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

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

The sun shone across the gravel parking lot of my parents office that Friday afternoon. A few months earlier I moved home from college. Just a week earlier I started a new job in my hometown. I ate lunch with my parents most of the week. My dad stood on the other side of the car. If only I could remember the whole conversation. The most important words he said still stick with me. “Don’t let not having somewhere to live stop you from getting married. You can live in your gran

Coffee fresh from the Keurig wafts through the house. I study the box of chocolates my sister in law brought me earlier this week. One empty space already lies between the Sucre Dark and Chicory Caramel. In the other room my children chatter with the neighbor’s child about which ornament goes where on the tree. Outside decorations twinkle in the twilight. Thanksgiving wraps itself around me like a warm blanket fresh from the dryer. Seventeen years ago my parents loaded all my