Relationships & Dating
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Understanding Christmas with the Kranks: A Holiday Reflection
One of my favorite, more recent Christmas movie discoveries is Christmas with the Kranks. In this film, married couple Luther and Nora Crank decide to go on a cruise while their only child, their daughter, will be in her gap year with the Peace Corps. They shed their long-held Christmas traditions to save enough money…
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My top ten favorite things about Thanksgiving
These are in no particular order
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The Importance of Supporting Foster Families
I have been interested in the foster care system for years. Right after graduating college, I visited my best friend in California, who was completing an internship. Her host family had fostered children, and I was speechless listening to their stories. I was stunned by how utterly this family had been dedicated to trying to…
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Redefining Thanksgiving: Embracing New Traditions
Food and celebration are often inextricably linked. My family typically begins cooking/ baking extravaganza on Thanksgiving. My family frequently hosted Thanksgiving because my parents had enough room and a centrally located home. Almost every year, mounds of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, turkey, sweet potato casserole, sausage stuffing, and pies would be assembled on the…
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Mindfulness for the Holidays
I’ve heard a saying I agree with, “ Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” I have often gone into family gatherings, milestones, social gatherings, etc., with specific expectations of what I want to get out of said event. These could revolve around how I expected someone to respond, the emotions I wanted to feel, or…
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Songs to Get You Through the Holidays
We all know how fun it is to face the inquisition from nosy/ well meaning relatives. Whether they are asking about our dating life, work life, or something else we’d rather not discuss, here are some songs that you can burst forth with to throw them off their rhythm so the interrogation stops Are you…
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We too are Fiddlers
In the opening song from Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye discusses how his world is organized by tradition in the village and at a micro level. The song explains the role everyone plays, and the song ends with Tevye saying that they are all like a fiddler on the roof, trying to balance the challenges…
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Navigating Dating with Autism: Challenges and Insights
I was asked recently how having autism had affected my ability to date and find romantic partners. If you had asked me when I was recently diagnosed I would have told you that autism was going to be a defining challenge in my ability to find love and sustain a long-term relationship. I went through…
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Being Single Can be Great Fun
I have been obsessed with romance since I was a child. I must have been around five or six when my ad made up a story regarding a couple going to live in a castle. I continued the tradition by telling myself romantic stories most nights before falling asleep. It’s still a coping mechanism I…
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Challenging Gender Norms in Dating: My Experience Asking Men Out
It was God who once told Moses, “ I have heard the cries of my people” and then sent Moses to free the Hebrews from their enslavement. Over the decade I’ve been dating, I too have heard a cry from people. The cry I have heard is from men who winge and complain that women…
Living on the Spectrum 