Maybe it was a hard thing to understand, how it’s everywhere—both in how frequently it happens and how pervasive it remains in one’s mind and body and soul and being. I made eye contact with the stray llama that was set away from the pack before I succumbed to my sudden and violent nausea, doubling over […]
Later someone tried to explain to me: Everyone here knows you are sick. Everyone knows. But I couldn’t understand that, somehow: How could I be naked with my sickness in public and, simultaneously, unseen? I developed a lot of stereotypes about Germans during my time occupying the 36-cubic feet underneath my laboratory workstation. Germans, I decided, in a constant […]
Acknowledging that it’s hard is a beautiful act of compassion that, counterintuitively, makes it easier for everyone around you. Asking for help is the hardest part. It’s a cliché that just about everyone who has gone through tough times, or dealt with mental health issues, knows is only too accurate. Mental illness can be isolating, […]
Lately, I have been wondering about those patterns. I have been wondering if we inherit misfortune, the way we inherit eye color, hair color, left handedness. 1. My grandmother’s first child was born in August 1942. He died in January 1943. The word baby appears at the top his tombstone. The age 4 ½ months […]
Research shows that women who negotiate are seen as “unlikeable” and penalized for it. If anyone needs to be negotiating better terms and conditions on life, it’s women. Women earn less than men, yet pay more for basic goods and services. We get a raw deal on housework and are more likely to retire in […]
I guess I was supposed to be flattered because people said I was pretty. But it felt like a liability to me. A dangerous burden. Something that could go wrong. By the first day of fifth grade, I was 5’5″. My almost painfully skinny body made my A cup breasts look much larger than they […]
Online interaction used to ease my social anxieties. What happens when it starts to make them worse? When I checked Facebook this morning, I was greeted with a bunch of balloons and confetti surrounding a giant banner bearing the thumbs-up symbol. “Sarah, your friends have liked your posts 36,000 times!” the text underneath it read. “We’re […]
You didn’t know you’d stare middle age in the face and carry its soggy weight for everyone. And yet, you don’t feel ugly or incapable. The first time you quit stripping in 2003, you shoved your pink spandex bikinis and black booty shorts into a garbage bag and brought them to a lesbian bar in […]
