Essays

The other day I read somewhere that 43 is the median age in the United States. I turned 43 a couple weeks ago, so this statistic stood out to me — I’m exactly in the middle! Perfectly middle-aged! — but when I Googled the statistic to link to it in this post, all I found… Read more

I first noticed it shortly after Joanie was born. As is typical of the postpartum period, my hair started falling out right when my baby turned four months old. I remembered it when Jackson was a baby, too, and the women in my new moms group all talked about this unpleasant side effect of new… Read more

Me, with my family, on my 40th birthday and on Jackson’s first day of kindergarten. The topic of aging is probably not too far from most of our minds on any given week. How could it not be when we are bombarded with societal messages, from advertisements to doctors’ advice, about getting older and how… Read more

The following essay is a guest post written by Emily Morris, whose previous guest essays can be read here, here,here, and here. I was twenty-five when I went to the no-kill cat shelter in town and met the cat who lived in the office there. He had been there for a year, and the first… Read more