Unconditionally
The narrator finally has enough money to buy the tea set she’s coveted—but at what cost? I should have felt excited, but I didn’t. My mom slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine....
Memoirs
Personal narratives and life experiences
View:
The narrator finally has enough money to buy the tea set she’s coveted—but at what cost?
I should have felt excited, but I didn’t.
My mom slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. I knew that if I did, all of my bottled-up guilt would come pouring out.
“Y’all excited?” she asked me and my brothers.
“Yeah!
Inspired by a conversation with her grandfather, the writer reflects on what makes a meaningful life
Almost eight hundred years ago, when stonemasons and architects were building the beautiful cathedrals of Italy, a traveler walked up to a stonemason, the first in a line of three. He asked the man what he was doing, and the stonemason replied dismally that he was cutting stones.
The writer recalls two different moments when she and her grandparents connected, despite a large cultural and linguistic gap
The door to my grandparents’ house in Queens greets me, worn and grayed. Inside, the familiar setting smells faintly of fruit, maybe the Asian pears my Nainai always sends us home with.
Stuck on a ride at an indoor water park, the narrator panics
“Fine! Let’s just get it over with.”
I let out a sigh as I listlessly dragged my body toward the slide.
It was a cold, unforgiving winter day five years ago. My sister, two friends, and I were at an indoor water park at Great Wolf’s Lodge somewhere in Pennsylvania, voting on which slide should end our little adventure.
The narrator recalls the day she brought her dog, Yoda, home
Screech!!! Our car came to a halt at a traffic light. I thought we were going to a nearby shop to pick out a gift before my birthday. It was exactly Halloween day.
Right now I was wondering where exactly we were going.
A tornado warning disrupts a regular school day
“This is not open book. You have twenty minutes. And . . . begin,” says Mrs. Mulder, her eyes glancing at the clock.
I grip my pencil tightly in my hand, scanning the sheet in front of me. Two pages, front and back, all about grammar and phonics. Right at that exact moment, I swear I can hear about twenty-five inward groans from my classmates.
Bored during nap time, the narrator begins playing with a bean
It was nap time, and the lights were out. I was four years old, and in preschool. As always, I couldn’t sleep. I thought to myself: Why can’t the people who can’t sleep go into a separate room and play?
After a while I felt like I was in a box, and I had to move. As I slowly got up and turned around, I saw a box with beans.
A reflection on the moon and sun
The sun is odd. We need it to survive. If we get too much of it, however, we die, and the use becomes useless. We won’t need it to endure our livelihood if we aren’t keeping our body and soul together in the first place. A friend of mine once said that if she had any power, it would be to look into the sun.
An idyllic evening on a lake sparks newfound clarity in the narrator
Grass enclosed my feet with every step I took. The sky was pigmented blue, newer than my eyes had ever seen before. The paddleboard meandered with me to the sweet, blue lake, so unblemished that, for moments at a time, I could catch sight of my future in it. The sun glistened on my back.
The narrator struggles to manage her jealousy and frustration as her friends begin traveling again during the pandemic
I sat on a rough-hewn leather couch in the living room. Beads of sweat grew on my neck and forehead. It was so hot! Our valiant, warrior fan fought bravely against the heat threatening to overtake it.