THIS IS US
We’ve all been stuck in some way or another
Last summer, my eight-year-old got trapped inside a couch. Under the couch, technically, in its undergirding. It was complicated, the way scenarios involving children often are, especially in the middle of a pandemic.
See, this is a story about a kid in a couch, but it is also an allegory.
It was August, a time when, normally, our family of five would be undertaking epic summer adventures, casting off from Brooklyn to shores unknown. But like everything else — school, sleepovers, birthday and holiday celebrations — summer adventures had been canceled. Both of our attempts to visit my husband’s family…
THIS IS US
On our first overseas trip as a family, our bodies fell apart
When we began dating, Tyler and I did a lot of traveling. We started out small: Our first trip was from Boston to the tip of Cape Cod. Soon we ventured further, to California, to Mexico, to Peru. We broke up once in Key West. But I was too broke to change my ticket, and we got back together before our flight home. We got married in Maine but never took a honeymoon — I was pregnant and vomiting six times a day by then. …
THIS IS US
Playing ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ opened within me a shame that fictional violence had never provoked before
The first time I thought of video game designer Fumito Ueda, I didn’t know his name. I was transitioning to that nebulous space between childhood and adulthood, where you’re both yet neither, where your body’s flooded with hormones and you can’t help but habitually avoid mirrors.
Watching the commercials bisecting Dragon Ball Z on Toonami, I heard a fire burning, a door opening, and a child entering what seemed like a large church. The boy had horns, or a helmet with horns, and a glowing white girl followed him. Then flashes of gameplay: the boy dragging the girl, fighting shadows…
THIS IS US
When walking becomes the destination itself
To the uninitiated, walking is just putting one foot in front of the other. When the destination is the goal, walking is indeed a slow approach and sometimes considered a waste of time. Walking can also be interpreted purely as a form of exercise without the walker having any other expectation.
But “going for a walk” evokes something quite different from “walking.” In “going for a walk” neither destination nor effort need be the prime motivators. Instead, when “going for a walk,” whether it be in the city or country, one takes a voyage into the self that lets the…
This Is Us
When you forgive, you grow
My father was a high-achieving, sharp-looking, charismatic, entertaining guy. He provided well for our family, and I learned a lot from him. He taught me the importance of hard work, paying attention to details, asking for what you want, anticipating what can happen, being a good conversationalist, and being friendly to and respectful of others.
He could also be a short-tempered, controlling, overbearing, critical, and perfectionistic pain in the ass. Like with anyone, overused strengths can become weaknesses. But it didn’t stop there — I heard many racist and misogynist remarks from him throughout my life. …
This Is Us
It can take a long time to decide you are ready to get the help you need
I have a new therapist.
I liked her the first day because she was kind and a little bit older and not a totally silent human being, which is something I look for in a therapist (and is not a given). The second session we got into a small fight, and the third one was fine but imperfect, so the jury is out. In general, it takes me about six sessions with a therapist to warm to them, to click into the thing they have to teach me.
I’ve had a lot of therapists, and some aren’t even memorable. My…
This Is Us
And I’ve got a plan to make it happen
I can’t shake the feeling that no one really cares for me. I worry that everyone I know is just tolerating me until I go away or eventually die. This may or may not be true, but wherever I go, I can’t escape the feeling.
It’s possible that what I’m feeling isn’t completely personal to me. It may just be run-of-the-mill, normalized indifference in a world that has grown increasingly distant and isolated. I can’t really tell.
This Is Us
Our eyes are tired of communicating, and our pixelated faces are so 2020
I must admit something. I have Covid-19-inspired face lust.
We’ve been watched by the walls of our homes since March 2020 and have seen too few real, in-person faces. It’s all been face porn, watching characters on TV as our pets stare on. “Faces” are not the flat, pixelated images of co-workers on Zoom, nor are they the tiny 2D versions of your parents or friends on FaceTime.
I need faces. The full, fleshy cheeks, eyes, noses, and mouths of loved ones — even strangers—are what I want. …
This Is Us
Culture taught me to pursue love, then sex, then marriage — but that formula has never worked for me
I don’t remember the first time I said “I love you” to a partner. I know it was my first boyfriend, but I have no memory of saying it to him. I also have no memory of him saying it to me, though I’m sure he did.
I’m not sure I actually loved him. He pursued me and I surrendered. No one had ever taught me that it was okay to say no to something I didn’t want — not to dating and not to sex. So we dated and somehow, over time, I came to… what? Did I love…
This Is Us
How would it feel to be single for the rest of my life?
What would happen if I’m single for the rest of my life? Is it possible that somehow, I might not meet someone who feels compatible? Is it possible that I might not like someone as much as they like me, or vice versa? That there’s just not someone who would be a good fit?
What would it be like if I lived alone for the rest of my life? Would it become harder for me to be flexible and accommodating of other’s needs? Would I ever get over those moments of panic when I feel a major illness coming on…
Human Parts
A publication from Medium about humanity: yours, mine, and ours.
