The Monthly Theme Essays are a collection of essays written each month on a predetermined theme. These essays are always published during the last week of the month. To submit a Monthly Theme Essay check out our upcoming themes.
Interested in sponsoring one of our monthly themes? Check out our media kit.
I grew up in a house that had one bathroom and no shower. As a teenager with a perm, I hated this arrangement. I just wanted to be able to rinse the conditioner down the drain instead of having to soak in it. But Mom loved baths. She would pour peppermint oil in the warm water and soak luxuriously until the skin on the tips of her fingers wrinkled like raisins.
Read More“Oh, thanks.”
I try hard not to let out disappointment through my sigh as Caroline hands me the clear, water-filled baggie. It’s bulging and reflecting the only sliver of sun that shines in from the outside world.
Read MoreFor the long first act of my life, as a painfully shy kid growing up in Culver City – steps away from the Sony Pictures studio lot, the iconic Gone With The Wind mansion, which was right by the movie theater downtown, and down the street from the liquor store where they filmed the infamous McLovin scene in Superbad – dating and romance was something I experienced entirely through the silver screen.
Read More“Like, would that string really have stayed on her finger for fourteen years?” Lindsey asks, and I laugh in the carefree manner typically brought about by cheap vodka.
“Well, it’s magic string,” I respond, “because it’s infused with love.”
We continue to watch, a bowl of popcorn between us, buzzing on the fruit-flavored Smirnoff I am finally able to buy legally now that I’ve just turned twenty-one. It is summer; the semester has ended; we are each home from college.
Read MoreMy father was a career military man and did three tours overseas. Each time he returned home from deployments his skill at attacking others in darkness was sharper and keener. He drank heavily and became easily enraged, used the skills he had mastered to be quick and precise when striking out at the object of his ire. The only daughter in the family, I was not spared the violence inflicted upon my four brothers. My father did not discriminate in his lashing out. My disadvantage was the possession of gloriously long dark hair that both parents insisted I grow.
Read MoreI grew up in the exalted spaces of a United Methodist Church. Dad was a pastor who, after graduating from seminary in Ohio, drove with my mother across the country to the far west of Washington, with six-month-old me strapped into a bassinet behind the front seat. In the early days of memory, I enjoyed singing hymns, drinking grape juice from thimble cups at communion, and helping Mom entertain parishioners in groups according to their last names for lunches in our home, where she served vegetable soup and black bottom cupcakes until she’d run through all the letters of the alphabet.
Read MoreI hated gym and those one-piece blue gym suits. They had the self-contained waistband, the baggy shorts, the snap front, and were a pain to climb into. They made even the most glamorous girls in phys ed look like little blue sausages. A chubby fifteen-year-old, I tried to stay out of that ridiculous blue get-up whenever possible.
Read MoreSummers lingered, with pancakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch, too. Mom peeled carrots and left them in a Pyrex bowl of water on the kitchen table. I’d grab one for a snack, running through the house and out to the backyard, where the fun happened.
Read MoreHow many Seventeen articles do I need to read to get it right? “The makeup should look natural, like it’s not there. The idea is to enhance, not pronounce.” That’s what the people in the article say.
Read More“El Wacko is snorting coke in the bathroom,” Daniel shouted. He stormed into his parents’ room. I studied my godbrother, round eyes and mouth open, from my seat on the nightstand. My back pressed against rows and rows of vitamins, all promising weight loss, wishing to be anywhere but here.
Read MoreDr. Thompson was feeling my breasts. Sitting on the table in his exam room with my gown dropped to my waist, I was embarrassed to have him touch me. I was embarrassed just to be at the appointment. My body developed curves early. In seventh grade, when most girls had flat chests, I wore a C-cup bra and hid in the corner of the locker room to change before and after gym class. By fifteen, my 34D chest was a health concern.
Read More
