It is 10:53 p.m. I should have sent in a draft of this article to my editor hours ago, but here I am: still staring at the blinking cursor, unsure of the words I should write. How am I to articulate all the emotions I’ve felt this past month, all the confusion I’ve experienced? Can […]

To All the Friends I’ve Loved Before, I’m not exactly sure how to begin this letter—just like I’m not exactly sure how or why or even when we became “friends.” Was there ever an aha moment, some sort of benchmark we passed before settling into the safe shelter we now enjoy? Did you each make […]

We were anything but two peas in a pod. First of all, we didn’t like the same things; second of all, we didn’t like each other—at least, that’s how we acted. We would “accidentally” step on each other’s shoes, hide each other’s teddy bears, and maliciously embarrass each other in public (I told our friends […]

I say I’m not a fake, but I’ve often felt like one. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before: “imposter syndrome,” especially common among women (according to research) and especially prevalent at a place like Brown (according to my freshman orientation lectures). But I felt it even before Brown—stiff smiles, midnight tears, my mom’s you […]

I have lived a significant chunk of my life as a careful, oftentimes stuffy perfectionist—getting annoyed when the picture frame is not perfectly aligned with the edge of the wall; writing a sentence only to erase it, write another one and erase that one too; calculating the exact, dollars-and-cents amount to Venmo my friend after […]