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USA250 Journal Project
Personal Chronicle: July 4, 2025 – July 5, 2026
A gift for reflection. A record of now. A story for what’s next.
✍️ “Who am I?”
I’m Tara. Thirty-nine.
Mom of two. UX researcher by day, meltdown negotiator by night.
Wife to a woman who keeps us grounded and stocked with oat milk.
I moderate a parenting forum that saved my brain more times than therapy did.
I show up with jokes, spreadsheets, and an emergency stash of compassion.
I have a pitbull named Muffin, a browser with 37 open tabs, and a recurring dream about living in a lighthouse with no Wi-Fi and a door that locks from the inside.
I met Meredith in a thread about losing yourself to motherhood. We’ve never met, but she knows things about me even my sister doesn’t.
Who am I?
I’m the friend you didn’t know you needed until the night you said, “I can’t do this,”
And I said, “Me too—but we’re doing it anyway.”
I’m the woman holding her life together with duct tape and digital solidarity.
🌒 “How Did I Get Here?”
I used to think I was going somewhere.
Had a college plan, a shared lease with a guy who called my freckles constellations, a poetry zine I actually sold at cafés.
Then came the test I didn’t study for—the one with two pink lines.
The lease ended. The zine stopped. The poetry didn’t.
I moved back in with my dad, who only speaks in practical sentences and Fox News quotes.
Worked three jobs and still somehow never had enough.
Cried in a walk-in freezer once. Laughed in it, too.
I got here by choosing my daughter. Over and over.
Over sleep. Over comfort. Over men who couldn’t handle a woman who knew exactly what her child needed.
I got here through microwaved dinners and whispered lullabies,
Through courtrooms and caseworkers and the kind of budgeting that feels like math plus grief.
I got here with no roadmap but a heart that kept saying: just one more day.
I got here not because I’m strong—but because I had no choice but to keep standing.
So now I sit at this keyboard, 11:41 p.m.,
Two tabs open: “Scholarships for single moms” and “funny raccoon memes.”
I got here.
And that counts for something.
Friends
Meredeth Alton – Online friend.
