On Amma, Queerness, & Being Out of Her Reach
By Suma Cheru '18
Content warning: Parent death
I often wonder whether my deceased mother would support or reject my queerness.
Read MoreSo I Head You Were Palestinian
By Lanie Najjab '18
Content warning: anti-Palestinian sentiments
One day after school, a boy I’d spoken perhaps three words to cornered me by my band locker. “So I heard you were Palestinian,” he said.
He then proceeded to tell me that I was a liar. “No one is from Palestine,” he said. “It doesn’t exist, and it never existed. No one lived there before the creation of Israel.”
Read MoreComma
By Jane Vaughan '18
Content warning: description of judgmental attitudes about chronic illness
First, it came for my lungs, delicate balloons swelling and emptying purposefully, a whoosh of air spreading throughout my body. It attacked the fine threads of my airways. Lungs rattling, raspy air forcing its way through, trying to extract a full, clean breath. My chest constricts tightly.
Read MoreWaking Up
By Anonymous
Content warning: depression, suicide, bipolar, anxiety, physical abuse
I’ve always struggled with getting out of bed. This is usually a result of lack of sleep the night before, but more recently, I know that hasn’t been the case. I’m getting at least seven or eight hours of sleep every night to try to combat the problem. I pray before I go to bed that I’ll wake up in the morning—I ask God to help me, just to nudge my feet because I know I don’t have the strength or mental capacity to do this on my own. I set multiple alarms in the morning just to make sure I will hear the ring. I’m not sleep deprived, so what the hell is wrong with me? “Laziness” is the only diagnosis I can fathom. But I’m not lazy.
Read MoreOn Identity and Politics
By Misia Lerska '20
In 1971’s Harold and Maude, Maude tells Harold that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are unique, but who allow themselves to be treated as part of a generalized group. Recently, I’ve noticed that Wellesley’s culture has turned us all into categories. You are defined by a single characteristic—White, Black, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ, straight, progressive, conservative, white moderate, libertarian, Marxist, capitalist, kind, mean, good, or bad—instead of being a multidimensional, complex individual.
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Chidi Anagonye
By Francesca Gazzolo '20
WARNING: Spoilers for The Good Place.
In all my time on this good green Earth, I have never found someone like you. My two decades of media consumption have led me to Hermione Grangers, Scout Finches, Jane Eyres, Kurt Hummels, Willow Rosenbergs, Ygrittes, Eowyns, Ben Wyatts, and Pam Beeslys—a vast array of colorful characters who are wonderfully and lovingly crafted, like me in some ways and so very different in others. But you, Chidi, are something else.
Read MoreVirginia's Curse
By Samantha English '19
Don’t—no matter what anyone tells you—go to St. Ives in a snowstorm.
Read MoreWhen Chickens Come Home to Roost
By Olivia Funderburg '18
Content warning: racist hate speech
Nantucket is a tiny island off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts. Only one hundred square miles, the island is home to about ten thousand people year-round, and thousands more who flock there in the summer. It’s a place where everyone knows everyone, a place you don’t want to leave, a place you move back to when it’s time to raise your kids. A safe haven. But on the morning of March 11th, 2018, it was no longer such a friendly place.
Read MoreA Sim(ulated) Escape
By Emy Urban '18
Content warning: suicide
It was exhilarating to have complete control over Sebastian, whose life was always perfectly in order, his “mood meter” always full. At the times when I was most stressed, I would return to my little world of The Sims, half-jokingly telling my friends, “If I can’t have my life together, at least Sebastian can."
Read MoreKeeping the Faith
By Anonymous
Content warning: mention of rape and genocide
When people ask me about my faith, they often expect a word. I have a lot of words.
Read MoreThe Limbo Rock: Bending the Definition of Success
By Sarah Wong '20
I started my first year at Wellesley as an eager Wendy (yeah, I was totally a Wendy), unable to conceptualize the immense volume of academic knowledge I expected to learn. Over the past thirty-six months, I have learned more than I could have ever imagined, although it hasn’t been what I initially set out to discover.
Read MoreAchieving Inclusivity
By Anjali Benjamin-Webb '18
I recently gave a speech at Wellesley’s Town Hall on “Inclusive Excellence.” My demands seemed to resonate with many, but were likely only heard by those of us who need institutional change the most.
Read MoreOur Bodies Are Political
By Anonymous
Content warning: ableism, fatphobia
I’m twenty-one years old, a senior in grade level only, and I need to get a cane.
Read More"Privilege" List
by Anonymous
Content warning: Islamophobia, racism
This semester, my WGST professor asked us to create a list of our privileges. Instead, I decided to make a list of the privileges I was never afforded as a Muslim-American. The following is my “privilege” list.
Read MoreA Hero I Can Believe In
By Anonymous
Content warning: description of depressive episode
Spoiler alert: you should probably watch Black Panther before reading this.
I wasn’t prepared for Black Panther. It gave me something new to believe in.
This is not an origin story, and it’s not a typical superhero story. The Black Panther isn’t tasked with saving the world. The film is full of difficult questions and is unapologetically black. Ryan Coogler shows off blackness in all its complexity—as a diaspora.
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