Midwest Mimi

  • Taking God Too Seriously to Enjoy What He Made

    Legalistic religion can make us so busy watching everyone else that we miss the life right in front of us. Faith, for me, is about relationship, grace, and learning to notice God in the ordinary moments.

  • I Tell the Story. I Make the Meaning.

    Telling my story did not erase what happened to me. It changed my relationship to it. From telling one safe person to eventually writing publicly, I learned that George could be part of my story without being its author.

  • Closure Is Not Always a Conversation

    Closure is not always a conversation, an apology, or a neat ending. Sometimes it is finally saying what you needed to say, accepting that someone you loved also failed you, and learning how to move forward without pretending the hurt did not matter.

  • I Still Want More

    I am happy with my life, but that does not mean I have stopped wanting more. I still want better health, more money, a home of our own, more freedom, and a bigger writing career. Contentment is not the absence of ambition. Sometimes it is simply learning to enjoy the breeze while you keep building…

  • Being Easy to Entertain Might Be My Greatest Life Skill

    Curiosity has helped keep my world big even when chronic illness has made my life physically smaller. Books, art, research, writing, family, and even something as simple as watching my son blow the seeds from a dandelion remind me there is always more to notice, learn, and wonder about.

  • A Small Life Is Not the Same Thing as a Meaningless One

    A life can become smaller in radius without becoming smaller in meaning. Disability, limited stamina, and money have changed the life I once imagined, but they have not taken away the people, stories, faith, beauty, and ordinary moments that make it full.

  • He Picked His People

    A joke on my porch about being the common denominator in two divorces turns into a harder question about love, loyalty, work, and what happens when the ways we care for people also cost the people closest to us.

  • Help Has a Voicemail

    I have a list on my phone that looks like it should belong to someone who works for a human services agency. Except I do not. I am the mother. Before disabled families receive help, there is another job no one talks about: finding the help. It is a full-time, unpaid, invisible job filled with…

  • Survival Is Not the Same as Safety: What We Forget When We Praise Strong Children

    When we praise children for being strong, we do not always ask what made them need that strength so young. Reading Demon Copperhead made me think about my daughter Rae, about the burned pot of macaroni and cheese she tried to make for her brother, and about the difference between a child being resilient and…

  • She Learned to Work Before the World Called It Work

    Rae learned to work before the world called it work. At twelve, she cleaned my brother’s shop office for real money, real expectations, and a little freedom of her own. I am proud of the confidence work gave her. I also grieve that money had to matter so young.

  • When Boredom Starts Looking Like Trouble

    Some minds do not do well with empty space. When there is no risk, no complexity, and no fire to put out, boredom can start looking like trouble. I am learning now that I do not need to kill the part of me that needs complexity. I need to stop feeding it poison. I need…

  • The Same Girl Either Way

    A personal essay about homeschool culture, girlhood, faith, rebellion, and learning that someone else’s narrow idea of a “godly girl” did not get to define who I was.

  • Grief That Grows

    After eight years of anticipatory grief and the loss of my mother to early onset Alzheimer’s, I learned that grief doesn’t just take who you love—it takes the shape of the world you built around them.

  • How Almost Dying Taught Me Life’s Too Short to Be Unhappy

    After surviving respiratory failure, I woke up to more than a second chance at life—I woke up to clarity. I stopped waiting for perfect moments, learned to protect my peace, and began truly living again. This is the story of how almost dying taught me what it means to be alive.

  • Lessons from Wonderland: What Alice Still Teaches Me About Life, Parenting, and Growing Up

    Lessons from Wonderland: What Alice Still Teaches Me About Life, Parenting, and Growing Up

    During a fall evening photo shoot turned Wonderland adventure, I realized how much Alice still has to teach us. Through curiosity, slowing down, difference, imagination, and growth, I found reflections of motherhood, healing, and becoming — lessons tucked inside the golden light of an ordinary day.