Posted 2017-05-10.

At night I sat on my couch and sobbed so hard I screamed—on the couch the baby’s father and I had picked out together at a fancy store after I got my first book deal, when we were just becoming friends. When I was young. When I had no idea that all over the city, all over the world, there were people walking around sealed in their own universes of loss, independent solar systems of suffering closed off from the regular world…

For me, like Ariel, it has often been easy to believe subconsciously that my life is destined to turn out well, to be devoid of true calamity or lasting disappointment. Intellectually, of course, that’s obviously ridiculous. But there’s a wide gap between knowing that failure is possible and truly feeling that failure is possible. It’s a great privilege to be allowed to reach adulthood without bridging that gap, but it’s certainly jarring when experiences finally force you across it.

I appreciated Ariel's candid discussion of her life, even if - or because - it doesn’t always paint her in the most flattering light.