In March 2023, I took a solo cross-country road trip from Boston to San Diego and back. Planning my road trip was a multi-month endeavor that I enjoyed almost as much as the trip itself, so I wanted to put my planning process down on paper—and also share the lessons I learned from the actual…
I always wondered when I would begin to feel the biological urge to have a baby. When I was 25 and he was 28, my former partner told me that he wanted to have kids by his 30th birthday. Instead, when the day arrived, I threw him a surprise party and drank most of a…
Let me start by saying that I’m writing this post as much for myself as for all of you. I’ve never felt at home in my body. From body dysmorphia in my teens to chronic pain in recent years, I’ve never been able to control the way that I look and feel to the degree…
It was the first day of September. As we climbed the rocky spine of Giant’s Stairs along the coast of Maine, the sky above us was the kind of blue that only exists in late summer, and waves crashed against the base of the cliff. It was one of the countless day trips that Chris…
Sometimes, I feel like my brain is actively working against me. My tireless ability to find patterns and hidden meaning makes me a good researcher during the day, then keeps me from sleeping soundly at night. I dissect the moments that brought me joy in daylight, recategorizing each one as evidence of my deepest fears: The…
On my first date with the man who is now my husband, as the realization began to form that we might have each found the person with whom we could happily spend years of our lives, we discussed the unlikely possibility that either of us would ever want to get married. Less than a year…
My year of loss was bookended by two deaths. First was the passing of my grandmother in early spring—the kind of death that feels like an unwelcome but wholly natural conclusion to a long, full life. In the winter came the passing of my mother—the kind of death that doesn’t just suspend reality, but that…
