HILARY HAMBLIN

Hey Girl, (that’s how we talk now BTW. But we both know slang has never been our strong suit and, spoiler alert, that’s not going to change over the next 20 years. But back to my letter to you.) Twenty years has give me a little perspective. I know the last few months have been some of the hardest of your life so far. A health crisis led to other crises and now the future feels a little disjointed. You can relax. It’s all going to work out. Now that you know you aren’t doomed

I’ve been beating myself up for months over something I hard I needed to do. I called myself weak and let the anger and resentment simmer just under the surface. A few people close to me knew, but most people saw the smiling, have-it-all-together Hilary. This week things came to a head and I had to do the hard thing. Afterward I replayed the scenario in my mind a couple dozen times. What could I have said better? How could I have handled it more professionally? Why did I wait

Music blared while wind blew through my open car windows dragging with it the smell of spring, hope and blue sky. My husband and I had started the search for land where we could build our first home a few weeks earlier. We were talking seriously about starting a family. And it was Friday. A truck topped the hill in front of me and swerved into my lane. My pulse quickened. He must be going around something in the road. My eyes darted around. A line of cars filed past me in the

My senior year in college I was editor of our college newspaper. You know, the old days, when they printed the things on paper. Anyway. One of our reporters was a non traditional student. (Side note: I’m now very near the age she was then and I thought she was old. HA! I also had no idea then how much courage and work it took for her to go back to school. Now back to the story.) Our newspaper advisor, “Wild Bill” Sorrells, had a reputation of being so hard students often left