He placed his hand on my thigh. His touch was subtle, loving, foreboding. I gazed into my glass, lamenting its emptiness. His eyes penetrated my cheek and he said: “I slept with a twenty-six-year-old girl in Vegas.”
Here we are again, I thought to myself as Notre Dame’s iconic spire crumpled into ash like a spent stick of incense, glowing orange at its dying core. Another casualty in the anthropocene.
Being a parent is sometimes harder than we like to admit, and being a new parent is extra difficult in that there is no established norm for daily activities. It is all a learning process.
I no longer remember the details. I just remember walking through the house surveying the damage and marveling how much could unravel in one month’s time.
The last two times I went off birth control, we made a baby in a matter of minutes, but this time I’m becoming fertile again for no reason other than my nostalgia for natural rhythms.
Eventually, I’d get bored with my life, play into her feelings, and repeat. You’d think I wouldn’t be surprised when she began to pull away, but you’d be wrong.
I’m 17. I never grow up. My brain is broken.
To the general public, a surgeon’s family (resident or attending) has an easy life, cushioned by wealth and its conveniences. The truth is, when I hear that overused phrase about worth, I want to scream.
Chester Bennington is dead; he was 41 and I am 40 and I still cannot believe we live in a world where suicide is such a thing.
I am one of them, a “mentally ill monster,” and let’s be honest it isn’t just Trump that uses that language.
“Years later, I realize now, my memoir-writing was selfish. In writing about my childhood, and grief, I claimed myself. I took my own life without ending it. “
As soon as I press play and hear Oprah’s rich, familiar voice say, “I believe the greatest gift we can give ourselves is time, “ I lose my shit.
The gut never lies. Since then, I control my anxiety by noticing whether it’s in my chest or gut. If it’s in my chest, it’s just PTSD. If it’s in my gut, there’s real danger.
“The priest read our names out loud and fell silent. Everyone stood up again, and the chorus began to sing. The acoustics of the cathedral carried the sound up throughout the space, and it seemed like even the walls were singing.”
