Womanhood Diaries, Vol 9: Motherhood Wound
This week, I wrote about my motherhood journey. The pain of it still unstitches me. But this wasn’t a piece only about grief. It was the realization that grief and joy can live in the same house and sleep beside each other every night. I’ve held grief between my knees, let it bleed into my…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 8: Woman on an Island
Every morning for the past four months has started the same way: me alone in my bed, typing my deepest traumas on a laptop—then starting work, hunched over another screen, feeling like a brick is sitting in my stomach. Two screens mirroring tragedies: one from the past, and one that still rises every time I…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 7: The Body Apology
I walk toward the doctor’s office, heart racing, my palms beginning to moisten. I inhale, exhale a few times. Still, I gasp for breath. How much will this cost me? What will be my diagnosis this time? Will I survive what’s happening to my body? I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment after enduring a cycle…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 6: Good Girls Don’t Eat Doughnuts
Most artists imagine their audience as they create. I envision a woman’s fingers gliding across the pages of my book while I write this collection. She is a woman like me—unstitched by life’s trials, then sewn back together by her own hands, pain as her thread. This week, I wrote about desire, learning how to…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 5: Prince Charming Carries a Knife
There was a time when I believed in a savior—Prince Charming, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny. Soon, I learned Santa Claus was a story designed to control my behavior. If I were a “good little girl,” I would get the most presents. Prince Charming—the hero who rescues the helpless woman—was another fabricated tale, packaging love…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 4: The People Who Loved Us and Lied to Us
Every time I return to the page, I shudder. I’ve grappled with how much to say—how much to protect the people I love. And lately, I’ve been sitting with a harder question: By holding back, who am I really protecting—others or myself? Today, I wrote about the first time I left my body. I was…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 3: When Rage Sends You a Text
After writing this week’s essays, I found myself stark raving mad. I was mad about a date I went on last weekend, during which a man scolded me for not giving him more access after knowing me for only a week. I was mad that TSA workers were forced to work without pay. I was mad about…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 2: Trauma is a Squatter
This morning, I wrote about a moment from childhood—the moment I made an unconscious vow: I will never become a wife. It was a memory I hadn’t thought about in years, yet it still stirred something within me. I still have nightmares where doors slam. I catch a glimpse of my eleven-year-old self crying. I…
Womanhood Diaries, Vol. 1: Fleeing the Cage
At 40, I discovered that everything I had learned about womanhood was a lie. In girlhood, I carried these truths like a lunchbox: Good women don’t rage.Good women must sacrifice.Good women must get married to feel complete. I started writing my first essay collection because I had seen these same lies capture the women around…
How to Turn Shame into Your Superpower
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” My mom echoes these words, hoping its markings will make a permanent indentation on my feminist psyche. But as a woman who has crossed the 40-year-old dash line, I’ve been privy to the shame game for a while now. The whole “getting the…
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