I’ve been at this for four years and counting. In early 2016, a medical provider ordered me to stop all work, and I was put on extended medical leave without pay. A few months later, my boss and I called it quits. After all, it was my second medical leave in six months. So IContinue reading “Nine Ways to Cope When You’re Stuck Inside”
Tag Archives: friendship
7 Tips When Your Friend Has a Chronic Illness
Maybe this sounds like it should be common sense. People should just know, you say. But what if people weren’t raised well? Like me. What if they’re kind of feral and can be thoughtless and ill-mannered socially? Also me. Or what if someone is only beginning to examine their own ableism and would like to moveContinue reading “7 Tips When Your Friend Has a Chronic Illness”
PiMam
About five months after I moved in, another woman joined us upstairs. PiMam*. She was another relative of the owner, and she too hoped to make a name for herself and earn a profit. The family voted to grant her an equal share in the restaurant’s ownership, and she was given a room towards theContinue reading “PiMam”
Aquaphobia in the Aftermath
The British and Americans have been drowning women for centuries. Officially, the method for this punishment was the ducking stool, and one of its first documented uses was in 1597. The ducking stool was a medieval apparatus derived from the older cucking stool, a means akin to stocks, used to publicly humiliate women who defiedContinue reading “Aquaphobia in the Aftermath”
Joe
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder. Why him? Why do we gather, like moths, around the flame of one life and overlook the garden of lights all around us? Why, when I was sure I wanted to die, did I write to Joe? One afternoon, slumped against my mattress, my legs tucked against theContinue reading “Joe”
The Third Assault
All children are curious about sex. But teenagers are downright thirsty for it. I’m 16, and I may be Mormon, with big glasses and ankle-length skirts and hair down to my waist. But I’m no different. At church, in my Young Women’s class, a teacher asks, “And why should we wait to have sex untilContinue reading “The Third Assault”
The Aftermath
The next memories I can place with any certainty are in the last month of sixth grade. I am with my best friends, Heidi and Christine, girls whose lives hold their own traumas. We have completed our end-of-year projects—my purple rocket with a Lego monkey inside the capsule, books we have written and will presentContinue reading “The Aftermath”
What (Not) to Say to People with Chronic Conditions
“But isn’t there something you can take?” If you have a chronic condition like me, this question camps out on your front porch like a creeper and waits to hop into every visitor’s mouth. “But isn’t there something you can take?” It comes from the best of places, I promise. The people around you just don’tContinue reading “What (Not) to Say to People with Chronic Conditions”
When a City Reminds You of Those You’ve Lost
I had a best friend a few years back. A straight guy. Which maybe should have tipped me off. But I’d known him since middle school. We’d been chummy for many years, and he had gradually become a second brother to me. Year after year, we ambled down Third Avenue in chilly November rain andContinue reading “When a City Reminds You of Those You’ve Lost”
What Friends Are For
Despite what popular sitcoms and rom-coms would have us believe, friends are not resource bases for us to cull from. They are not a bottomless well of empathy and generosity for us to draw on in hard times. And when someone commits to being your friend, there is no clause in the contract that guaranteesContinue reading “What Friends Are For”
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