Life & Love

Early in my new novel, We Were Never Here, there’s a scene that was hard for me to write—it skates too close to a truth that fills me with anxiety and shame. In it, Emily, a twenty-something woman on vacation in Cambodia, brings a hot South African backpacker back to her hotel room… I discovered

After struggling with infertility for years, my husband and I finally conceived. The moment I gave birth to my son, Eli, was the happiest in my life. He changed my world. My identity had always been shaped by my career—I thought of myself first as a physician and a public health official—but suddenly I thought

Central PressGetty Images The past 16 months have taken so much from all of us: time, loved ones, income, joy, too many restaurants to count. I managed to make it through the worst stretch of the pandemic relatively unscathed, which is to say I only caught a light case of COVID-19, transferred all my friendships

I was once demoted from maid of honor to bridesmaid after taking too long to plan the bride’s bachelorette party. Jessica and I were coworkers at a publishing company where we shared a cubicle wall. We made our long hours bearable by scribbling handwritten notes to each other, which we filled with code names for

At the onset of the pandemic last March, Calgary Brown, then 39, was living in a one-bedroom apartment in East Los Angeles with her roommate and their two cats. The two cooked together, often grocery shopping at the 99-cent store to keep their expenses down. (Brown had taken a pay cut when she moved west

Over the last year, our worlds became small. Instead of planning an exotic escape to Iceland or plotting stops on a cross-country road trip, our travels were limited to walks around the neighborhood—or just from our couch to the kitchen. But as our lives open back up, all we want to do is cash in

Twenty-six years ago, Andrea Dobynes Wagner didn’t pass her preschool vision test. She was later diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of genetic eye disorders that lead to peripheral vision loss and difficulty seeing at night. Growing up legally blind, doctors warned Andrea that she’d never lead a normal life. They recommended she work a

In July 2019, I tasted dal, the South Asian equivalent to chicken soup, for the first time in four years. The red flat oval lentils, eerily similar to the microscopic imagery of the red blood cells that my anemic body lacked, floated in a spiced broth that thickened after cooking for hours in a metal

I nursed my gimlet over the next hour, taking a sip every time he said something racist. Whatever he thought, I wasn’t going to play along, so I trained my eyes to the bottom of my glass as I drank, avoiding his awaiting gaze. This was only the third in-person date I’d been on since

For over a year now, with venues worldwide largely closed due to COVID-19, performers of all kinds have been forced to experiment. A string quartet in Barcelona played for 2,300 potted plants at the Liceu Grande Theatre, while a strip club in Portland experimented with drive-through go-go dancers. Still, unemployment rates for performing artists skyrocketed,

In March 2020, about a month after the South Korean film Parasite won four Oscars, including Best Picture—the first non-English language film to ever earn the Academy’s highest honor—US states began issuing lockdown orders for COVID-19. Shortly after, we began to hear reports of Asians and Asian Americans across the US being beaten, spit on,

On my more hopeful days—when my dad got his first vaccine appointment, when the weather popped up above 50 degrees—I let myself imagine it. I consider the possibility of being maskless on a run, exhaling thoughtlessly the whole way through. I wonder what last night’s takeout might look like plated at a restaurant, surrounded by

For many of us, the last year was as clarifying as it was challenging, with isolation and grief sharpening our focus on what truly matters. The things we thought made up a life were forcibly supplanted by the things that actually do: it became, quite suddenly, deathly important to find joy anywhere—in blossoms that appeared

Before the pandemic, Kristen Wilson, 33, was a reluctant gym-goer whose discomfort in fitness environments caused years of unpleasant experiences. In group classes, she’d push herself to the point of pain, overextending because she didn’t want to look out of place among the workout zealots beside her. “Even yoga, which is supposed to be relaxing,

Carly Leahy went into 2020 with a plan: She’d get married to Charlie, her fiancé of nearly two years, and then down the line the two would try to have children. Instead, the 31-year-old co-founder of the reproductive health company Modern Fertility was met with a global pandemic, an unexpected pregnancy, a cancer diagnosis for

Before her viral essay grappling with the death of her mother and Korean American identity, Michelle Zauner was best known for her work as a musician—she’s released two albums and toured the world with her Philadelphia-based band, Japanese Breakfast. (The band’s third album, Jubilee, is set for release this June.) Her book Crying in H

Mother’s Day has been celebrated for over 100 years now, but it feels especially meaningful after the year we’ve all been through. Now’s the time, as the weather shifts from brisk to balmy, to express your gratitude for the woman who gave you life. And yet: Moms (and grandmas, aunts, wives, cousins, sisters, and friends)

What if you could speed past the endless “How r u”s, bathroom mirror selfies, and interminable texting to get right to the good stuff: A relationship with a decent person who can form complete sentences and seems genuinely interested in more than your tatas. I know what you’re thinking, Is there an app for that?

Over the phone, Vanessa is telling me about her upcoming Sayulita, Mexico vacation. There’d be a house with a pool, another house “in the hills,” a bunch of people, and long, lazy days spent drinking and hanging out. I’m doing my best to actively listen while my 3.5-year-old daughter is jumping on me, gleefully yelling

Once, in the span of a single conversation, a friend nearly two decades older than I am and I realized we were both running out of time. I clearly was not going to have my life “figured out” by age 25 or 30 or whatever the appropriate marker is. While she was grappling with the

Imagine walking into a crowded bar. A crowded bar full of unmasked people, talking and laughing and breathing and spewing aerosol particles into the air without the threat of an airborne virus looming over the room. We should be stoked, right? This no longer feels like a far-off fantasy. The mass tragedy of COVID-19, where

On March 16, a series of shootings within a single hour at three massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia left eight people dead, including six Asian women. At the time this was published, only the names of those killed in the first attack have been released. They include Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Delaina Ashley

When my marriage ended more than a decade ago, all parties assumed my ex and I would adopt the standard-issue divorce package: The kids would stay with me to provide the stability of a primary home, while he got weekend visits and I received child support. That was what the attorneys laid out as the

By winter, “the Millinocket wedding” had basically become shorthand for a “coronavirus superspreader event.” Stories about COVID-19 that ran in local papers were sometimes accompanied by a photo of the Big Moose Inn Cabins & Campground for no other reason than that everyone associated the one with the other. Keirnan Monaghan and Theo Vamvounakis The