Hey all! I am Katy Ursta married to my college sweetheart for 12 years, a mom of two boys, and a stage four cancer survivor. I started writing as a way of coping with my diagnosis, but found the more I shared about cancer, the more universal cancer became, and the more connected I felt to others and the less isolated I felt through the struggle. I own a virtual health and wellness company and commit to helping my clients find a deeper motivation to fight for their own health.
When I am not in the stands of my sons' hockey games, I am usually found folding the never ending piles of laundry, looking for the matching sock, breaking up hockey fights, or (let's just be honest) with my hand buried in the bag of chocolate, asking the question, "what do you want for dinner?" You can find more of my work on instagram @katy_ursta or on my website, katyursta.com
I’m in the years where I’m not old, but I’m no longer young. Some women my age are just announcing their first pregnancies, while others like me are navigating pre-teen and teenage years. The 30s hold a different kind of tension. The days move faster now. Not because little feet are toddling through the house, but because the calendar is always full. Afternoons are spent running kids to practices, sitting in parking lots, and juggling dinner between drop-offs and pick-ups. The conversations are deeper. The questions are bigger. The stakes feel higher. This season isn’t about sticky fingers and sleepless...
I didn’t need a sick day. I needed a well day—and I didn’t realize how much until I finally took one. We’ve labeled our time off into neat, acceptable categories. Sick days are for fevers and doctor appointments. Personal days are reserved for emergencies and obligations. But what about the in-between days? When there’s no real diagnosable health issue and no major event or appointment that needs attendance. The days when there’s nothing technically wrong, but everything feels off. A day when you’re barely hanging on, but still showing up. That’s where the well day comes in. On behalf of...
It took me 39 years to like myself. I mean really, honestly look in the mirror and say, “You go, girl.” I understand the concept of progress, not perfection, but the idea of always working on myself became a tiring and unrelenting objective. Here I was shrinking that waist, smoothing my skin, studying hard, working way too late, and often burning the candle at both ends to yield results that were still less than the ideal. It’s all well and good to be a doer who sets reasonable and sometimes unreasonable goals, but throughout my teens and into my early...
Dear Graduate, I know you’re feeling it all right now. Anticipation, trepidation, and then other times, you don’t know what to feel at all. I know because I once felt the same. I graduated from high school several years ago, and here’s what I want you to know: It’s okay if you don’t have it all figured out. Sounds cliché, but it’s true. Whether you plan to attend college, take a gap year, get a job, or you don’t know yet what you want to do, it’s okay. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. It’s so easy to fall into the...
From a young age, I knew what I wanted my future career to look like. I pursued a path in healthcare, determined to use my gift for compassion to help others. I loved it. Being a small part of someone’s life during vulnerable moments made me feel like I was truly living out God’s calling on my life. Until I had children of my own. The work I did was exhausting—physically, mentally, and emotionally. What I didn’t anticipate was how that exhaustion would grow once I had children waiting for me at the end of each day. I was giving...
I was pregnant with my first baby in 2023, and my pregnancy was “picture perfect,” or so I was told. I went to all of my appointments, and every time I was reassured that everything looked great. My weight gain was “normal,” my baby was measuring appropriately, and his heartbeat was strong. My blood pressure was always a little elevated, but no one seemed concerned. Everything was fine…until it wasn’t. Looking back, I knew deep down something wasn’t right when I gained 10 pounds between my May and June appointments. I brushed it off, blaming a recent trip to Texas...
Ever since Ashley Tisdale wrote about leaving her toxic mom group, I have noticed something shift among women my age, moms in our 40s who built friendships through school drop-offs, soccer sidelines, neighborhood walks, and birthday parties. Here is the thing….no one wants to be labeled the “mean girls mom group.” Recently, I was out to dinner with a friend when she shared something that stuck with me. A woman had quietly left their local moms’ group and later treated them as if they were exclusionary. The final straw? She had sent a group text at dinnertime and no one...
During my oldest daughter’s freshman year of college, I started being haunted by a recurring dream of an old-fashioned suitcase—one of those hard-sided ones that’s as big as they come. In the dream, when I open the suitcase, it’s overflowing with clothing, shoes, and all kinds of stuff that belongs to me and each of my three daughters. Everything in the suitcase is all jumbled together. Nobody else in the dream is worried about sorting through everything, but I am totally stressed about it. To top it all off, I have to deal with this suitcase while preparing for a...
Insecurity is something we all carry in one form or another. For me, it has probably always looked confident and outgoing from the outside. But internally, it can feel heavy, complicated, and exhausting at times. And when someone comes along whose behavior reinforces those insecurities, it amplifies what was already there. There was someone I had hoped to genuinely connect with, but it was clear from the start that the feeling wasn’t mutual. From the beginning, their wall was up. No matter how kind I tried to be or how carefully I showed up, it never came down. Their distance...
Since I was a little girl, I dreamed of what it might be like to gain an entire family when I got married. My parents were lovely. I never wanted for anything, and I had very involved grandparents. However, any other family was far away, and much of my childhood was lonely. I dreamed of brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law and their spouses to do life with. Maybe we would go on road trips together or stay in and play games and have a few drinks. I dreamed of raising our kids together and giving my children the cousin memories I only...
By Katy Ursta 
by Chelsea Drown 
by Kaitlin Mantovi 
by Brittany Moore 
by Krystal Sieben 
by Joanne McHugh 
by Her View From Home 
