Category: smile
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The Thing About First Birthday Parties
They’re for the adults. Evidence: coolers of Coronas over ice, an ice bucket with Chardonnay, potato salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, fruit salad, salad salad. I mean, it’s even acceptable for the birthday girl to sleep through her own party. How’s work? Any plans for vacation? Did you hear about all that flooding? Small talk…
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There Are Things I Need to Tell You
My waiter, he asked how old I was in reference to the round of margaritas for the table of guac lovers, and so I replied, “27.” My friends, they turned to me quickly and corrected, “Ash, you are 28.”
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Traveling back for the strength to come home
They asked me, “What brought you back?” “Just to visit,” I said. “Just to see you.” (Did I need a better reason?) This weekend, I had a few options for reunions: high school, college, or grad school. I nearly vomited at the Facebook invite for a ten-year high school reunion. Somehow reliving those years…
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To the person who broke into my car and tried to steal my new smile
I wrote the draft of this post in a composition notebook that I found from the year 2000 because you stole my laptop and my journals, along with the bible my aunt and uncle gave me for my 18th birthday. I found an old vocabulary quiz in this purple marble notebook with the word…
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On battered & shattered expectations.
Honestly, I sometimes dream about making this blog less hygge. For those living under a rock, hygge is the Danish word for cozy and this funny obsession that many writers and shows have mocked as people have flocked to build a “hygge lifestyle” in an attempt to solve all of their world’s problems. The New Yorker piece called “Is…
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This is the year we will build a new smile.
I don’t like building. I learned this lesson when I helped build a new bathroom in my house. And by “helped” I mean I passed a few tools to my best friend’s dad who will one day reveal his hidden angel wings. He has held my old house together from day one. He loves…
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I don’t deserve to shop ORGANIC at Whole Foods.
“It’s kind of funny,” I said to my coworker. “When I first started grad school, I came home with bags busting of great stuff from Whole Foods, right off my high as a working woman. And then it wasn’t long before I learned how to put in a quarter to use a cart at Aldi’s.” I…
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Here’s why my sickness means I need help getting a new smile.
When I was 16, doctors told me I was sick. Honestly, I felt relieved to receive a diagnosis. After years of poking and prodding, doctors diagnosed me with an autoimmune disorder called Sjögren’s. It took years to figure out because it’s most common for women in their 60s. Today, I am 26 years old. And today –…
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A Letter to Tillie, My Childhood Fairy, Who I Forgot to Thank
Dear Tillie, You forgot to tell me how hard this grown-up thing would be… Fly over to Medium to read the rest of my letter to Tillie…
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The Story of a Pretty Girl.
Dear Grief, I didn’t expect to meet you in the dentist’s chair. “Oh, you’re such a pretty girl,” the fifth, maybe sixth, dentist said. “But those teeth…” Smiles poke my attention now, hitting a nerve with every passing 80-year-old woman with pearly whites. Are they real? Dentures? Crowns? Did it hurt? You wait for me, every day,…
Ashley Fenker 