Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

The personal reflections section aims to capture the parts of our lives our pets witness, but our coworkers don’t - arguments with our significant others, late-night texts from those we “don’t know how to define,” the stressed expressions of parents trying to help their children, and the scowls of practical people unsatisfied with ambiguous adages. The reflections are not always biographical. They are the compilation of my own and others' experiences mixed with some "coulda, woulda, shoulda" thought experiments.

I’ve frequently encountered the assumption that age and maturity are the same thing - as if the time spent growing taller and broader somehow teaches someone to be more empathetic, communicative, and cognitively flexible. While I’ve learned a lot from experience, I’d rather not make enough mistakes in life to learn every lesson. 

I began to crowdsource my “street smarts” in attempt to glean as much as I could from Aunt M’s post-nursing school escapades, grandpa’s Navy days, Dr. G’s ethics classes, and my own friendships, failures, and everything in between. This page isn’t exactly a Wiki-how for living a happy, ethical, and interesting life, but it is an on-evolving anthology of analyses I've had along the way.