Erin Nolen

09/19/2026

09/18/2026

I do not desire or expect everyone to see or experience the world the same way I do.

At least I think I don’t, until I realize that I do. 

Every one of us showed up here with a particular set of genetics, circumstances, stories, personalities, bodies, relationships and experiences that do not precisely match anyone else’s. I know this. 

And then I watch how other people respond or don’t respond to something that fills me with fear or anger. How can we all be seeing the same thing and not responding with outrage or a desire to make the world better and safer? How do I reckon with the fact that if I really believe everyone is bringing their own story into the way they respond, then I probably have to make room for responses I do not understand or share? 

It is hard to be a person.

For a long time, I took comfort in being sure of what I believed. I thought I had made a decision to subscribe to an unchangeable set of beliefs, that all along there had been right answers and I had not been looking in the correct place. But now, no matter what happened, I could rifle through the pages of the rulebook, find the correct response and proceed accordingly. 

Nothing about that turned out to resemble my lived experience of being an adult on planet Earth.

Maybe, like me, you’ve been completely spun out by the news lately, including the stories about what rapid advances in AI could mean for our future. Maybe you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about because you intentionally avoid the news. Maybe you’re somewhere in between. 

I wrote more about all of this in this week’s edition of **The Noticing: “This Is My First Apocalypse.”*

https://erinnolen.substack.com/p/the-noticing-53

09/13/2026

Sunday Garden Round-Up

Guys, I figured out why we are so tired. It’s because we’re parenting our asses off.

I don’t care if your kids went to school dances or sporting events or rehearsals or sat on the couch all weekend, there is an inescapable vigilance in loving these people so much. Are they safe, happy, okay?

Last night after racing between two kids’ homecoming photos and going home to get a forgotten wristband and delivering it to the restaurant, I took a deep breath and sat down at the dinner table with my in-laws. A friend had dropped Cora at their house after ballet rehearsal so I could run all over town for pictures. (Corey was out of town working.)

As I sat at the table trying to hold a conversation with them, my phone was blowing up with texts about all sorts of kid-related details, some more important than others. One thing about having teenagers is that you never know if the incoming text from them or about them is ridiculous or catastrophic. I finally said, I’m sorry, I need to respond about some of these things.

In the kindest way possible, Vicki said, “I do not envy you at all. You do a great job and this is all so much.” She also offered to set a 1 a.m. alarm to have another set of eyes on our late-night drivers. She lightened my burden by seeing me and by carrying some of it with me.

I took that big picture of the crowd last night as I was heading to my car after the first round of photos. I thought about all those parents and kids and all the details that everyone was managing. But even more than that, I thought about the emotions and unseen conversations and stressful moments that you can’t see behind everyone’s pretty faces.

Being a person is a lot, for us and for our kids. I am grateful for a moment this weekend when I felt seen in my overwhelm.

Giving all of you a big high five for another weekend of showing up.

(I did not coin the phrase parenting my ass off but I wish I had. Happy to reveal my source if she’d like to be credited.)

09/12/2026

It has been 25 years since the morning my best friend Keely called me from her brand new job to tell me to turn on the TV, where minutes later I would watch with my own eyes as buildings dissolved into bits and rained down on a city below, where hours later we—young women recently graduated from college, at the edge of our entire lives—would go to Home Depot and buy an American flag to hang outside of our rented yellow house on the corner, where days later we would sit riveted on the couch watching Tom Brokaw night after night after night, letting his voice speak both horror and comfort.

My life changed forever that day; like so many others, there was a before and an after. And also on the grand measuring stick of who suffered or lost or endured the most, I sit on the very shortest end.

This morning I watched a video of a NYT photographer (Chang W. Lee ) telling the story of how he captured an iconic photo from that day, how it had to have been at the exact second he stopped to catch his breath, how the lens he used happened to be in his possession because he had borrowed it from a colleague at the US Open two days before.

One person with one particular story, with specific characters and settings and tiny details that probably seemed inconsequential until suddenly they weren’t, forever changed both individually and as part of something that happened to all of us.

