Choosing Shame
Choosing Shame

I don’t exactly regret it, but still I carry shame about it.

As my tween peers began sprouting breasts, my chest remained boyish, leading to taunts and rejections from those despicable beings known as 13-year-old boys. When my breasts eventually emerged, albeit reluctantly, they never grew to a socially acceptable size. Fitting room ladies repeatedly proffered bras with generously padded cups, conveying without subtlety the message that my barely AA breasts were insufficient as they were.

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Selena Raygoza Comments
Loving Teenage Monsters
Loving Teenage Monsters

It should be illegal to have floppy hair as an eighteen-year-old boy and own a guitar. It can be a violent combination to gaze upon when you’re a girl—add to that a pair of scuffed-up Converses? Forget it, you’re dead on sight. This vision was served up to me like dessert at dusk one day while sitting on the roof of a car, and my life was just about ruined.

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True StoriesGuest Userchildhood, Childhood, memoriesComment
Brave Mom
Brave Mom

It is the wettest, coldest winter you can have without the gift of any snow. We slog through one rainy day after another. My husband is working late, and I know I will crash into bed before he gets home. That means that only conversations I will have today are with people who call me “mom.” I am swallowed up in momming. As I trudge upstairs with another bowl of cereal, and a towel to clean up the first bowl my son knocked over in anger that it was “too milky”, I recall a time when I didn’t feel like a mom at all.

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True StoriesKristina Buschmotherhood, trauma, acceptance, parenting Comment
Hot Flashes
Hot Flashes

He thought I was sexy. Funny. Fun. Interesting. I assumed that growing up in Turkey and studying engineering hadn’t offered him much opportunity to meet lots of women. I felt a bit guilty—but mainly grateful—for that.

He was from a highly educated and sophisticated secular Muslim Turkish family; he’d come to the United States to earn his PhD from MIT. I’m a first-generation born and bred in Brooklyn, New York, American daughter of Orthodox-Jewish European Holocaust survivors on both sides.

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True StoriesGuest Userlove, love story, husband Comments
One Potato, Two Potato
One Potato, Two Potato

In my cupboard I have eighteen cans of jalapeno peppers that cost 11 cents each. There were twenty, but I have eaten two in the last year. I bought them because they were 11 cents each, you see. You never know when you might need jalapenos. I bought the twenty cans of mushrooms at the same time for the same price, but those I ate. Most of them, anyway.

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True StoriesSelena Raygozafamily, history, poverty Comments
True Love, Fairy Tales, and George R.R. Martin
True Love, Fairy Tales, and George R.R. Martin

There I was, doing an assignment for a Bootcamp on confidence, writing a vision of what my world would look like if I had unlimited confidence.

I set out to write a vision of myself as a successful author of an inspiring and hilarious memoir. Between that and my editing income, I’d be doing so well that I could afford to buy a space to build a creative retreat. But when I put my pen to paper—I wrote about love. And instead of feeling empowered, I couldn’t decide if I should roll my eyes, puke, or cry.

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True StoriesGuest Userlove story, love, life lessons Comments
Statistics
Statistics

My twelve-year-old son is conducting research, interviewing as many people as he can at the Hugo’s Supermarket downtown. He’s on a mission and there’s no stopping him. His statistical analysis involves the following variables: person, car driven, and favorite soda. I’m not sure which is the dependent variable, but I’m sure he’ll correlate vehicles with soda type soon. Maybe make a discovery he can sell to Pepsi. That’s his favorite one, after all.

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True StoriesGuest Usermother, Motherhood, children Comments
A Good Guy
A Good Guy

Finn arrives in what is unmistakably his truck, a Toyota pickup smothered in bumper stickers: “Keep Your Laws Off My Body!” “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” “No Coal Exports!” A plastic Buddha rides on the hood, a compass of sorts to guide Finn through hazy adventures. He steps onto the driveway wearing a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt and flashes me a peace sign when I greet him.

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True StoriesJulia NusbaumAbuse, Fear, Women, Storytelling, PrisonComment
Oreo
Oreo

We were all dressed in the checked, green gingham, but it was their bodies that moved expertly to the rhythm. They swayed their hips and shook their behinds, to Tony Matterhorn’s “Dutty Wine.” I watched from the sidelines, with a book in hand. All I could do was tap my feet. It was not in my muscle memory to jive to the steelpan beat. Our outer coating was the same—melanin rich, yet like mismatched puzzle pieces, I did not seem to fit.

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True StoriesGuest Userracism, black women, women Comment
Hugs to Headlocks and Green Algae Guts
Hugs to Headlocks and Green Algae Guts

Despite my vigorous scrubbing, the damn sixty-four ounce, “self-detect container” (manufacturer jargon) looks like it has a thin coat of pond scum coating the clear pitcher. How are pond scum and spirulina different? I wonder. Each time I enter the kitchen, I’m blind to the clean counters and floors. All I can concentrate on is this disgusting Vitamix.

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True StoriesGuest Useraddiction, self care, Self Discovery, mental healthComment
My Sister
My Sister

My sister is in and of and around me always.

My sister, who had more soul and love and passion than anyone else I know.

My sister, who visits me in quiet moments, floating into the space behind my closed eyes.

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True StoriesSelena Raygoza Comment
Call Me a Writer
Call Me a Writer

I’ve done a lot of writerly things for money: reporting, editing, and teaching. I managed to write and teach until I had kids, but parenting was the kiss of doom for balance in my life. Something had to go, and since my spouse was on board, I quit teaching. What little extra time I had, I spent writing. It didn’t pay, but it satisfied a creative need, and it didn’t require a wardrobe. Or parking.

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True StoriesGuest UserSelf Discovery, Writing, writer, mother 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.”

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True StoriesGuest Usercancer, self love, friendship, acceptance, Self Discovery Comment