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.
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.
Read MoreOn tiptoes, I stretched to replace the binder in the metal cubby. I was shocked to feel cold, clammy hands on my back, sliding into the waist band of my skirt. I spun around.
It was him again.
Read More“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.
Read MoreThere is a place
with waxing armpits on video in the kitchen
a room where a man plays computer games
and liked brunettes over blondes
Read More(My mother and your mother were washing the clothes)
The girl stands plucking branches in the wide expanse of the olive grove. Gazing upwards she closes her eyes to the heavens and welcomes the unexpected breeze dancing through her hair. It cools her sweat-drenched brow and the nape of her neck. The girl knows that the wind wants to trick her.
Read MoreIt 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.
Read MoreEvery 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.
Read MoreEach day begins and ends with the pill tray. In the morning, it’s the antipsychotic Abilify, anti-anxiety Buspar, and antidepressant Prozac. In the evening, Buspar returns with the famed mood stabilizer, lithium. Within the first four hours of waking, I’ll know if I haven’t taken my medications by a sudden tightness in my chest or a nervous tingling across my skin. When this happens, I rush to choke down a cracker or two before taking them.
Read MoreMay 27, 2020
“You need to understand, if something happens, if the worst happens, we cannot let you inside,” Dr. Waters says through her mask, looking up into my face. Her eyes are beautifully made up, achieving a doe-eye effect. I wonder, momentarily, if she is in love with someone in her office. Her gloved hand reaches towards my dog. “With COVID, no one but staff is allowed inside the clinic.”
Read MoreThe trees are a riot of color as I drive past the grounds of the Episcopal Church in my town. The field that becomes the annual pumpkin patch worthy of inclusion in a Peanuts special is heartbreakingly bare. Every fall since I moved to this New England town over twenty years ago, the arrival of the pumpkins has been a seasonal passage.
Read MoreAt first I didn’t even realize you were there. You sprung up seemingly overnight, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was thirteen, my body already changing in all kinds of ways.
Read MoreDear Doctor S.,
I can’t believe I wake up each morning thinking about how much I love my husband, instead of engaging in the mental gymnastics of how to avoid him for yet another day.
Read MoreBy my eighteenth birthday, I was convinced my entire personality was a mistake. My hobbies were hipster and obnoxious, tied to the fine arts and human culture. My goals were lofty and idealistic, invoking a life of novelty and meaning. I hated that I cared for these things despite their presumed futility in our modern (read: capitalist) world. The trendy albeit psychologically debunked Myers-Briggs Type Indicator had assigned me a personality with one of the lowest average incomes, followed by fun phrases like “most likely to have trouble in school,” and to me, this was the surest confirmation of my worthlessness.
Read MoreIt is not true today that my children are in school learning about ratios and raising hands. It is not true that my husband is at work teaching teachers about equity in education. It is not true that my dog is sleeping with her nose on her thigh alone in a quiet home. It is true that I go to work as always, but it is not true that my day as a doctor unfolds with its predictable rhythm.
Read More“So you’re the matriarch,” the bartender says as I join my daughter and granddaughter at the bar for a sunset drink.
Read MoreI don’t know what I was thinking when I packed the frying pan. As I dashed around the apartment that December afternoon, I packed several random items along with sentimental ones: a cluster of hangers; a photo album; my bikini and wool dress coat; a framed print I liked; the blanket my grandmother had given me when I was three years old; a yellow umbrella; my favorite coffee mug; and the heavy frying pan.
Read MoreW. Atlee Burpee & Company says it’s sold more seed in 2020 than any other time in its 144-year history. A month into seclusion, a Honey Gold potato in a basket on my kitchen counter began to sprout. The eyes grew thick, leafy lashes. What to do? There’s little room in my diminutive yard to cultivate any type of vegetation.
Read MoreLike a dog guarding the small square of his front lawn, my father stalked and panted around the four corners of our kitchen. Rottweiler? Bulldog? Whatever he was, he’d caught my scent, and I couldn’t shake him. His breath—strong, moldering—was hot on my face.
Read MoreOn a cold February morning, driving solo through dense fog on a narrow potholed road from Amritsar, Panjab (the land of five rivers) in North India to a recently not-so-quiet hamlet of Dera Baba Nanak, umpteen thoughts clouded my mind.
Read MoreWeak Point
“Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re worried about?”
Secrets are like poison. Until you tell someone, they will kill you from the inside out. The worst secrets are the kind you keep from yourself—held at bay for so long until the dam finally breaks. For a week, I tell my mom that I’m having stomach problems, and it isn’t entirely a lie.
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