The Barbie in the Middle

Barbie. Everyone’s favorite (or favorite-to-loathe) doll-slash-role model-slash-best friend-slash-impossible ideal-slash-icon of cultural demise. Even though I’ve always harbored a fairly incurious attitude toward the Barbie-as-perfection phenomenon, I nevertheless loved playing with my inanimate, buxom, rubbery friends. I didn’t compare myself to them, and they didn’t dictate my self worth. They were just one population in an only child’s universe of dessert-scented dolls, bathtub mermaids, and little plastic people who lived in a furnished tree.

True StoriesDiya MehtaDecember 13, 2023women storytelling, aging, middle-age Comment

On the Occasion of My Fourth Root Canal

Who would have thought we’d be back here again? Me, blinded by your headlamp, white-knuckling a tooth-shaped stress toy with your name and number printed on it. You, on your swivel stool, tapping your running shoes to the eighties soft rock that seeps through the walls like the smell of the salmon your assistant reheated for lunch.

True StoriesKristina BuschOctober 11, 2023aging, health, mental health Comments

Meno-Pause

I have a problem with many words in the English language, the most recent and personally applicable being “menopause.” Apparently, the term is a Greek mashup of “month” and “cease.” I’d have less of a problem if the English term were “menocease,” since “menopause” suggests that something about the female body—my body in this case—is “pausing” and will, ASAP, resume its regularly scheduled programming. But, that’s not the case. My body is going off the air.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumJuly 19, 2023aging, menopause, body image Comments

My Body Myself: An Unexpected Journey

She was doing Pilates when she saw the first sign. She should have noticed. It was like last summer when the cop stopped her, leaned into the window, and asked if she’d seen the “STOP” sign. Of course she hadn’t, she told him; if she had seen it she’d have stopped. But that, too, was no kind of explanation.

True StoriesKristina BuschJuly 5, 2023body image, self love, agingComment

You Too Can Be Beautiful

Some Girls

In 1966, a teenage girl walked into a fancy salon in London, England wanting a simple shampoo and set. Instead, persuaded by the owner, she had her long locks cut into a short crop. After the cut, a picture was taken, revealing an almost waif-ish yet intriguing schoolgirl: pretty, wide-eyed, and made up beyond her years. Barry Lategan, the photographer, said of the girl, “She was gawky, but she had a sort of elegance…I think it was the eyes…she had such a presence.”

True StoriesJulia NusbaumMay 17, 2023beauty Standards, makeup, body image, agingComment

Hag

I haven’t bled in five months. Each time this happens I wonder, am I done? Was that it? Have I finally crossed the threshold into after, whatever that means?

True StoriesGuest UserDecember 21, 2022women, period, aging, age Comments

What I Took With Me

My birthday is December 30, five days after Jesus’s and one day before New Year’s Eve. It is the perfect day to be born if, like me, you prefer your birthday slide by unnoticed. I never had to bring any classroom cupcakes. Not a single black streamer hung from my office door on my fortieth, which suited me just fine.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumAugust 17, 2022Motherhood, aging, growing up, coming of age, griefComment

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