Dear friends,
I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between hope that sustains us and hope that exhausts us. You know that feeling when you're so tired from caring about everything that you start to wonder if caring itself is the problem? I've been sitting with that tension all week.
This week brought moments that reminded me why that distinction matters—from getting lost in a love story that spans the cosmos to watching veterans dare to dream bigger in a Yale classroom. There's something about witnessing people reach for what seems impossible that recalibrates everything. Sometimes the most practical hope comes from paying attention to what fills us up rather than what drains us dry, and learning to tell the difference between hope that's doing the work and hope that's just performing it.
With my eyes on the stars and hope in my heart,
Emma
In My Library
Books and words that showed up exactly when I needed them. The passages I've underlined twice and why they might be exactly what you need right now too.
This week I finished reading Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, a book I'd been anxiously awaiting as the perfect blend of my loves: space, romance, and TJR's signature storytelling magic.
My final verdict? 4.5/5 stars. But that rating took a journey to get there.
All credit to TJR—she did her homework for this one. The space shuttle era details, the astronomy, the intricate rocket and jet handling—all meticulously accurate. But here's the thing: that extreme precision actually worked against the story in the first third. I found myself reading what felt like a fictionalized biography of Sally Ride with a dash of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot language. Impressive? Absolutely. Page-turning? Not quite yet.
Then the second half hit, and everything changed.
As TJR shifted from rigid fact-checking into her signature storytelling territory (while still maintaining period and scientific accuracy), the book absolutely took off. I devoured the remaining two-thirds in one sitting, completely captivated.
The romance itself unfolds with that patient, inevitable pull that makes you believe in cosmic timing. It's not rushed or forced—instead, it builds, drawing two people together across the vastness of space and circumstance. Without spoilers, let's just say TJR understands that the best love stories happen when characters are reaching for something bigger than themselves.
Atmosphere is ultimately a captivating love story that connects us to the stars, featuring language so stunningly precise that I found myself rereading sentences—the kind of literary craftsmanship usually reserved for authors like Isabel Allende. If you can push through that methodical opening act, you'll be rewarded with storytelling that's truly out of this world.
|glim mer | noun a moment in your day that makes you feel hope, peace, joy, or gratitude
The moments, stories, and discoveries that made me pause this week. The kind of good news I'd text you about immediately because it's too smile inducing not to share.
The highlight of my week was serving as a Research Project Leader for the Warrior-Scholar Project all womens STEM group at Yale. WSP is an incredible non-profit that equips veterans for success in higher ed. The goal of the STEM week is to take them through the emotional roller coaster of research and teach the scholars how to manage that uncertainty and believe in their ability to succeed and belong.
The two weeks I’ve spent as an RPL with WSP are the two most impactful weeks of my time at Yale. I leave every session feeling energized, passionate, and so proud of the dedication of each student who walks into those rooms. They share big dreams, passions, new pursuits they want to go after once their service is concluded, and it is my deepest honor to support them on that journey.
These moments remind me that the most energizing work often happens when we're focused entirely on lifting others up. What experiences in your week reminded you of your own capacity to make a difference?
On My Mind
Questions I'm sitting with and thoughts that won't leave me alone. The stuff I'd bring up at a coffee chat.
I keep thinking this week about how we've confused hope with toxic positivity, and it's breaking my heart. When I tell people I care about spreading "practical hope," they sometimes roll their eyes like I'm about to tell them to manifest their way out of climate change.
But here's what's been sitting with me: the most hopeful people I know aren't the ones posting sunshine quotes—they're the ones who look directly at how bad things are and then ask "okay, so what can I actually do about this?" They feel the weight of it all, sit with the anxiety and grief, and then use those feelings as information rather than something to bypass. That's not toxic positivity. That's practical hope, and it's a completely different muscle.
What won't leave me alone is this pattern I keep seeing where the most caring people burn out the fastest. The friends throwing themselves into activism, the classmates working three jobs while trying to save democracy, the people who feel everything so deeply they're drowning in it.
We keep treating hope like it's this fragile thing that will shatter if we acknowledge how hard everything is. But what if hope is actually tougher than that? What if it's built through feeling the difficult stuff fully, finding our place in something bigger than ourselves, and then channeling all that intensity into action that actually sustains us?
I'm starting to think the reason we're all so exhausted isn't because we care too much—it's because we haven't learned how to care in a way that feeds us back.
One Small Action
A simple practice that's helping me right now. The kind of gentle nudge I'd give if we were walking side by side through whatever you're facing.
Tonight before you go to bed, try the "Hi Anxiety" practice.
When that familiar tightness creeps in—whether it's about tomorrow's meeting, the state of the world, or that thing you said three hours ago—don't fight it or try to positive-think it away. Instead, literally say "Hi anxiety, what are you trying to tell me?" out loud or in your head. Not in a dismissive way, but like you're genuinely curious about what this feeling knows that you don't. Sometimes it's "you need to prepare more for that presentation." Sometimes it's "you care deeply about this cause and that caring matters." Sometimes it's just "this is really hard and it's okay to feel that." The point isn't to make the anxiety disappear—it's to stop treating it like an enemy and start treating it like information. Even two minutes of this gentle curiosity can shift everything.