Personal Essays

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.

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Posts tagged self love

I Earned My Stripes

I Earned My Stripes

I grew up listening to my mom criticize her stomach. Having children had done this, she would say as she ran her hand over her loose stomach. Being pregnant and giving birth had changed her body forever, leaving behind stretch marks and large breasts and a stomach that jiggled and bulged. She didn’t like how her stomach looked, but she didn’t starve herself or excessively exercise. In every fitting room we shared, she commented. If only I could get rid of this, she’d say as she patted her stomach. Look at this, she said, as she shook her head and looked at her side profile in the dressing room mirror. If I didn’t have all this, these would fit better, she would say, while pulling down the pair of pants that didn’t fit. She saw, and continues to see, her stomach as a negative, a defect.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumDecember 18, 2024self love, family, body imageComment

Waterstones

Waterstones

A couple of months ago you were going to several Overeaters Anonymous meetings a week, sometimes every day. But when Elaine told you she couldn’t sponsor you anymore after your suicide attempt, and when she and a friend whom she also sponsored asked you not to attend a couple of their regular meetings, and after your therapist came to the facility you were hospitalized in to tell you she couldn’t work with you anymore, you stopped going to meetings altogether.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumDecember 11, 2024mental health, self love, books, friendshipComment

Valentine's Day Thoughts

Valentine's Day Thoughts

Sometimes I wonder why lovers hold hands when they walk around. I wonder how long they have been dating. Are they in that new stage, where it feels like they have to hold on tight, constantly let the other person know that they are there, that they aren’t going anywhere, that they want to touch them, that they want to be touched. Or is it the older couples, the ones who have been together for longer that hold hands. A gesture they don’t even realize they’re doing, their fingers just mindlessly reaching for each other, keeping their connection as they pace around the city.

True StoriesDiya MehtaAugust 14, 2024love, self love, Self Discovery, heartbreak, valentineComment

My Body Myself: An Unexpected Journey

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

Fog Season at the Salish Sea

Fog Season at the Salish Sea

If not for the pup and the ritual of our morning walk, I might not have banked so much joy, watching her endearing hobby-horse bounce as she runs across the field. I would never have seen that barred owl swish overhead in a silent, majestic flight. I'd have missed the quiet presence of the setting moon and an infinity of stars disappearing into the pale blue.

True StoriesKristina BuschJanuary 18, 2023self love, nature, reflection Comments

Planting Holly

Planting Holly

I married my ex-husband in the early ’90s, and despite being a feminist and a working professional, I took his name. It wasn’t a difficult decision. In fact, I don’t really remember it being a decision at all. We had decided to become a family and I wanted a single, family name to unite us and the children I expected we’d have.

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 9, 2022self love, self care, names, divorce Comments

Birds Don’t Drop Dead from the Sky

Birds Don’t Drop Dead from the Sky

I’ve often wondered: Why don’t you see birds drop dead from the sky? Surely it happens. There couldn’t possibly be a mechanism that keeps it from occurring. Could there be? Something about the nature of the flight that keeps beings in a state of suspended life, no matter the outcome?

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 2, 2022disability, car accident, self love Comment

The Cut

The Cut

“Shorter,” I said. “Take it all.”

January seemed a fitting moment for fresh starts. It wasn't born from some halfhearted resolution or unfounded faith in the promise of a new year. It wasn't shoved in with a promise to swear off chocolate or set the alarm an hour early every Monday through Friday.

True StoriesGuest UserDecember 16, 2021Self Discovery, verbal abuse, abuse, toxic relationship, self love Comment

5 A.M.

5 A.M.

I fumble through the kitchen searching for the button that turns on the light under the microwave. The one that doesn’t shock the darkness out of me. The house is still and quiet.

Start the coffee. Open the laptop. Light the candle that smells of evergreens.

True StoriesGuest UserDecember 15, 2021writer, Writing, insecurities, Motherhood, self love Comments

Though I Have Seen My Head (Grown Slightly Bald)

Though I Have Seen My Head (Grown Slightly Bald)

I 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.”

