to handle the strain of (then) two special needs kids. My sense of self, tied to how well I handled all the kids’ various medications, appointments, and therapy sessions, splintered. My emotions spiraled downward.

I convinced myself–in the way only a person who’s hit bottom can–I convinced myself that my kids wouldn’t have all their health…