Tag: short time
How We Became Addicted to Therapy
A few months ago, as I was absent-mindedly mending a pillow, I thought, I should quit therapy. Then I quickly suppressed the heresy. Among many people I know, therapy is like regular exercise or taking vitamin D: something a sensible person does routinely to clear out the system. BetterHelp ran an ad where a woman says she’s ignoring a guy’s texts because he doesn’t see a therapist. “Hard pass,” she explains. “Red flag.” Therapy for many people has no
How Not to Buy a Timeshare
Very early in my first marriage—I’m talking four or five days—I lay on a lounge chair on the white, powdery sand of an island paradise and took stock of my problems. First off, in that short time I’d already managed to lose both a piece of precious heirloom jewelry that my new mother-in-law had given me and also my new husband’s lucky Mets cap, which I’d left at a bar one island over. He’d taken both of these losses
Spiders Might Be Quietly Disappearing
This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine.
Jumping spiders are an obsession for me. But it wasn’t always so.
Although never a spider hater or an arachnophobe, I was pretty ambivalent about them for most of my life. Then I learned about jumping spiders: I’ve reported on their impressive vision (as good as a cat’s in some ways!), their surprising smarts (they make plans!), and the discovery that they have REM-like sleep (and may even dream!). I was hooked.
I
Afghanistan Changed Me – The Atlantic
In January 2009, I flew to Dubai and got my first taste of what I would come to know as the Terminal of Lost Souls. Dubai International Airport was one of the glitziest in the world—enormous and modern and filled with luxury shops and lounges. But that was only Terminals 1 and 3.
Terminal 2 was for the discount carriers flying to South and Central Asia and parts of Africa—places like Uzbekistan, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The passengers were generally
Paul Whelan’s Family Is Still Fighting for His Release
On Friday, December 2, Elizabeth Whelan was at home on Chappaquiddick, off Massachusetts, when she received a text message from a State Department official—a representative from the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs—asking when she might be available for a visit. He had news concerning her youngest brother, Paul.
“I thought, Okay, this is either one of those routine check-ins or something’s up and it’s probably not good news,” Elizabeth told me. Five days later, the
Hernan Diaz: ‘The Generation,’ a Short Story
We’re gathered around Victor’s body. I can’t look at his face and don’t want to look down like the others. Find myself staring at the glass of water on the counter. The nervous little ripples. This is why I know the hum is there, although I can’t hear it. None of us has ever heard the hum, because we were born into it. But the surface of the water, a crumb dancing on the table, or, sometimes, my face trembling
Vladimir Putin: Modern Man – The Atlantic
There is a peculiar modern tendency to describe things we don’t like as belonging to the past. The Taliban are medieval, Donald Trump supporters backward, Brexiteers nostalgic for empire. Under this rubric, Vladimir Putin is a Soviet throwback and the war he may soon start in Ukraine, as John Kerry once remarked, is like some 19th-century skirmish transplanted into the 21st.
It is no doubt a comfort to imagine that these things that do not conform to our ideas
A New Year’s Eve Friend Reunion
Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.
This week she talks with three men whose international group of friends has been having an annual New Year’s Eve reunion party for the past 10 years (except for 2020, when the pandemic prevented it). They discuss the “special sort of alchemy” that took their group from spending just one