Colleen Cook, Thrive Correspondent

All of my life, I’ve spent a lot of time consumed by my thoughts. I spent hours reflecting on and replaying conversations with people, trying to take a second, third, fourth look at the way things were said and considering if I was misunderstood, or if I misunderstood them. Did they mean something different by […]

A few months ago, we got a pinball machine at work. It’s a really premium, fun Jurassic Park pinball machine, with every bell and whistle one can think of, including a dinosaur that eats the pinball. While I have very occasionally enjoyed playing pinball, having easy and free access to it unlocked a little bit […]

I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t, on some level, think she’s failing at womanhood. We look around ourselves and we identify all the ways the women around us are succeeding at womanhood, and we begin to believe that we aren’t cutting it.  As a fourth grader, we were asked to write about what […]

For most of my life, I’ve been lost in my thoughts. I’ve leased out my headspace to replaying past conversations, forecasting future events, while taking in what was happening around me and trying to manipulate things to avoid pain and conflict as much as possible. When the inevitable hard thing would come my way, I’d […]

School came very easily for me in early elementary school. I was an early reader and quickly understood the game of being a student and how to win at it. Right away, it was clear to me what to do to win positive attention from my teachers: get the answers right (and quickly), follow the […]

When I was in high school, there was one week during my freshman year when we didn’t go to our regular classes, but instead got to sign up for some special single session classes for the week. During this time, I recall learning how to french braid in the cosmetology class, but I also took […]

My daughter Cora took longer than her sisters did to really start speaking. She had some articulation issues that made her difficult to understand for a while, as well as talkative older and younger sisters that maybe just made it easier for her to hold back. However, since starting kindergarten a few weeks ago, it’s […]

This morning, I had a conversation with a friend during which I made an off-hand comment about my opinion on a recent local political matter. I disagreed with the outcome of the event and assumed she did too. So, I was a bit surprised when she voiced her disagreement with my opinion and explained why […]

Several years ago, my sister’s family moved from Illinois to Florida for my brother-in-law’s job. He works for a large corporation, and when his company merged with another, he was transferred to the new company’s headquarters. Now that they’ve been remote for more than a year due to the pandemic, they’re allowing many of their […]

Navigating change in your career can sometimes feel like being lost in the wilderness. After all, at some point you likely were filled with excitement and optimism at the potential and opportunity that was set in front of you. But, as the dust settles and as time marches on, sometimes we find ourselves burnt out […]