“‘This is Diana—our family dropout,’ my mother said for the fifteenth Thanksgiving in a row, but when my sister’s new husband reached across the table to shake my hand, his grip locked, his face went still, and the room forgot how to laugh before he said the two words nobody there was prepared to hear”

completely unable to act on it yet, while the machinery of other people’s expectations continued to run its course around you.

The coursework was engaging enough. The professors were sharp. I could do this. I had always been able to do what was put in front of me.

That was precisely the problem.

Doing something and wanting it had always looked identical continue reading …