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 17, 2021cancer, self love, friendship, acceptance, Self Discovery Comment

Birthday Suit

Birthday Suit

The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame.

—Genesis 2:25

It’s the word “yet” that breaks my heart. Why would the Bible’s authors add that qualifier, unless body shame was already, in their time, a cultural given, a feeling so immediate and gutting that the lack of mortification at one’s own flesh—its size and shape, its smells and hungers—was worth noting in chapter two of the story of How It All Began.

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 23, 2021clothing, gender, LGBTQIA, self loveComment

Creative Exorcism for the Self-Possessed Writer

Creative Exorcism for the Self-Possessed Writer

Whether I’m writing fiction or nonfiction, every piece begins the same: with a haunting. It grows as any respectable haunting should, first with creaking footsteps in the other room, the sense something is watching, until there’s a full-blown apparition standing beside the bed whispering, “You need to write this down.”

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 9, 2021memoir, nonfiction, Self Discovery, self love Comment

Impossible to Love

Impossible to Love

I see you,

with your dimpled smile,

your tubby legs,

your first stumbling steps,

a complete trust in the universe

that nothing will harm you,

even as your harried mother

calculates all potential risks.

True StoriesGuest UserJuly 20, 2021love, confidence, self love Comment

A Soft Strength

A Soft Strength

For years, I used my hair as a diversion.

It began with my ponytail phase. Every picture in my mom’s photo albums show me with my hair pulled back into a ponytail. The photos didn’t capture the back of my head and the way I carefully color-coordinated my ponytail holder with the day’s outfit.

True StoriesGuest UserJune 24, 2021self love, chronic pain, disabilityComment

The ABCs of Love

The ABCs of Love

A sweetheart story is what I crave. The sweep-off-the-feet type that rides my heart into the

sunset with the faint letters rolling in the background. As innocent as prince charming, in

desperate search of their damsel in distress.

True StoriesGuest UserJune 16, 2021love, love story, alphabet, poetry, self love, Relationships Comments

In Homage to the Stranger in the Photo

In Homage to the Stranger in the Photo

Before getting a smartphone in the seventh grade, I relied on memories captured by others. My mother, an amateur photographer, stored thousands of snapshots on her phone. Whenever I felt bored, I would navigate through them, retrieving, reliving, and retaining each preserved story.

True StoriesGuest UserJune 3, 2021photograph, Growing up, self loveComment

Wanting to Be Seen

Wanting to Be Seen

My mom picks me up early from school for my runway gig at the Boynton Beach Mall. I'm twelve. It’s 2001. I attend John Casablanca’s, a modeling school where groups of girls ages five to twenty-five meet once a week. We discuss make-up, runway walks, and other pressing issues in fashion. Today, I have been chosen to model for Wet Seal, a clothing store that markets to wannabe slutty teenagers.

True StoriesGuest UserApril 21, 2021modeling, self love, confidenceComment

The Good Kind of Guilty

The Good Kind of Guilty

“How do you, the jury, find the defendant?” asks the judge after two hours of deliberation.

The room was silent. The only sound was the jurors breathing a sigh of relief as they sat in their chairs. It was all going to be over soon. A tall man with white hair and kind eyes answered the judge.

True StoriesGuest UserApril 14, 2021rape, survival, self love Comment

Crafting My Way toward Accomplishment

Crafting My Way toward Accomplishment

It was early October when I updated my friend Kim about how I’d been spending my very single, mostly alone time in isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. “I’ve taken up watercolors. And also embroidery,” I said one night over FaceTime. Demure lady that she is, she covered her mouth and daintily laughed into her palm, the refined equivalent of a spit take, before regaining her composure.

True StoriesGuest UserMarch 25, 2021self love, self care, COVID-19, quarantineComment

Autumn in New York

Autumn in New York

Every year, Scorpio season kicks my ass. I experience a horrible rollercoaster of emotions. I barely know what to do with myself because every bit of me feels so scattered. Still, Autumn is my favorite time of year. It’s nostalgic, comforting, familiar. It’s also sightly, decorated with colors that bring me joy.

True StoriesGuest UserMarch 18, 2021self love, intimacy, Self Discovery Comment