LIVING REAL BLOG

For Father's Day this year, I sent coffee, cake, and half-and-half. I sent it on Friday, ahead of the weekend, to beat the rush.

I did not send flowers.

Part of it was the cost — the arrangement I was looking at came to more than I wanted to spend on something that wilts in three days. But the hon...

June 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

I have said things I meant as love that didn't land as love. I've also been on the receiving end — words offered kindly that felt, to me, like a verdict. I know both sides of that gap. I've lived in both places. And I'm still learning, probably every week,...

May 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

My mother lived without regret.

Not because she had none. Everyone has regrets. She just did not live inside them.

She owned what she did. When she made a mistake, she said so, cleaned it up if she could, and moved on. She did not rehearse old conversatio...

April 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

A friend texted me two words this week: big emotions.

It was her answer to "how was your trip?"

I didn't need more than that. I knew exactly what she meant. And I've been thinking about those two words ever since — about how sometimes they're the only h...

April 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

Earlier this week after work I sat down, logged into my dad's medical portal, pulled his test results and summary, saved them, and emailed them to him and my brother so everyone would have them.

Nobody asked me to do it that way. I just did it.

That was...

March 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

I have been sitting with a word for three months and I am only now letting myself say it out loud.

Not because I didn't know it. Because I was embarrassed by it.

The word is tend.

As in: tend your nervous system. Tend your marriage. Tend your grief. Te...

March 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

The Chinese New Year parade was the reason I got on the plane. San Francisco hosts the largest one outside of Asia, and this year felt different — this is the year of the Fire Horse, which comes around every 60 years, and I was born in 1966, the last time...

March 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

My husband bought me a trailer.

Not as a joke, not as a grand gesture — as a practical act of love. I was spending a lot of time at my folks’ house, helping care for my mom, and the house was full in the way houses get when life has been lived hard in th...

March 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

I sat down to write something else this week. Then I turned on the news, and I couldn't get there.

So let me just say what's true.

I'm angry.

I'm angry that we appear to be at war — declared without Congress, without debate, without the accountability ...

March 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

It's my brother's birthday this week.

Even though the last few years have made our relationship more complicated than a calendar event can hold, I still remember. We see the world differently — religion, politics, most of the things people aren't suppose...

February 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

I turn sixty this year.

Fire Horse year. Born 1966.

I've known about Chinese astrology for a long time. When I met my husband, we figured out together that I was born in a Fire Horse year—the combination that comes around once every sixty years. Twel...

February 2026 | Living REAL with Heidi Coleman

Today is Chinese New Year.

Last night we did what we often do — we met family at our favorite local Chinese restaurant. It’s become a rhythm for us. We gather there several times a year. Big round table. Shared plates. Passing dishes back and forth.