Essays + Narratives

We met as teenagers entering adulthood, the way young college students do – through mutual friends and shared love interests. I was reserved and guarded; Erica was extroverted and unexpected. Our first conversation was at a dingy IHOP booth, in the thick of Missouri summers, where the cracked blue plastic cushions stick to your legs […]

“You know how there are some things you can tell your military spouse friends before you tell your in-real-life friends?”  My eyes scan the text as it flashes on the kitchen counter. Wiping off my peanut butter and jelly fingers on the kitchen towel, I pick up my phone and slide my thumb across the […]

In the third episode of the She is Kindred Podcast, Britt and Alexandra (Alex) Wright, the She Is Kindred Community Coordinator, dive into what it looks like when friendships change over time and how we can still move forward with grace even when we’re they’re over. They chat about things that aren’t always discussed when it comes to forging thriving communities. Britt and Alex share how we can learn to live with our eyes wide open. Through their discussion on friendship and community, we can acknowledge that people carry their own stories with them, and as their stories intertwine with ours, we forge new narratives together to learn and grow and change.

“Oh, one moment, I have to take this. It’s my sister,” Emily explained.  She stepped away and paced back and forth while she raised the phone to her ear. As she conversed with the undetectable voice on the other end, a smile spread across her face. I thought briefly about what I would do if […]

A life-giving iMessage thread breathes an abundance of  care, healing,  friendship into truly hollow shells  formed by  layers of unresolved trauma. Daily resignations of  nature, poetry, quitting, beginning, boundaries.  Affirmations of  goodness,  pleasure,  skin on bodies.  Revealing  secrets, dreams,  art, and tattoos.  Hearts woven, rooted,  with an abundance of origins  like the kudzu surrounding  the […]

SUMMARY AND GUEST BIO: In the second episode of the She is Kindred Podcast, host Britt chats with a trio of best friends; Blythe Bergstrom, Libby Ryan, and Loranna Pyles. The women have known each other since college when Loranna and Blythe got matched as roommates, then added Libby into their friendship after a memorable […]