Last week, I had to attend an orientation training for the new job I accepted recently, and during this training, we were briefed on some strategies for cultivating effective time management skills. The most important step, as my supervisor explained, is a step called “Review & Revise.”

During this step, you engage in a reflection of what is and isn’t working with your current strategy, and then you work to revise it. This step will likely need to be repeated several times before you find something that works best, and even then, life circumstances will likely require you to revisit this step again and again.

This past month, I’ve been in a “Review & Revise” period with this blog. As my schedule has become more overwhelming, I’ve had to (re)evaluate my priorities, which has ultimately led to me deciding that I’ll no longer be able to dedicate several hours each week to creating content for this blog.

Instead, I’ll be focusing on doing well in my classes this semester, creating engaging content and lesson plans for the students I’m responsible for helping with my new role as a Supplemental Instructor; and writing and researching for the latest novel I’m working on. 

What does this mean for the blog?

Well, it means that I won’t be posting content myself as regularly as I was before, nor will I be creating content that revolves around a specific theme each month. I’m aiming for one post a month (either at the end or the beginning of the month) that will likely be related to my current writing project in some way. 

However, this content might not be posted exclusively to this blog. I want to start exploring other publishing avenues, and putting myself “out there” in the writing world more than this blog allows. As I learned in my Digital Publishing course last Spring, the digital writing world is a lot more competitive and exclusive than it used to be. Most publications require that you only post to their platform—meaning I can’t publish here on my blog and submit content elsewhere at the same time. 

So while I’ll be aiming to write one complete piece each month, I might not post it here first. If that is the case, though, I’ll be sure to share a link to where to find it.

In the meantime, I’ll still be accepting submissions for publication to this blog. So if you have some writing you’d like to share, I’d love to help you share it! It just might take a little longer than usual. 😅

There are memories, snapshot stories of specific times and feelings. A place is never just a physical space. It has just as many parts and pasts as the people who visit.

Several years ago, I visited St. Edwards University to support a close family friend. I had no attachments to the school. It was my first time ever stepping foot there, and the only building I cared to know the location of was the gym where my friend would be performing.

But for my parents, it was different.

St. Edwards University was the place they first met. They noticed every change since they had gone to school there, had a story for every turn and every building. They could have walked around the school for hours, and to them it would be much more than the University that held the State Championship Gymnastics Tournament we were there for. It wouldn’t be just a “pretty campus” or a “good school” or any stock description found in a pamphlet.

To them, it was the beginning of their love story.

To my parents, the buildings at St. Edward's University contained the beginnings of their love story.

This is the field where we first met.

And that’s the stairwell your father yelled down when I didn’t call him after he gave me his number.

And this building here used to be a dorm room…

I had a similar experience during my trip to Boulder, Colorado this summer—seven years after my last trip there. As I walked the downtown square with my brother and sister-in-law after all the time away, I noticed every little change while at the same time, I was transported back to my first time walking the very same streets. 

This is the store where I bought the sweater I’m wearing right now…

And this is the little shop where I bought my first deck of tarot cards…

And right here is where my friends and I stopped and stood to take a picture together, a picture that now hangs on my wall at home…

The streets still held the magic of my past there, a time in my life I look back on fondly and a bit wistfully. 

And it got me thinking about all those buildings that are so much more than what they seem on the surface.

We don’t just make buildings; we make vessels for stories and memories to be held—things that have far more weight than those four walls and the sign above the door.

During my trip to Boulder, CO this summer, I was reminded of the memories I've made there.

Clutched within her hands was a letter, crinkled and yellowed from the decades it had spent buried at the bottom of an old shoebox that had been shoved in the very back of a barely-used closet. 

The letter was from her father.

After finding this letter from her father, Dorothy decides to track him down.

Dear Sandy,

I want to say congratulations, but I know that wouldn’t be enough. I can imagine you scoffed as you read that line, didn’t you? And now you have that cute little frown on your face because you’ve always hated how much I see you. But I can’t stop. I won’t. I know you better than I know myself, and I know I always will. You have no reason to believe me, but it’s true…

I’m getting carried away, I know. I just needed you to know that you’re always in my thoughts, even now. And so is our baby girl. I heard you named her Dorothy, after your great-grandmother, the woman you so admire. Did you think I would forget that?

I also heard you haven’t returned home in months. You moved to California with Randall and haven’t been seen since, though I don’t believe the rest of the gossip about you that’s been circling around… I hope it’s not true.

I also hope that if you should ever find yourself in New York City, you’ll come to me. I would like to meet our Dorothy if you’ll let me. I know I can’t give you the life you might have wanted for us, but I’d still like to be a part of it, for however long you and our Dorothy will have me. And if either of you should ever need anything, you know I can help. 

I’ll love you always,

X

The letter was stamped with an address in New York City, and even though she knew it might be crazy, Dorothy decided she would embark on a journey across the country to find the answers she’d been seeking her whole life. 

Her mother, Sandra, had always been tight-lipped about her father's identity. She would offer vague hints and change the subject whenever Dorothy pressed her for details. Either that or she would concoct imaginative stories based on fairytales. Such as when she told Dorothy that her father was a prince from a faraway land who didn’t even know her name but still had a shoe she’d left behind in her hurry to get back before her parents realized she was gone. 

When Dorothy was a teenager, she’d been suspicious of every man who entered her mother’s orbit, wondering whether or not they could secretly be her father. But her suspicions were never confirmed. Her mother had taken her secret to the grave.

At some point, Dorothy had become comfortable with the uncertainty. In recent years, she had hardly wondered about him at all. She assumed that her father hadn’t really wanted to be one, and therefore adopted the mentality of her grandmother, who when Dorothy had inquired whether she knew who her father was, had replied,

“I have my suspicions of course, but only your mother truly knows, and I’ve made peace with that. Besides, I can’t imagine it would do anyone any good to go looking for confirmation now, would it?”

But the time for ambiguity was over. Dorothy wanted to know, and she was determined to uncover the truth—even if it meant leaving everything she knew behind.