Graffiti we wrote in Prague: “Little Bug loves Jackson with all of her heart, and the same.”
“Not Done With the World”
After five rounds of in vitro fertilization, my wife and I didn’t have the funds to be parents anymore. We cried all the time. Avoided Facebook. Held our dogs too tight. Watched baby elephant videos. To escape the wormhole of grief, we bought tickets to Prague we could barely afford. Our sadness flickered like a ghost. In Old Town, we smiled. Licked the rain from each other’s lips. Kissed on Charles Bridge. Wrote graffiti declaring our love. Held hands on the tram. Ate soup that warmed our bones. We were not done with the world. — Jackson Bliss
Our hockey gear.
“Get Up. It’s O.K.”
In kindergarten, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. “A mother,” I wrote, drawing a prim lace dress and an apron. “That’s not a profession,” my teacher said. I believed her. Twenty years later, motherhood for me descended into madness. Psychiatric illness is a cruel thing, a paralysis. While I was in bed, my young son approached. “Get up,” he said. This would become my mantra, from therapy to rehabilitation. Now, on cool fall mornings, we say it to each other as we practice hockey together. Get up. It’s O.K. I’m right here with you. — Mollie Garnes
Canadian lake and my husband’s boat.
Separate Vacations
He took a boat. I stayed home. Married 41 years, we don’t mind going our separate ways. Later he told me stories about the Canadian lake, a cedar boat, the fish he gently let go. They swam away, their tails flipping him off. I wrote a tiny story about his love of nature. It began: He took a boat. It ended: We are happy when alone together. — Beverly Blasingame
Single bliss.
Netflix, Cake and SNL
For a decade, I’ve watched my former classmates settle into the conventional domestic pattern: husband, wife, baby, house. They look grown up now. They look like their parents. I, however, remain single at 34, pulling all-nighters and eating cake for dinner. I drive an hour for good ramen. I skip town for the weekend. I watch Netflix with impunity. No one is angry about the dishes. Marriage sent my classmates down a steadier path, one that rarely crosses my itinerant course. I do miss them. For me, saying, “Congratulations on your engagement,” is too often another way of saying, “Goodbye.” — Adam Chandler
Texts from my boyfriend a month into our relationship.
Transit Lovers
In a diner far from home, my then-boyfriend broke our silence with a hypothetical: If you had 24 hours to visit a new city, how would you spend your time? I said on public transportation: It’s the best way to learn a place’s cultural, political and physical landscape. My unwavering response was received as naïve, insufficient and small. I have since fallen for a member of the New York Transit Museum who gets fiery about the M.T.A., looks forward to the Coney Island Nostalgia Train and dreams of traveling cross-country via Amtrak. — Madeline Scher
