Tag: relationships

Robert Lopez examines what it means to be an assimilated American from Puerto Rico, and what was gained and lost in the process.

After Jay Deitcher sits silent as his wife is verbally assaulted by his father’s racist friend, he grapples with the ways his family has been muted by trauma.

After the death of her dog, Katie Gutierrez grapples with the ripple effects of her decisions — and how to live with uncertainty as a mother.

In the wake of childbirth and postpartum complications affecting her mental health and her marriage, Ukamaka Olisakwe picks herself up and starts over — in grad school.

Alyson Pomerantz reframes her understanding of illness when an allergic reaction turns out to be something else.

From straightening her teeth to finding her true love, Summer Block has reached the milestones in her life later than most.

Melissa Berman recalls what was said, and not said, between her and her beloved aunt as they approached her final year.

How does receiving a donated organ affect a person’s sense of self? Caitlin Dwyer explores the lives of organ donor recipients and their intimate relationships with donor families.

When her 13-year-old daughter finds love a stone’s throw away, Lisa A. Phillips confronts the inevitability of first heartbreak.

Joy Notoma grapples with saying goodbye to friends before a move, the complicated grief of shunning, and the way one parting can be a painful reminder of so many others.

On the profound loneliness of female desire in Lisa Taddeo’s “Three Women.”

What kinds of relationships exist between humans and animals, and what well-intentioned actions from humans bring harm?

A late bloomer as far as relationships go, my first encounter with heartbreak came from the track. It was junior year. The district meet: all big Texas sky and girls next to me adjusting hair ties and heat waves shimmering ahead. At that point in my life, I had devoted myself entirely to running. I […]

Brick had gotten a new jaw, nose, and cheekbones from a surgeon in California, costing him around $30,000, and still he was furious at women and the world.

As she prepares to leave the home she shared with her ex, Marlene Adelstein finds herself fixated on the husk of a nest hanging in the yard.

Nancy Jainchill recalls a ’70s sexcapade that helped her make (one month’s) rent, and began her exploration into women’s pleasure and sexual parity.

Matthew Salesses considers the impact of his wife’s passing, and other factors, on his experience as a human passing through the fourth dimension.

Hoping to reconnect to their love for the iconic musician, Kevin Sampsell and an old girlfriend go to hear his best known band play without him.

Never eat pot chocolate on a third date, and other lessons about love.

A BDSM relationship gone wrong helped Britni de la Cretaz find God.

Their mothers were secrets, right up until their deaths.

Golden Age antiheroes and the nasty women who humanized them.

Black women take power where they can find it, and sometimes that’s in a pot of hot, skin-searing grits.

My on-again, off-again love affair with Engelbert Humperdinck.

A declaration of dependence, excerpted from Briallen Hopper’s new essay collection.

In a tiny, remote Utah town, Lavinia Spalding learns the difference between longing and belonging.

Kira Martin struggles through her connection – both emotional and physical – with her troubled and destructive son.

In the desert at Burning Man, Joanne Solomon dissects the implicit transaction that defines her cross-cultural love affair.

Jennifer Chong Schneider considers what it is to be Asian, maligned, and fetishized in dating — and questions her own desire when she dates someone of her own ethnicity for the first time.

Yvonne Conza wrestles with the complexities of estrangement from her dying — complicated — dad.