HeyJaredChristina’s Substack
I explore cool people and happenings in the Midwest, being first-born and first-gen, widowhood, grief & healing, and other topiocs that make my fingers itch to write.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 14, 2026
Latest issues
Puberty, Round Two (opens the original)
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I felt something warm trickle out of me, and froze in my seat. It was the first day of eighth grade and this wasn’t how I’d pictured it. “May I be excused?” I asked when my teacher acknowledged my raised hand.Please don’t ask why, please don’t ask why, I pleaded silently when Mr. Rivera looked my way. I must have looked terrified because he pointed to the hall pass without skipping a beat. I tried to walk calmly, grateful for the thick, long jeans that hid what
The Alphabet Soup Diaries: The Second Half of 13 Assessments (opens the original)
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<img alt="red and white ceramic bowl with silver spoon" class="sizing-normal" height="2804" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1608751819407-6ec94205fd7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxhYmN8Z
The Alphabet Soup Diaries: 2 Questions Led to 13 Assessments (opens the original)
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The first full installment of The Alphabet Soup Diaries will be open to all subscribers for 48 hours. I want you to see what this series is all about, and how I go beyond diagnosis and labels, toward a more compassionate understanding of perfectionism, sensitivity, self-blame, grief, and how to adapt and thrive in ways that are unique to highly-sensitiv… Read more
A Love Story in Three World Cups (opens the original)
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Soccer was never a big part of my life. All that changed in 2001 when I met my husband, Warren. He wasn’t just a fan; he was a soccer player who planned his June and July around the World Cup every four years.Case in point: 2002We were not yet married, or even engaged, but we’d talked about it enough to know it was our next step. In anticipation of wedding costs, Warren decided to sell his 1996 Nissan Maxima and drive his grandparents’ 1990 Dodge Dynasty they were no longer driving. <p style="te
Welcome to The Alphabet Soup Diaries: (opens the original)
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Now that you know what it meant to receive my OCD, HSP, and CPTSD diagnoses, I have been learning to see parts of myself differently: the perfectionism I called ambition, the hypervigilance I called responsibility, and the exhaustion I mistook for personal failure.The Alphabet Soup Diaries is a new series for high-achieving, deeply feeling women like me, who have spent years earning safety through usefulness, perfection, caretaking, self-sacrifice, or silence.<p style="
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