I’ve read so many people sharing their own stories today, little snippets of where they were and who they were with and what they remember, the strange specific details that stayed.

I have learned that naming what we remember helps us make sense of what we lived through, that there is a reason we have an impulse to tell a story again and again, to say this is an incredibly specific detail but for some reason my brain has lodged it forever and ever amen. So much of what we hold onto is a mystery.

I try to limit my intake of heavy news and information, always trying to find the elusive balance of being informed but not destroyed. But today I’ve been able to hold some space for the stories of where we all were and what we were doing that day. If it helps to share yours, I’d love to hear it.

09/08/2026

# 🙄

09/05/2026

They are all the versions of themselves. Looking back through the pictures, you feel how your heart has expanded because every year you thought please don’t grow up, please stay this age forever. But, if you find yourself indescribably lucky, they do grow up.
They do the thing they’re created to do: they get bigger and stronger and smarter. They learn more about how to be a person, they understand new things, they begin to realize they’re part of a bigger story and world. When you look at them, you see all the days of their lives. As the parent, you are the keeper of these memories, of their little faces, the days that were so stupidly hard and the ones you’d go back to in a heartbeat. You look at the pictures through all the years and let yourselt be soft enough to acknowledge that somehow you want to throw up with the pain and cry your eyes out at the joy of being their mother.

This precious child, the one with the sweetest face you’ve ever seen in your life, is 16 today. He is always up for an adventure; he’s ready to do and experience it all! I love the ways that he invites me to be brave and take risks; he inspires me to say yes when I want to say no. He is hilarious and kind and genuinely one of my favorite humans to spend time with. He is curious and asks good, thoughtful questions. I’ve loved every minute of singing Noah Kahan with him during the past year and will miss driving him around! But this kid has big plans! Love you to the moon and back, Keilor Nolen.

08/31/2026

Sunday Garden Round-Up 🦋

“Late August angst, and a pointless night
Ooh, and the feeling of being alive…

The minute that September hits, I’m going off my medicine…”
—Noah Kahan, “End of August”

Definitely not going off my medicine come September. 🤪

I thought this was going to be a peaceful, prepare-for-the-week Sunday, but it turned out to be an overstimulating, needy Sunday, and I have been in a bad mood most of the afternoon.

Per usual, I like to add to my bad attitude by heaping on some shame: Just who do you think you are to be grumpy about taking your kid to buy a homecoming suit or going to Costco where you can buy enough food to feed an entire village in one cart? How dare you be grumpy, you little whiny brat?

I have yet to find that this shame talk does anything other than make me feel worse, but I continue to give it the ol’ college try.

Of course I’m grateful for all the good things. Also: still overstimulated and overwhelmed.

Next my bad mood tells me no one wants me to get on the internet and tell them I’m grumpy. Cheer them up! Make them laugh! Don’t waste their time.

No can do, internet.

Tonight I’m choosing to believe there’s at least one other person with some late-August angst who could use the reminder that we don’t always have to make ourselves cheerful before we’re allowed to show up.

A lot of us learned early that it was our job to be okay and it takes a long time to unlearn that.

So if you’re a little grumpy or down tonight too, you don’t have to talk yourself out of it on my account. 💛

(Also this song is the perfect song for late August angst. Maybe it will cheer you up or make you sad, no one knows for sure.)

08/28/2026

Go ahead and add Nails 💅🏼 Influencer to my resume.

08/28/2026

Listen, I know that all of our attention spans are shot to hell and that you are usually on Instagram for some mental relief from the onslaught of I don’t know…everything? I understand that.

But if you’ll give me just a minute to tell you that every week, I write on Subst*ck about my experience of being a human. A lot of the time I talk about my mental health struggles and parenting my kids and how my faith has evolved over the last ten years.

A lot of these things are particular to me and my story.

But my hope is that they also invite you into your own life, that you will feel less alone, that you will be like wow, this girl is kind of a weirdo but she gets me. Also this week I NARRATED the essay to you so you can just listen to it!

I wrote about how much I hate being sad. I would love for you to read it and also answer two questions:

Do you like to be sad and also are you an enneagram 4? 💛