Whatever he says, whatever he does, you need to remember that you are a brilliant, amazing person. You bend over backwards to please that man, and if he doesn't appreciate you, if he doesn't realize how special you are, then you just have to do whatever you need to do to protect your heart.
Read MoreShe came to us as any apocalypse does: slowly at first, and then all at once.
Read MoreWhat if, instead of being diagnosed—being called mentally ill—what if I had been able to receive care for its own sake. To be in distress, to ask for care, to receive it. What if there were space in this world for care.
Read MoreIt occurred to him that a spell to make one’s enemies into idiots via the power of breasts might be immensely helpful. Then again, it might not be a spell. It might have only been the breasts.
Read MoreThe standard of care in orthodontics is thus to instruct the person to wear the retainer forever. This is in line with the general trend of modern medicine to focus on the maintenance of chronic diseases, rather than dealing with their causes.
Read More“Pain isn’t a competition,” I assure him. “There’s always enough to go around.”
Read MoreThe Western funeral home loves the word “dignity.” The largest funeral corporation has even trademarked the word. What dignity translates to, more often than not, is silence, a forced poise, a rigid formality.
Read MoreAnd what was a home but somewhere you wouldn’t have to feel quite so alone.
Read MoreHow to apologize for wanting some word, some story, some beautiful thing for my own?
Read MoreThere is one indisputable way to identify a cult, one characteristic they all share. It is the notion that anyone who does not agree with the group’s beliefs or choices, who expresses concerns, who simply dares to ask questions, is deemed “unsafe.”
Read Morets voice was like the wind, but also like a thousand trees thinking the same thought.
Read MoreA person could work and work and work, and still never “earn” their dues. Sometimes success meant determination… and sometimes, it was just luck.
Read MorePerhaps being too powerful, too unopposed, is a curse in and of itself, leading to boredom and dissipation, and the invention of imaginary enemies whose powers to torment were less limited than those of flesh and blood.
Read More2024 was full of ups and downs, but still read 120 books. Check out all the stats from reading this year and see the best books I read in 2024.
Read MoreThe biggest hits—be they Coca-Cola or Doritos or Kraft’s Velveeta Cheesy Skillets dinner kits—owe their success to formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct overriding single flavor that says to the brain: Enough already!
Read MoreParentified children are often referred to as “old souls” —wise and calm beyond their years. But they can pay for their precocity by harboring a squishy center of insecurity and loneliness, a wound formed in their earliest unsupported years.
Read MoreMonsters and flowers aren’t much different. Sometimes they are hard to tell apart—but a good florist knows what to look for.
Read MoreWhen we read, we take in whole eyefuls of words. We gulp them like water.
Read MoreSometimes, when things are broken, I find they fix themselves if you just pretend that they are fine and give them time.
Read MoreFantasy is a safe space; it is not necessarily what we wish was real. Crucially, in a fantasy we don’t need anyone’s permission other than our own: a fantasy is a deliberate, and usually entirely private, act of both memory and imagination.
Read More
