On awakening out loud

Three years afters starting this thing, I've learned a lot about being a woman in public

Three years ago I started this newsletter in what I can now call an act of desperation. Since then, I have gotten sober, published a radically honest book, mostly quit the adjunct hustle, published a viral story on marital sex for NYT Magazine, and ended a marriage. Some of these are measurable outcomes, professional accomplishments. But all hint at deeply personal awakenings I have had since I started writing here three years ago—awakenings about what it means to live as a woman, in public, during a profoundly anti-woman era.

In the fall of 2021, I had hit a breaking point.