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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When the Weak Show Strength

When the Weak Show Strength

I step outside to enjoy the storm’s reprieve from the scorching August day. Suddenly, a wall of rain advances like an army, the wind its battle cry. Phone in hand, I start to video the drama, but when whole trees hurtle past me like javelins, I run inside and cower in the basement. It’s brief—five minutes, maybe ten. Then, chirping birds signal the army’s retreat and I slink upstairs. The first thing I notice is water streaming down the interior walls under the closed windows, sobbing to release their fear.

True StoriesGuest UserDecember 3, 2020Motherhood, independence, children Comments

Riptide

Riptide

I’m not sure the recommended accompaniment to 20 mg of beta-blockers is a slug of flat white, but it works for now. Stimulation, tranquilization. Push, pull. Like the tide. Like the sea when you watch it from the dunes, the froth sucking in and out.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumDecember 2, 2020mental health, anxiety, beachComment

Quarantine Confession: Every Day We Wait for a Package We Never Ordered

Quarantine Confession: Every Day We Wait for a Package We Never Ordered

Every day we wait outside for a package we never ordered. I use it as a distraction. When I am upstairs finishing an email, an assignment, or another Zoom meeting, I anticipate the screeching: “Help! Stop It!”I know at the bottom of the steps I will find a familiar scene.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumNovember 19, 2020quarantine, COVID-19, childrenComment

Letters to My New No One

Letters to My New No One

“For now, all I want to say is that I’m extremely worried about you. And about Jamie. And I’m saying that because I love you.”

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 18, 2020LGBTQIA, Christian, religionComment

Farewell to the Little Yellow Bug of My Youth

Farewell to the Little Yellow Bug of My Youth

Learning to say goodbye to my first car is also, at least for the moment, about saying goodbye to the city I grew up in and the people and experiences that shaped me.

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 12, 2020Indian, car, grandfatherComment

The Perfectly White Dresser

The Perfectly White Dresser

The tires turned left into the driveway, just as my mind turned right. I never thought that I would have to pull up to another house, or rather facility, with luggage in the back of my car, ready to be unpacked into The Perfectly White Dresser. The Perfectly White Dresser recycled by dozens of girls with one thing in common: a parasite that has driven them far enough into misery that they must stay locked up in its drawers, subdued, away from the harmful society that is primarily to blame for their destructive race to perfection.

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 11, 2020eating disorder, body image, self loveComment

Love Like Mine

Love Like Mine

NOLA Pride Week 2018 was my first large pride event, and I was determined to get comfortable with my androgynous aesthetic ideals. My partner and I planned to meet up with a few of our queer friends and ride the streetcar to the Quarter to attend a fem party at the Coyote Ugly Saloon. Getting dressed was an exhausting undertaking. I fought off a spell of dysphoria triggered by my depression weight loss.

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 5, 2020pride, LGBTQIA, body imageComment

Twelve Ways of Looking Through a Window

Twelve Ways of Looking Through a Window

The word quarantined—when I hear it, I can’t not think of you. You were confined to your room for two years because of your illness, waiting. First for a miracle. Then for my visits, which were never frequent enough. Finally, to die. When you tired of waiting for death, you made death happen, by refusing to eat or drink. You didn’t believe in a god or a heaven, which made this final act even braver.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumNovember 4, 2020quarantine, COVID-19, mother daughterComment

How I Came to Be a Drag Queen Dominatrix

How I Came to Be a Drag Queen Dominatrix

Taking the stage as a drag queen is ultimately what influenced me to dominate in the dungeon. Transformation, among many other facets, is what connects the two. However, I can positively say that I do not change as a person when I embody either archetype; I simply reveal parts of myself that are not always accessible.

True StoriesGuest UserOctober 22, 2020BDSM, drag queen, Self DiscoveryComment

A Personal Take on Pelvic Floor Therapy

A Personal Take on Pelvic Floor Therapy

“You want me to put that where?” was my first response when my pelvic floor therapist handed me a three-inch piece of plastic connected to a cord, which she plugged into a computer. It was a sensor used to measure muscle strength that we were going to use to test out my vagina muscles. “Ohhhh…kay, well here goes nothing.”

True StoriesJulia NusbaumOctober 21, 2020sex, vagina, health, pregnancy, postpartumComment

Detaching (Without Metaphor)

Detaching (Without Metaphor)

The heavy wooden sailboat bobs aimlessly in the crystal coldness of the lake. Once again, the wind that propelled us down the lake two hours before has deserted us for our return trip.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumOctober 15, 2020miscarriage, marriage, sailingComment

My Rat Year

My Rat Year

When I was a teenager, I learned from a Chinese calendar placemat in a restaurant that my birth year made me a rat. I was on a hot date in China Palace with Keith, my then-boyfriend-now-husband, and there it was, plain as day, on the placemat…I even moved the bottle of soy sauce to make sure I was reading it correctly and it was indeed clear: 1984, Rat.

True StoriesGuest UserOctober 14, 2020god, Courage, familyComment

Emptied

Emptied

That late-February day I checked me and the triplets into labor and delivery, it snowed six or seven inches, the world outside our room on the high-risk floor like a green screen, blank and full of possibility. Chad and I paid little attention to it—to its icy chill and constant shower of white—once we were inside the clinical ten-by-ten square room where we’d become parents.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumOctober 8, 2020pregnancy, motherhood, children, birth, self love, marriage Comment

The Joys of Hunger

The Joys of Hunger

I grew up watching my mother and grandmother cook, internalizing how they yellowed the rice, when to taste the broth. I took their lessons with me to college, and charmed my first boyfriend with homemade chicken stews and lasagnas. When I turned twenty-five, the box of wonders in my head tipped over, spilling out erratic energy.

Guest UserOctober 7, 2020Comment

Rising

Rising

We leave behind our new house in America just as the weather turns cooler. An Airbnb on the Malvern Hills, a few miles from the city where I grew up, will be our base for the next three months. The bedroom faces a Victorian graveyard, the tombstones are cracked and sunken. Everything is covered in dead leaves and moss, the lives beneath forgotten.

Guest UserSeptember 30, 2020 Comments

Staring Contest with Death

Staring Contest with Death

When I was younger my mom called me Skinny Minnie. I’m not sure what she meant by this or why she called me it, but I know that I was confused. Even at a young age, I thought it was weird to have a nickname revolving around my weight -- especially because I wasn’t even particularly skinny; I was completely average.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumSeptember 23, 2020eating disorder, Growing up, girlhood, healing, healthComment

Venice Vision

Venice Vision

All the colors I most cherish drifted by as I floated down the Grand Canal. Rich but worn shades of orange, pink, golden yellow and blues meandered by, one after another.

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 17, 2020 Comments

I Am Sweating

I Am Sweating

I’m always sweating. I get on the subway—I’m sweating. I clock in at work—I’m sweating. I’m asking the server where the bathroom is—and woohoo, I’m sweating.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumSeptember 10, 2020feminism, Strong women, Modern Problems, sweat Comments

The Give Back Project

The Give Back Project

Suddenly 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.

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 9, 2020suicide, life and death, Death, friendship, FriendsComment

Notes on Safety

Notes on Safety

You want to return to the womb. Maybe then everything will be quiet and safe again. But of course, you think about the children. The people, all of them, alone in their homes and schools and prisons and countries.

Julia NusbaumSeptember 2, 2020Comment