Will a piece of paper stating I’m a certain percent Indian and perhaps a certain percent something else, change how people will relate to me? With the arsenal of tools before me, I begin my morning transformation. I paint my face with a milk chocolate colored foundation before dabbing my cheeks with a brownish blush […]
I worry that granting myself grace will make me feel, or become, selfish. I cannot discern when to hold myself accountable versus when to cut myself slack. I do not know how to love myself in spite of my flaws. I don’t remember the exact words, but I will never forget how I felt as […]
Anyone who has been a victim of repeated harassment or abuse will tell you that the burden of emotional labor is enormous, and that it’s amplified by the pressure to keep quiet. “Stories save your life. And stories are your life. We are our stories; stories that can be both prison and the crowbar to […]
You know the character traits associated with your sun sign, your Hogwarts house, and your favorite flavor of La Croix, but have you thought about what your menstrual products reveal about your personality? Your period is a time for many things: binge-watching television, catching up on your comfort eating, getting into arguments for reasons you’ll […]
If you’re a woman, you’ve been sold on weddings since the day you were born. A year after they got married, a client of mine asked her husband what had been the most surprising thing about planning their wedding. “How much work it took,” he replied. “How did you not know?!” she said. The amount of work […]
All of the empathy training in the world pales in comparison to experiencing the effects of real, unmanufactured hatred based on an immutable aspect of your identity. When I saw her name on my list of patients I rolled my eyes and groaned. Ethel was scheduled for 30 minutes of occupational therapy this Saturday, but […]
I wanted to say that this was deliberately less cute, less likeable; that I’d spent years with hair that was trouble – a mask. I wanted to say I was done hiding behind girliness. “You have so much hair!” the stylist said, ruffling my scalp. Her touch was intimate, for a first meeting, but I […]
It’s as if gray-haired women have become an endangered species. And this is a shame, because I’m starting to warm up to the idea that aging hair can be beautiful. As I approach my 40th birthday, I’ve observed an interesting trend among women my age and older: patches of gray or white hair are nowhere to […]
