The Dog Knew

Eel River. Northern California.
Memorial Day.

We got there early.

That was my idea. This Pinay doesn't tan — or rather, this Pinay has been culturally programmed since birth to protect the Snow White skin that our version of beautiful demands, despite being blessed with perfectly lovely olive skin that I have spent decades trying to hide from the sun. The irony is not lost on me.

So. Early morning. Cool air. Empty river. Just us.

I bathed in bug spray like it was my Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue. Two doses. I inhaled it with the same devotion. Cough cough. Then the SPF 1000 — if that exists, I would find it — applied with the reverence of someone who has made peace with the fact that she will be the palest person at every outdoor gathering for the rest of her life.

We had the whole place to ourselves. Beach chairs. Umbrella. The cold clean water of the Eel River running past our legs while tiny trout and turtles moved through the current like they owned the place — which, to be fair, they did.

My husband tubed. He made me tube. What I thought was going to be gentle floating turned into what my nervous system registered as white water rafting. It was not white water rafting. But tell that to my heart rate.

By past noon the other campers started arriving. The peaceful morning was becoming a Sunday afternoon and I was watching the river the way you do when you're not ready to leave but know you should.

That's when I saw them.

Why I Wrote Sorry For Existing (And Why I Almost Didn't)

I have said sorry my entire life.

Sorry for taking up space. Sorry for having an opinion. Sorry for needing something. Sorry for existing in a way that might inconvenience someone else.

I said sorry so automatically and so often that it stopped meaning anything. It became punctuation. A reflex. A way of making myself smaller before anyone else could make me feel small first.

I didn't realize how deep it went until I started writing Sorry For Existing.

Unhealed. But Still Here.

Currently Catastrophizing-
A Coloring Journal for
Your Spiraling Thoughts.
Available on Amazon.
Search Dory Loomis.

I made ten books this year.

Coloring journals, mostly. With prompts inside. And sarcastic slogans. And opening letters that start with "Hi" and end with "with dark humor and genuine love."

Each one is about a different kind of pain.

Anxiety. Burnout. Grief. Toxic workplaces. People pleasing. Loneliness. ADHD. Caregiver exhaustion. Midlife identity. Digital overwhelm.

Ten books. Ten kinds of hurt. All of them mine at some point.

I didn't write them as a healed person looking back. I wrote them as someone still in the middle of it, trying to make something useful out of the mess. That's the only kind of writing I know how to do.