This article originally appeared on Self Magazine online on November 9, 2018. Healthy people aren’t immune to flu complications. On October 19, 2018 I marched my 36-year-old self to the doc and got a flu vaccine for the first time. Before this year, I’d never considered it. But, a lot of things changed this year. In January 2018, just a few months before, my husband, …
All posts tagged: personal
Je t’aime
Compassion and empathy make us human. The world needs more of both on a daily basis. When we are overwhelmed by the evil in the world, small acts of solidarity with fellow humans may be ineffective, but they are a statement of a shared desire for peace. I reminded myself of this when my Facebook feed turned the colors of the French flag this weekend. …
ad astra per aspera
When I was a kid, I poured over field guides to the night sky for hours – memorizing constellations like words that could be added to my vocabulary. One of my earliest memories is my parents taking me to watch the Perseid meteor shower, bundled up in layers of sweaters, sipping cocoa from a thermos on the roof of the car while we watched the …
Yes, ALL Women.
A couple weeks ago, my body became the subject of lewd dissection by a man I had never met before. We’d swapped the usual waiting-in-line courtesies. Then …that. A crass line about my body said to the cashier, said with a smirk, for me to overhear. I felt ashamed by features defined by genetics and not choice. I felt sexualized wearing plain jeans and a baggy sweater. …
the beauty myth
I think the part of the female beauty standard that upsets me the most and makes me the angriest isn’t the fact that it’s so arbitrary. It’s not that it’s impossible, or materialistic, or sexist, or Anglo-centric, or violent, or unnatural (though those are maddening and heartless). What makes me angriest is that we tell women the only way to be beautiful is to become …
the babel fish
Depression lies. Deep, dark, dirty lies. Lies that we know are lies. They echo the black places in our hearts that say we don’t deserve better, so we believe it because we need a reason to feel the way we do. We know it isn’t right, but we can’t make sense of anything else. Depression is the ultimate abuser – convincing you that no one …