and so i rise...

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The Editor in Me...

Posted by Kari Kounkel on June 10, 2009

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will not ever stop editing.

It's exhausting.

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Sisterhood of the... Circling Wagons

I have the most amazing warrior woman friends. Awhile ago there was an email forward I actually really liked. It was about people who enter your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I hardly ever actually read those emails; they're basically all the same thing with a little different packaging. I liked that one though. Many people have entered my life for a reason or a season. It's fun to look at old picture albums and watch the parade of friends and observe what we were doing at the time. Sometimes I feel a little nostalgic for this place or that person, but it's a sweet nostalgia. In retrospect, I can see why we crossed paths -- sometimes for something I needed, other times for something someone else needed, and many times for something we both needed. I'm so thankful for each of those people. Tonight I'm thinking about those who've come for a lifetime. Some friends are male, and each is valuable in unique ways. Most of them are women though. And the...

More on Starting Over

Relapse is common in recovery. In fact, the relapse rate is 40-60%. When I first went to treatment in 2015, I felt so good sober that I could not imagine ever again taking a drink. I was finally free of a toxic marriage and unhealthy work environment. I had a brilliant idea for a new business and was creating a new life for myself, one in which what I wanted and dreamed could be real. The Teen Challenge outpatient group leader and peers referrenced relapse quite often. Wondering why it was such an over-discussed topic, I halfway ignored it and doodled in my notepad. It wasn't until I woke up in jail in early June 2016 that I realized relapse is a real thing, it does happen to most addicts, and it can never be completely unexpected. In fact, there are plenty of warning signs. I was in relapse long before I took a drink. I just lacked the courage to face those things I spent so much time avoiding until it was too late. So then I did the only thing I could do....

Dear Mom...

Why do you hate me? I once thought that question grew from that oppressed feeling a child-becoming-a-woman has for the most dominant and important woman in her world. It did not. You really hate me. I've asked many people that question over the last fifteen months. "Why do YOU think my mom hates me?" J was the first to answer. I'm not sure I ever expected an answer, so when I got one, my world sort of imploded. "I don't know why she hates you, Kari. If I had a daughter like you I would be SO happy. We would do all kinds of things together! I never understood your mom." Even after that answer, I didn't stop asking that question. B had a different notion: "Kari, you are everything your mom could never be." Know what I heard in both answers? Not the affirming things people said to me about the kind of person I have become, but the agreement with my original premise: I am a despised daughter. Some people couldn't -- wouldn't? -- answer...

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Kari Hoglund Kounkel