Marginal gain checklist

Marginal Gains Checklist — Stability & Sleep

Sleep / Evening

☐ Meds → Teeth → Bed (sleep anchor) ☐ No new inputs after evening cutoff ☐ 20-minute “no responsibility” window ☐ Protect bedroom as wind-down space

Bedroom Environment

☐ Clear visible surfaces (nightstand, dresser, desk) ☐ Use containment bin for “not tonight” items ☐ Maintain landing strip for daily items ☐ Place rug along dog pacing path

Dog Management

☐ Bedroom closed when leaving house ☐ Dogs have secondary den area (sofa/bed) ☐ Leave scent item (shirt/pillowcase) ☐ Rotate scent items periodically ☐ Double potty before leaving ☐ Use enzyme cleaner on accident areas

Food / Work Stability

☐ Protein first meal on shift ☐ Default snack box ready ☐ Half-pack rule after interrupted meals ☐ 2-minute rig nest setup at shift start ☐ Use documentation phrase bank

Regulation / Maintenance

☐ Intentional outside pause when letting dogs out ☐ Weekly admin block (bills / logistics) ☐ Use “minimum viable evening” when exhausted

Guiding Rule

Reduce visible demands. Automate stability where possible. Consistency > perfection.

The Origin of the Fire

There was no blueprint. No grand plan. Not even a conscious decision. The fire came from somewhere deep and early—before language, before mentors, before books. Erin looked around as a child and instinctively knew something was wrong. Not just morally wrong—illogical. She questioned why a loving God would create people designed to fail. Why pain and cruelty were part of nature. Why suffering was the norm in a world supposedly created by love.

She didn’t have the words for it yet. But there was always that inner sense of this is fucked up.

Then came the mentor—the horse lady—who offered structure, possibility, and belonging. The fire had already been lit, but now it had direction. Horses. Books. Thinking. Seeing. Asking. Always asking.

This wasn’t rebellion. This was clarity. This was a soul not content to swallow lies. Not content to comply just because others did. The fire was born of injustice and stoked by curiosity. Even before Erin knew what to do with it, it was already burning.

So when others ask, "How did you get out?" they assume there was a map. A rescue. A turning point. But the truth is—she was always leaving.

The fire is the origin story.

Missing my past selves

I was thinking, I pretty much lost 20 years of my life down the vortex of my marriage. I was 31 years old when I started dating him, and 52 when I left. Then I spent 3 years in paramedic school and coming to terms with my bipolar. Only in the last year or so have I really started to have fun.

So yes, I am making up for lost time. That is why I am always out doing something and having fun. Dancing has done a lot to restore my confidence in myself. I feel much more like the person I was pre-marriage.

Let me tell you about late-20's me. I was beautiful. Beauty is power, and I had a lot of fun wielding that power. I was smart AF. I was a lot more selfish than I am now, and a little immature. But I was ambitious. I had my life planned out. I bought a condo that I intended to use for a rental property some day. I was a little cocky, too, but why not? I was an honor student working on my pre-meds, a homeowner at 27, on track for a great career, and drop-dead gorgeous. Best of all, I really liked being me. I had all the confidence in the world.

Then I was thinking about married me. Married me had a lot of problems, most of which were caused by the marriage. The slow erosion of my confidence, my intentional self-erasure in order to be a "good wife," my pathological phobia of abandonment, the desperate need to be loved by him, the intentional re-writing of history in order to suit my fantasy... it wasn't that I was weak. He knew how to trigger my worst fears and play on them. He actively set about destroying those parts of myself that I liked the best. When he was done with me, I no longer felt beautiful or powerful or sexy or smart. I felt like something that had been chewed up and spit out.

But married me had a lot going on, too. I think I was a pretty good mother most of the time. I wanted Riley to become an independent, life-long learner, and she is. I was extremely capable, in different ways. I taught Riley how to read and do math. I managed, in spite of my undiagnosed ADHD and bipolar, to juggle her many activities as well as family road trips and free museum days. Since we were always broke but not quite broke enough to get food assistance, I made a part-time career of going to food pantries. I came home and cooked everything from scratch. I could make soup out of undesirable crap like broccoli stems and applesauce out of the raggedy, worm-infested apples from my tree. I raised chickens for eggs and kept a worm bin for compost. I made a lot of things myself. I was definitely in a Little House on the Prairie era. I didn't like myself much at the time, but looking back, I can see I was pretty bad-ass, especially considering what I was up against.

The point was, there are aspects of all my past selves that I like. Today I was missing the me that made bread from scratch and knew dozens of things to cook with eggs and made jam out of surplus frozen berries from the food pantry. Yeah, she had problems, but I miss being her—with that level of competency in the kitchen and running a house. It seems like with each iteration of me, the best qualities of the previous one are lost. I want the best qualities of all my past selves.

