A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

I almost always enjoy finding out that someone reads my posts. We are social creatures and it's not enough to just call out into the darkness; part of the pleasure comes in knowing someone out there has understood and answered back. I write about my experiences with anxiety and mental health care -- including medication -- because I am living them. But also because I believe strongly that we can't de-stigmatize mental health issues if no one who has them is ever willing to out herself.  I write about my experiences as a parent -- and a child. I write about my experiences with race, gender, economic class, status, religion, hierarchy, and social norms because it is only through thinking and writing about the world that I ever understand even a small slice of it -- and my relationship to it. I write about politics and policy because these are the intellectual pursuits that fire me. If there's one moment to sum up my adult life it's of my 21-year-old self wandering...

I don't expect any member of the working poor to cry for me. I'm a white collar worker with a job that pays better than minimum wage, with a reliable schedule, with paid sick leave and vacation, with the ability to leave early for school conferences when necessary, with a job that isn't physically demanding and still leaves me some number of evenings and weekends to run a microbusiness. I have parents and family members who can (and do) help me instead of the other way around . In comparison to the millions of people in this country who are being crushed by our Dickensian society, I'm lucky. I'm trying to temper my self-pity today by reminding myself of that. But then I think: that says more about the current state of society than about my sense of claustrophobia.   ++++ I haven't grown up. I don't mean that as some kind of humble brag, the way people do. I mean I feel the deep and burning resentment of youth at not having three months of summer vaca...