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.
She said she thinks it’s terrible I don’t want to have children. Like being childless is the Plague or natural disaster. Maybe to her and to many others it is just that. It’s certainly not seen as natural not to want to do the one thing a woman’s body was built for.
Read MoreHi, my name is Judy and I am an addict.
My brain chemistry dictates that if something is good that more must be better. All I need for my "fix" is the opportunity to get more and/or a crisis to prime the adrenalin pump.
It is Friday night in Montréal and Molly and I are walking along the sidewalk in Outremont, a historically Hasidic neighborhood. I am an anthropology student at Concordia University returning from a field assignment to attend a Shabbat dinner at Molly’s home and investigate the gender based boundary building in the Hasidic community.
Read MoreYou take away the ocean
that was never beneath their feet
My sister Stephanie and I were born 5 years apart. I was born with Hemiplegia Spastic Cerebral Palsy, so our relationship as sisters has always been unique. Stephanie grew up as self-sufficient, and extremely stubborn. She always knew better than anyone one else. She had the makings of a great defense attorney.
Read MoreI see you walking through the halls with your books pressed up against your chest so uneasy and unsettled. I see you sitting uncomfortably in class extremely intelligent and driven, but bearing the feelings of belittlement and inferiority because of the jokes about your nose and bumps inconveniently distributed on the surface of your big cheeks and forehead.
Read MoreI’m an introvert with an outgoing mind, the shy kid in the back of class, timidly raising my hand as if to say, "I have a voice, but I'm terrified my words will come out wrong." I only got my Masters because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I was terrified of living a wasted life. Wealth was always secondary to being meaningful, and, to me, being meaningful meant I wanted my day job to be something I was proud of because it helped others as much as the paycheck benefited me.
Read MoreDear Cerebral Palsy,
Although you are and have always been a part of me, I’ve worked hard to make certain I don’t allow you to consume my life. If I am honest, it has been a rather difficult process. Let’s start from the beginning though.
Read MoreWe were both 11 years old.
Read Moret was summer 2013. My middle school graduating class had just graduated. We were all happy, proud and glad to have graduated- it was now time for us to relax, enjoy summer and get ready to start our freshmen year.
Read MoreGrowing up in our family of five, money was short, so my mum used to supplement my dad’s wages by sewing curtains at home. Our former living room became her sewing space, with the dining kitchen at the heart of our home.
Read MoreDear Younger Me,
I’m not that old, only 24…but I’m old enough to want to talk to you and tell you everything I’ve learned so that maybe you can feel better about who you are.
Read MoreIt is a Spring day in the mid-1980s. An elderly man gets his wallet and sets off on his customary walk to buy sweeties for his grandchildren.
Read MoreWhen I was eleven, my thirty-six-year-old mother got herself an eighteen-year-old sailor boyfriend, and, rather than have the neighbors talk, she pretended he was my boyfriend. And just so the St. Joe’s nuns never found out, we moved two hours by bus away from the district.
Read MoreThe day my mother gave me a journal to help me cope with my grandmother’s suicide undoubtedly changed my life forever. That seemingly benign gesture, when I was ten years old, laid the groundwork for my life as a writer. Following this continuum, and after a serious health crisis, I made a decision which went against my character. I accomplished something I never thought I would be able to do.
Read MoreStartled, I awaken in an anxiety born stupor. It's 4:00 a.m.Sunday morning. In the distance a siren announces a 911 while a car alarm bellows out of control. Cars race an uncontrollable rage through empty streets. Light flickers through my window yet I know there is no light outside other than the moon displaying it's devilish grin. Is it a warning?
Read MoreI came to the realization very recently that I’ve changed a lot as a person. This whole embracing change attitude has really made a shift in me. Life can show you who and what matters in an instant. I am not sure how to put this, but I don’t miss the old me at all. I always used to feel timid, scared, apprehensive. Like I was back in middle school and even high school.
Read MoreI was standing in a sea of college seniors, moments away from graduating. I gently caressed the pure white tassel on my cap, poised to turn it at any second.
In that moment, I did not worry about how many people were graduating with a higher GPA than mine.
In that moment, I did not convince myself that I did not belong at my own graduation ceremony.
Read MoreIn November, like many people, I watched a horrifying video of North Dakota Police backed by private mercenaries from Tiger Swan fire a water canon into a crowd of peaceful protestors, severely injuring several of them. It wasn’t the first moment that I had heard of the Water Protectors efforts against the Dakota Access Pipeline but it hit the hardest. I was a soldier. I served my country for five years and this… this offended me. And I wasn’t the only one. Veterans Stand for Standing Rock was started because of that video.
Read MoreGrowing up, I often heard about and saw depicted in books and movies the whole idea of the “importance of work to a man.” Men who could not work, who could not support their wives and families were frequently depicted as victims. They drank. They were abusive, but it was okay, or at least understandable, because they world had dealt them a bad hand. They were to be sympathized with and pitied. To be honest, I always wrote off this line of thinking, this story line as patronizing bullshit, especially when a woman or other family member was able to provide for a family. Why did it matter who brought in the money as long as there was food on the table?
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