Some people think my father was a spy, because of working for that government agency in Vietnam, but he can’t find his car keys, much less keep a national secret.
The lens feels like another person in the room, a person who never speaks or smiles, who only stares without blinking, never looking away.
Most of the streets in Manhattan go in just one direction. Some of the larger crosstown streets and some of the major north – south avenues have two-way traffic, but in general, the odd-numbered streets go west, toward the Hudson River, and the “evens go east,” as Jane, the native New Yorker, taught me.
One thing I learned: starting off with very low standards is a surefire way to ensure they’ll be met.
I couldn’t quite allow myself the freedom to enjoy it when I was so sure I was an impostor.
Like clouds on an overcast day, sometimes we have to face the fact that what happens to us in life isn’t controllable, and if we wait a while, don’t take it personally, and decide to enjoy ourselves anyway, the sky will eventually clear up. It always does. Then, one day, it’ll finally be your turn.
But whatever path you choose, whatever career you decide to go after, the important thing is that you keep finding joy in what you’re doing, especially when the joy isn’t finding you.
Spend some time with just yourself and your thoughts and nothing to do. How else will you learn who you are?
In fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out. I was literally in for just the one day, but I realized I’m happier being out, or better yet, at home on my couch wearing sweatpants, watching as a fan.
Ultimately, everyone who gets close to you is going to see inside your closet on its worst day, and their reaction to that is what will tell you if you’re going to make it or not. You can’t live an entire life secured in by Spanx.
People bloom at different stages of their lives, and often more than once.
KITCHEN TIMER The principle of Kitchen Timer is that every writer deserves a definite and doable way of being and feeling successful every day. To do this, we learn to judge ourselves on behavior rather than content. We set up a goal for ourselves as writers that is easy, measurable, free of anxiety, and, above all, fail-proof, because everyone can sit, and an hour will always pass.
There’s more comedy in failure than in success, and it’s a much more universal language. At the party, the worst jobs also seemed to be the ones everyone felt most proud to have endured. It’s an accomplishment to do something well, but maybe even a bigger one to do something well when you’d really rather not be doing it at all.
In real life, I’ve found progress lives in small and seemingly uneventful accomplishments: the homework you finished, the journal you remembered to write in, the same run you took on the same path as yesterday.
Sometimes we polish an experience to make facts line up more closely with feelings or exaggerate moments to make a better dinner party tale. And sometimes, mercifully, details become blurry over time, maybe because the sharp reality is too painful to carry.
I only wondered and worried about how long it was going to take. “Someday” doesn’t like to tell you when it plans to arrive.
Sometimes, mercifully, without our even asking it to, memory holds hands with fact and helps dull its edges during times when reality is too overwhelming to fully take in a joyous moment, like the birth of a child, or in a darker one, when pain is too great to comprehend, like the loss of a loved one.
It’s very useful to always have a friend who is much older and one who is much younger. The older friend will remind you what there is to look forward to and the younger friend will keep you telling your stories over again so you’ll remember not to forget them.
An older friend will tell you you have plenty of time yet, and a younger friend will make you forget time altogether because when you’re with them you’ll feel, even for a moment, that you’re the exact same age.
My grandmother used to say the only way she knew she wasn’t 18 anymore was when she looked in the mirror, and that makes sense to me now.
Knowing the difference between what matters and what doesn’t is a huge thing.