HerStry publishes one Personal Essay every Wednesday. Weekly Personal Essays are a way for writers to tell the stories they want to tell. There are no rules. No themes. Nothing is off limits. For essay submissions check out our guidelines.
Maybe you saw her serving champagne on a one-for-you, one-for-me basis at a big nun party, shooting corks for children to catch. Later, you’d bond that one summer week watching science fiction movies in the novitiate basement. You’d be thrilled when she came to live in your same convent. It would make sense, the life-sized poster of Spock in her bedroom, just down the hall from yours.
Read MoreOn Monday, August 20th, 2012 at 11:54 p.m., a piece of rail snapped beneath an eighty-car train carrying 9,837 tons of coal as it passed over a bridge above Main Street in Ellicott City, Maryland.
Just a moment before the accident, Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr, two nineteen-year-old friends spending one last night of summer together before heading back to college, sat on that same bridge, dangling their legs over the edge.
Just a moment after, the train cars tipped over on their bodies, crushing them beneath piles of coal.
Read MoreAt the age of thirteen, I attended a boarding school a continent away from my family, an experience that triggered a wrenching homesickness. As a teenager, I navigated international airports and transitioned between cultures with fluidity, yet a floodgate of tears would open at the echo of my parents’ voices over a long-distance call. They were a seven-hour flight away, too far to dash home for a weekend of hugs and home-cooked meals, distant enough for the cookies in care packages to grow stale before arrival.
Read MoreGod, or kismet, or intuition, or chance, wakes me up. My cell phone’s home screen lights up my bedroom. I reach for it. My news app notifies me that there is an ACTIVE SHOOTER targeting NED PEPPER’S BAR in the OREGON DISTRICT of DAYTON OHIO. The alert was originally sent fifteen minutes ago. I immediately dial Brianne’s number, one of three numbers I’ve committed to memory. I need to know if my friend is oh please I can’t even think it.
Read MoreI sat in Taylor’s chair in the high-ceilinged hair salon on Madison Avenue, watching all the wealthy Upper East Siders, as they rested their five-figure handbags on velvet stools like beloved pets. My newfound sense of mortality had no place in this land of excess. This was the room T.S. Eliot must have been referring to when he spoke about the “women [who] come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo.”
Read More“Can you please repeat what I just said?” Debbie asked. Her usual, wry smile I recognized so well said, “Why do you even try to fool me? I know you so well.”
“Oh…what…No, I am okay, I got you. I actually heard you,” I replied.
“No, you didn’t, and I know it. I absolutely do not mind repeating myself for the fourth time, Abha. And, if you really got me, why don’t you repeat what I just said? Repeat it,” Debbie said.
Read MoreElise is standing in front of her dresser mirror, a tangerine in one hand, a wad of Kleenex tissue in the other. Her dark-eyed reflection stares back at me beneath a fringe of stylish blond-brown bangs. In our fifth-grade class, Elise is a golden goose amid the rest of us awkward ducks, with her pert nose and movie star mole at the corner of her mouth.
Read MoreMy favorite book by bell hooks is in my friend Kjersten’s house, I think. We’d spent a Friday afternoon in my kitchen with fellow mom friends, our circle’s version of Happy Hour, discussing love, grief, loss, and healing, our children tossing a football around outside. I mentioned my love for hooks and her writing on such topics, and Kjersten expressed interest. I told her hooks’ words changed how I approached my most meaningful relationships, helped me understand past communication breakdowns. hooks pushed me to embrace honesty and openness, to recognize love as a verb: “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it's a decision, it's a judgement, it's a promise.”
Read MoreSuddenly desperate to push beyond yourself, you commit to give back in some way in-between all the blood donations. A catalyst to thrust you from your daily grind.
Read MoreA warm-hearted pack rat through and through, I knew she probably hadn’t donated the boxes in my former bedroom, nicknamed the hobbit hole. (Much like Paul was the Walrus, I am the Hobbit.) Crammed with what I kindly labeled childhood trauma — lighten the truth with a little humor, no? — the boxes held SAT prep books and enough plaid uniform skirts to choke not only the horse, but the whole Kentucky Derby.
Read MoreThe Kingdom Hall was my second home. Sometimes, when my parents’ screaming wouldn’t quiet, it was my first.
I’d run in. The smell of pine trees would greet me. Smiling faces surrounded me, kind hands reached out to me. I never wanted to leave.
Read MoreFriendships can be hard to maintain. My thirty-three years on the planet have imparted a limited, yet I don’t think insignificant, view on how friendships change. What I know for sure is that, like any relationship, they require upkeep.
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