Manicures

One of my friends told me recently that she started to get regular manicures because she realized she was only getting them for dates and she wanted to have them for herself, too. I thought it was funny that I’ve had the exact opposite reaction; I used to get manicures all the time for dates (Essie’s “Meet Me at the …

What To Ask Yourself When You Feel Stuck

This winter/early spring, as you’ll soon tire of hearing, was verrry stressful. I had a notion that being super-busy would feel energizing and empowering (?), but in the end it was just horrifying (lol). I started to feel anxious about life in general and stuck and even hopeless. I hadn’t realized to what extent the work stress was impacting me …

Emerging Adulthood

I read this article by Dr. Shira Kessler with interest, on emerging adulthood and frum women. I was struck by the sense of pressure felt by emerging adult women in the frum community — to choose a career path, to look put-together all the time, and of course, to get married ASAP. None of this is exactly surprising to any …

We Are All Different

A friend and I were talking about how similarly we feel about certain experiences in shidduchim (what makes us feel stressed, pressured, or judged), and how we have found that other people feel differently. This reminded me of one of Gretchen Rubin’s Secrets of Adulthood: We are mostly alike, but our differences are very important.   I also thought about …

Too Busy

I got a text this week from someone who wanted to discuss a shidduch, and they asked if I was busy. I couldn’t tell if they meant busy as in otherwise occupied at that moment, or busy as in dating someone.   But busy, I am. I recently read a book on optimizing time management for happiness, and I learned …

I Skipped My Cousin’s Wedding and Everyone Survived

Last week my 10-years-younger-than-me cousin got married and I did not attend. The truth is that I didn’t even consider going — I knew it was just not what I needed. A few years ago I would have suffered through the same but somehow with thirty came the freedom to stop caring about what other people think (everyone is too …

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