Nature walk and reflections on mortality

Today is Saturday, May 9, 2026. I started this walk around 1:30. I’m in the on the loop I regularly go to.

The dog is already done in the water once.

I always see a pair of geese in the same spot. They don’t have babies, but they’re always out here like they’re patrolling the road, and when we approach they make a big racket and jump in the water. I always wonder if they’re sentries for the rest of the flock, but I don’t see any others walking around here. Weirdly, though, they’re almost always in the exact same spot.

The weather is getting nice, and I’m starting to think about getting the kayaks out. It’s one activity Riley and I can share together, and it’s one of the few outdoor activities she actually enjoys.

Oh look, here’s two pairs of geese with their little families. I wonder if those other two were an early warning system for these guys. I love how they always organize themselves into a perfectly straight little line.

I love taking pictures out here, but sometimes it’s hard to capture the tranquility and serenity of it. I realized part of the reason is because you can’t hear anything, and the birdsong is part of what makes it so beautiful. The other thing is that you can’t capture motion.

When the wetland is full of water birds, they all swim along so gracefully and smoothly, and it’s very tranquil and soothing to watch, almost like watching a tank full of fish. Obviously I can’t capture that in a photograph. Maybe some people can, but I can’t.

The dogs are already panting with their tongues hanging down to their knees. For a moment I thought I should probably start carrying water for them, and then I realized they can just go drink pond water anytime they want. They never have to be thirsty out here. It’s probably not the healthiest thing, but there’s also no way I’m going to stop them, and in twelve years they’ve never gotten sick from it, so I’m no longer worried.

I just saw a big heron pick up and fly away. They always kind of remind me of pterodactyls. They fly the way I imagine a pterodactyl would fly.

Of course the barn swallows are out catching all the bugs. I wish I knew more about identifying birds by their songs because there are so many birds out here. So far I’ve heard mourning doves and crows, and I think one of those European ringed pigeons because it has a sound similar to an owl, but not exactly like an owl, and kind of similar to a dove, but not exactly either. It kind of goes “woo-hoo.”

I also saw a cowbird, which I haven’t seen in a long time, but I used to see a lot of them when we lived in the farmhouse right down the road from here.

We’re going to turn around when we get to the river. We tried making the whole loop last time and it wasn’t fun. First of all, there were way too many bugs, which made it uncomfortable, and the dogs kept trying to go by the river, which is far too deep for them. There are also a lot of hills and another access point at the other end of this side of the loop, and I can’t see who’s coming most of the time. Overall, I decided that wasn’t my idea of a good time.

I just called the dogs to turn around and they turned right around with me, so apparently they agree.

If I stay on the funny trail by the wetlands there are fewer bugs, probably because the swallows control them all, and fewer chances of picking up ticks. There are also more chances for the dogs to jump in the water and come home smelling like a stinky swamp.

I love watching the swallows dart and fly all over the place. They feel like little aerial sports cars.

Max is so funny. He loves jumping in the water so much, and then sometimes he’ll swim in a little circle if it’s deep enough. When he gets out, for about a minute and a half he bounces around like a puppy and tries to engage Scout in little play fights.

I’m so glad we have this place to come to. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. Ever since I started coming here on a regular basis, it’s just been so good for my soul.

We used to come here as a family and sometimes bring the dogs with us. During COVID we came here a lot because there wasn’t anything else to do, and that’s when it really started to grow on me, I think.

Later in 2020, when my marriage started falling apart, I came out here almost every day when I wasn’t working. It was really peaceful and gave me lots of space to think. Even now, if I have something I want to write or ideas I want to work through, this is the place I do it.

This place is so huge and wild. It changes season by season and sometimes even week by week, but yet it’s always the same, and it will always be here.

Yesterday I was thinking about my dance studio and how much I miss it, and I wondered if, when I can afford to go back, it will still be the same. In my mind it’s suspended in time. All my friends are still there, my instructors are still there, and in my imagination I can go back there anytime and it will still be just the same. If I’m really lucky, maybe Liam will have come back.

In reality, I know the longer I stay away, the more chance things have changed. I know my friend Sam is getting ready to move to India, so I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.

But this place is constant. It’s been here for decades, and as far as I know it will always be here.

The people I come here with have changed. I used to come here with my husband and my son and different dogs, and now I come here mostly alone with my dogs, and sometimes with my daughter, who used to be my son.

My life has changed so much since I started coming here, and as much as my life is going to change in the future, no matter who I become or what I do with my life, I will probably keep coming back here always.

There will be different dogs, different life circumstances, different versions of me. Perhaps there will be adopted kids someday that I can bring here, or grandkids.

And the day will come when I’m gone, but this place will still be here. Generations of geese will still be raising their babies in the bayou. Sandhill cranes will still stop over every spring and fall. Great-great-great-grand offspring of the herons and egrets I see today will still be fishing in the shallows.