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.
“Thirty-five and still alive.”
“Thirty-six and just won’t quit.”
“Thirty-seven and not yet in Heaven.”
Each year, before watching her children blow out her birthday candles, my mother coins a new tagline to affirm her survival despite increasingly improbable odds. She is terminally ill. Multiple Sclerosis and resultant lung failure.
Read MoreLike many eccentric children, I had often wished I could be afflicted with some kind of physical ailment, imperfection or secret status—something that would make me unique and special.
Read MoreAnother woman in the shop, an older woman—bleach-blonde hair, worn face—regards me: “You look great, honey.”
I had longed for this moment—for decades, really. Ever since age thirteen, when I first began throwing away my school lunches and going to soccer practice, doing suicides—up and down the field, up and down the field, touch the goal line once again—on an empty stomach.
Read MoreI was not raped by someone you know. Just a few days after my fifteenth birthday I was raped by a boy who was scared of ghosts and hung a tin cross on his wall. When I was raped it felt like drowning. I could not breathe. My body twisted in ways I was not in control of, and in the fleeting moments when I realized and re-realized what was happening to me I gasped for air. I cried.
Read MoreThey’re in a black plastic box, bottom drawer, right side of the IKEA dresser. When I open the case I discover the tiny bottle of oil meant to keep the blade from rusting has spilled. It takes a few minutes to wipe all the different attachments clean, but that gives me time to contemplate. Am I sure? Do I really want to do this?
Read MoreThe Sunday after Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel called me to say that, by law, they could not keep her ashes any longer, I marched into parish office of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and demanded of the receptionist, “How does one become Catholic?” I was directed to a Filipino woman, a parishioner-catechist, who smirked at me with detached affection, just like my mother used to. She told me her name was Grace, to which I replied, “well, that’s a good sign.”
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 MoreI sat on the floor in Medusa’s interview room, taking the submissive posture my coworker had shown me a few hours earlier: kneeling with my legs spread apart, hands on my thighs, palms turned upward. I was dressed in a tiny plaid skirt no actual schoolgirl would wear, a white crop top, and a pink dog collar. When I’d interviewed for the position of “professional submissive” a week earlier, the manager had emphasized that submissives must wear collars at all times, and I didn’t have the money or courage to step into a fetish store and buy a real one. So here I was in a scratchy, cheap band of fabric with a bulky plastic buckle, its weight around my neck a reminder that I didn’t belong here.
Read MoreIt’s day thirteen of my Coronavirus quarantine, I got up at eleven, drank two mug fulls of espresso, and I’m sitting in my childhood room in Montecchio, Italy, writing in a little black notebook, blank except for a handful of pages. The notes are a few years old and they are all about him—they are embarrassingly titled “My You”—but most importantly they are about her, the girl who was me, the girl who didn’t think she would survive heartbreak, humiliation and abandonment.
Read MoreShe was dead before I met her so I’m not sure how much of our meeting I should believe. I was at the deli counter at Kroger when she found me, far away at the crossroads of Main and Court streets in Luray, Virginia, at what used to be the second stoplight in town. She introduced herself as Rosebud (which should have been my first clue), and she winked as she said, but you can call me Rosie, and I knew right then and there that I’d believe anything she had to say.
Read MoreThat morning, I’m driving home from a doctor’s checkup in the next town over, nose of the car pointed east, toward the ridge of the Oakland hills, its craggy hillside densely studded with houses and thickets of trees. The wind is blowing from the wrong direction, gusting in from the hot, interior valley instead of the sea, forcing me to pull the steering wheel to the left every few seconds, correcting my course. It is one of those weather days in California, critical fire danger, when our bodies intuitively thread themselves a bit tighter.
Read MoreDear Catherine,
You are a girl. You’re proud of that. You’ve always loved attention, whether your modesty shows or not. You love showing off your talents, presenting yourself well, feeling beautiful, and having friends and family around to support you. As you get older, you will find things start to change.
Read MoreStomping into my room, I walked into my closet, bigger than most of my apartment, determined. In the back of the closet sat a pair of black and white Nikes. Furious, I grabbed the cross trainers from the shelf in which they were perched, plopped to the floor, untied the knots like I was an experienced Girl Scout and shoved my left foot, then my right into the shoes. Pulling myself off the floor, I continued thudding all the way to the kitchen, grabbed my keys and barged open the front door like it was an emergency. Practically running to my car, I was more than ready.
Read MoreI grew up a devout Catholic. My faith and the pursuit of knowledge—of Truth—meant everything to me. I wanted to know, so I threw myself into everything—prayer, reading the Bible—all in the pursuit of Truth. I had a vision of St. Francis of Assisi showing me around heaven and it brought me to tears. This was my Path. Then, the moment after the Bishop confirmed me in my Faith, a voice rolled through me, shaking me to my core: “This is not your way, go find your way!”
Read MoreLast month, I spent an evening partying with a colleague — it ended with me crying to him at my apartment and telling him about every single traumatic experience I’ve had in my life. I have known him for four months only and I work on time-sensitive productions with him every single day at the office.
Read MoreGenesis. Humpty Dumpty. Harry Potter. The tale begins with a rupture: the exile from Eden, the irreparable fracture, the lightning-shaped scar. A jagged seam from which the story spills.
Read MoreOne cold winter morning I’m out in the field, surrounded by grassy-breathed sheep, checking tension on the barbed wire fence. My mobile buzzes in my pocket, frozen fingers fumbling and numb. “There’s this boy,” they announce. I check the calendar: nine months of paper-based gestation.
Read MoreThe internet has made and destroyed me in equal measure.
Picture this: I'm eleven years old, and we've just gotten our first family computer. I was some months into secondary school, having spent the first few months working from a local library whilst my mum read magazines in a corner. It was clear very early on, the things I'd explore on the internet. Yes, you've guessed it. My future.
Read MoreI can’t blame Sister Rose of Lima. She had no idea how ferocious I was at seventeen. Raised to slap, punch, pinch, and sit on top of my siblings when necessary, I had a working class right hook and the grin of a junkyard dog.
Read MoreThick. Big boned. Fluffy. Curvy. Let’s be real, you mean fat. Go ahead…you can say it…FAT! It’s the three letter F word that people only say in whispered tones behind my back. This is me, a fat girl, officially giving you permission to say it. Because guess what? Fat is an adjective, but it’s also a noun. It’s a thing I have a lot of, but it’s not the only thing that defines me.
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