Laurel Mills (2025)

15/09/2021

So have you been waiting all year to dress your child up like a lobster, or are you a liar?

09/09/2021

So it only took 8 years and 3 months for one of my children to care that I wrote a book, but who’s counting?

08/09/2021

They think our hallway is a green screen. Shh!!!

01/09/2021

Food.

30/08/2021

Whenever it’s time for me to write or post on social media or speak up for myself, there’s a little voice inside my head that says: “Who do you think you are?” Because somewhere inside of me, I tend to think it’s not OK to take up space or have a voice or assert myself.

And, truth be told, it’s not really a “little” voice. That voice is loud, and frankly, quite rude. It’s even defiant because it shouts over the voices that say, “we’ve done this before, it’ll be ok” or “so what if people don’t like it?”

I mean, if this voice was a toddler, it’d spend a lot of time in its room, and if it was a dinner party guest, it’d never be invited back.

But it’s not a toddler or a troll or even someone that I once knew that spends way too much time commenting on my posts. (Not that that last one ever happens in real life. I love everyone—says the girl who has not made nearly enough progress on that whole people-pleasing issue.)

That voice is me, too, and that’s really the rub of the whole situation. Because it’s hard to be your biggest cheerleader when you’re also your worst critic.

But I saw an interview over the weekend with Anthony Anderson from “Blackish” that has me thinking differently. In the interview, Anderson said that acting is a gift, and it’s his responsibility to share his gift with the world.

Maybe it’s our job to express ourselves, and not to keep it all inside. And maybe, like Glennon Doyle says, we’re here to have all of those thoughts and feelings – not to push them all away—because that’s what makes the human experience.

If what you had to say was a gift, wouldn’t it be wrong to keep it to yourself? Wouldn’t the greater responsibility lie in making sure you shared your voice and not that you fought it all back to be quiet and avoid making a mess?

What if I have a responsibility to all those words floating around my head desperate to find a page? Doesn’t it make far more sense that I’m here to fill the page rather than make sure it stays blank?

I think it’s past time to show certain voices the door.