Content warning: Death and alcoholism It’s 1:00 a.m. on a Friday night and a Robin is singing outside my window. She startled me out of what I had hoped would be a good night’s rest. The many sounds of night have sidled up to me like a close talker–far away sirens, cars going too fast […]
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“Mommy, I’m a big boy now. I can take a bath by myself,” my eight-year-old son says as he slingshots his Batman underwear into the hamper and dumps a bin of Lego into the tub. I wish I could say out loud — explain to him like I would to a reasonable adult — why this is […]
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Sleep has never come easy for me. My body accepts it with reluctance at best and rebellion at worst. On this particular night I am somewhere in between the two when a sense of unease sidles me. I feel the space around my body tighten and an awareness of a slight pressure between my legs. […]
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First you will have to get married to someone who, when he asks you on bended knee in a 250 square foot apartment in Manhattan surrounded by the sounds of honking horns and a toilet that won’t stop running, you pause. You pause. Even though he stares at you, leans toward you, clutching the receipt […]
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I wake up. The first thing I see through sandy eyes is the light coming in between the blackout curtains. My heart has been on the stair master, but I’m not moving. I open my phone hoping to see what? I don’t know. I need to get up. I bury my mind in videos […]
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I am lying on the floor of my basement in the winter of 1989. It is dark but for the remains of a smoldering log in the fireplace. Cool air seeps through the foundation and between the spaces of the delicate afghan that covers me. My parents aren’t home. It’s only me and Tom, sleeping […]
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I am standing in the grocery store on an ordinary Tuesday in October, list in one hand, phone in the other. Like most people, I do not enjoy grocery shopping, especially since my son is usually with me jumping up and down, begging for every single shrink wrapped toy dangling within his reach. But, today, […]
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It’s mid-July and the thermostat in my teaching trailer reads 85 degrees. Everything I am wearing—skirt, summer camp t-shirt, faded red espadrilles hiding unpainted toenails—is sticking to me and I haven’t even started teaching yet. I need to make a playlist. One that says, “I’m the cool new music teacher.” I lean over to open iTunes […]
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March 23, 1995 New York City 2:25 p.m. At first I tried to push the thick, wooden door of the doctor’s office the way you push any door to exit a building, but it wouldn’t budge, so I turned and gave it a shove with my back and shoulder. It was then that I locked […]
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A few nights ago, I had just turned off the light at the end of a long day and was looking forward to a good night’s sleep when my phone buzzed to let me know I had a Facebook notification. “Suzanne Frey Hawthorne has tagged you in a post.” Why is she tagging me at […]
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Pryvate Parts 