Wait, it’s over? Already? Or: F*ck Scarcity

By Jen Pastiloff I’m on the plane. I have Game of Thrones on in front of me, paused on…

Persister.

Hi, it’s Jen Pastiloff here. I never blog on the site anymore but here I am in New York,…

Turn on The Light, Mother F*%cker. Post Italy Blog.

By Jen Pastiloff I don’t blog often here on the site anymore but I wanted to share about my…

The Aleksander Scholarship Fund.

The answer to why some of us have to experience such pain in this life is a non-answer. There is no answer or platitude. Everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Donate if you feel inspired to.

Getting Older is Everything. Don’t Believe The Lies. A Message To Young Women on Jen Pastiloff’s Bday.

I was terrified of getting older. In my 20’s I lied and said I was younger. When I was 28, I said I was 25.

I thought once I turned 30 I would be useless. Read that again: useless.

You Really Should Be Skinnier

Don’t comment on my body or my face or if I am smiling. Don’t ask me if I am pregnant unless you see me giving birth or you know for sure. Don’t offer unsolicited advice about how I can be more beautiful or perfect or womanly or successful. Unless I ask you, zip it, Dude. Zip it.

You’re Enough. Don’t Be An Asshole & Go Forgetting That.

By Jen Pastiloff As you know if you follow me on social media or come to my workshops etc,…

Lying to Ourselves.

I think we lie to ourselves to survive.

The Truth About Depression. No Bullshit.

  By Jen Pastiloff I just got back from leading a beautiful retreat for Mother’s Day. I feel hung…

What Happens When Justin Timberlake & 25,000 Fans Sing Happy Birthday To a Boy With Autism?

Hey there! Jen Pastiloff here, I’m the founder of The Manifest-Station. Marika, the author of this piece, won a spot at…

Depression is a Duplicitous Asshole.

by Angela Giles Patel Everyone battles something. Some of these battles are episodic and some rage over the course…

Without Touch

When my husband gives me a massage, there is nothing sexual about it. He glides over my skin and kneads my prone muscles from head-to-toe, and then glides up my supine body from toe-to-head.

Daughter Lost

My cousin said to me, “I don’t take credit for any of my kids’ successes, and I don’t take the blame for any of their shortcomings, either.” I’m trying to cling to that belief system, but my guilt is strong.

An Open Letter to My White Would-Be Allies

But the more conversations I have with my friends, black and white and everything in between, the more I realize how much you still don’t understand, and the more I realize it might be important for you to hear from someone like me: someone you know and care about.

Only in My Imagination?

The reality is that during my childhood our small family of three — Mama, Daddy and me — rarely ventured far from home. When we did it was to see the same old places.

Silence is Not An Option

At The Manifest-Station, we are proud to add our voices to the call for change. Silence is complicity, and frankly, it is not an option. Change is possible, moreover, it’s coming.

Treasure

I tell him that he can’t possibly drive in the state he is in, that I want him to stay on the phone with me and breathe, while I use my mother-voice to hopefully calm him down.

Well Played

By Natalie Serianni The buzzer sounds as I pull up my white soccer socks. It’s freezing; I can see…

Wait, and Hurry Up

If you’re lucky — and I think I’m lucky, so far, knock wood — you notice the grace within the grit. In the midst of your various declines, you begin to notice some sharp trends toward the better: how the friends you have now are the best friends you have ever had.

We All Live Here

You have done something amazing, they tell me. Your body has been through astronomical things—twice. You have survived grave illness twice over. I know these things. I say them too. They are true, yes. But I am still here in these shambles. Within the leftover rags of wars I somehow survived and yet don’t even feel close to out of.

The Universe in the Kitchen

Living with a bipolar parent is like living with the sun. Forever orbiting someone who wields both the power to nourish and love you and the spontaneous drive to destroy who you are at your core.

Don’t be a Baby – Lessons in a Roy DeCarava Photo

I could see and feel that she was slipping away, life draining from her body. It was not terrifying. It was not beautiful. It was a somber experience punctuated with inexplicable odd, humorous moments and a peacefulness that’s hard to describe. I felt no fear.

Inside Out

By Allison L. Palmer I threw up in the bushes outside the hospital the day my sister was born.…

Take The R Train

If I hadn’t lived with the abuser in 1988 after my father died, I wouldn’t have had my heart smashed open to an empathy I didn’t know was possible. Or I might have died there. Other women do. I walked out of their graveyard.

Madame Defarge in the age of Corona

So I leave it. And the next day, I keep knitting, picking up other colors, making something that I don’t even think about having control over, that I can’t possibly know how it might resolve. As I knit,  I look down every once in a while, surprised, and sometimes pleased.