Welcome!

I’m so glad you’re here.

I first stepped into a therapist’s office when I was ten years old. This was the place I would learn feeling-language, the words which changed my life. I have remained in therapy since. And I also remain captivated by the power of language. Language allows one to access a feeling and then release it. This is the crux of my work. I feel; I write; I release.

I am always writing about the ways we can live well in the world, together. I find the essential nature of our togetherness convoluted, complicated, and arduous. Equally, I am so enamored with this miracle of our existence. All I think about is you and I, the two or us that must share this space. I’d like to walk this journey with you, where we try to learn about the thing, that special, lovely, mysterious spirit-purpose-strength-thing that each of us has inside - along the way. 

I have a few experiences to share, insights to give, and thoughts to mull over. However, I hope that our relationship - from writer to reader - will also be one of fair and mutual exchange. I want to hear your ideas just as much as I'd like to share mine. I'd like this project to be a partnership between friends, colleagues, and family. I want to get to know your heart, too.

I am always heartbroken. I write for those whose hearts are also breaking, everyday, all the time. If you live sensitive, if you run wild with grief, if you are brought to the floor by suffering, if you can’t breathe for breathing somebody else in, I believe my writing will touch you. I hope it touches you in the part of your heart that bleeds out, a little every day, a little like mine. I hope this writing brings us together, pieces of the world who are a bit like each other, slightly wacky and weird and wonderful. I want to write into those sweet times of sheer, inexplicable laughter; those indescribable times of  incredible happiness. What it's like to pour my heart and soul into somebody or something and feel radiating warmth in return. What it's like to love and be loved. What it feels like to care deeper and more tenderly about someone that you could ever possibly put into words.

The Olly Project is a collection of blogposts on emotional intelligence, vulnerability, authenticity, courage, bravery, loss, and grief. These things are usually in the context of womanhood, anxiety, and the body. I don’t know if you’ll find yourself in these words. All I can promise is that you’ll find me there. I’d like to be there with you, together.

Any of my work that is lighter and lovelier can be found in "The Light". The articles which are darker and heavier appear under "The Dark". And those that fall in the middle? Well, that’s "The Gray".

This project is me, trying to understand the great mystery of multiplicity, of simultaneous truths. I am a writer, editor, researcher, crier, daughter, friend, lover. I am a little kid; I am a knotted oak tree. I am wicked and wonderful. What are you?

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let’s begin.