I don’t know how to ask for leave from my job. I tell myself that I can’t afford to take unpaid time off anyway. The truth is that I have always been able to work, and now I learn that grief is no hindrance to my productivity. I bank on this, even feel a kind of twisted pride in it. It doesn’t matter to me whether I take care of myself, because I do not deserve the care. All my parents wanted was to spend more time with us, to see us more than once a year or every other year, and I never found a way to make it happen, and now my father is dead. When other people—my husband, my friends—try to tell me that I am not at fault, I barely hear them. Punishing myself, keeping myself in as much pain as possible, seems like something a good daughter should do if it is too late for her to do anything else.
There is a flurry of activity in the run-up to the publication of my first book. My publisher sends me to conferences, schedules readings and interviews. I am grateful, and frankly surprised, to be getting any attention at all, and so of course I tell everyone that I am more than ready to do my part, to help the book succeed. I know how important it is to my career, and I feel enormous pressure not to let down any of the people who are working so hard on it. I want it to have a fighting chance, too, because it is a book in which my father still lives.
When I stop working, it’s not to rest but to head to a soccer game or swimming lesson, or plan a Girl Scout meeting, or chaperone a school field trip. I treat myself like a machine, which makes it easy for the people I work and volunteer with to see and treat me that way too. “It’s been hard,” I say with a shrug, when asked how I’m doing, “but I’m hanging in there.” One day, my older child calls me out on my usual choice of words.
Esta historia es de la edición April 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) de Time.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) de Time.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Rashida Jones The multihyphenate creator on her new dark comedy Sunny, the complexity of grief, and whether a robot can find its motivation
In Sunny, you play an American woman in Kyoto, reluctantly bonding with a \"homebot\" gifted to her by her husband's company after he and their son disappear following a plane crash. What about grief were you hoping to explore in this story?
House of the Dragon's song of grief and guilt
\"THERE IS NO WAR SO HATEFUL TO THE GODS AS A WAR between kin,\" a wise character observes in the second season of HBO's House of the Dragon.
Maika Monroe is giving evil a run for its money
LIKE A SHAPE-SHIFTING SPECTER LURKING just out of frame, the title of \"scream queen\" has been trailing in Maika Monroe's wake since her star-making turn in the 2015 breakout horror hit It Follows.
Mia Goth prefers to live on the edge
IT'S ONE OF THE MOST INDELIBLE IMAGES IN recent cinema: \"Please, I'm a star!\" wails the title character of Ti West's 2022 cult horror film, Pearl, after she's been rejected for a role at an audition.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BREAKING
The sport of breaking-competitive breakdancing will make its Olympic debut in Paris.
HOW SIMONE BILES CHANGED GYMNASTICS
THERE ARE TWO MAIN FEATURES ANY ATHLETE EARNING the Greatest of All Time title needs to possess-longevity and ability.
THE POLITICS OF PARIS
WHEN FRENCH HISTORIAN PIERRE DE COUBERTIN founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the governing body of the modern Olympic Games, in the late 19th century, he billed the competition as a peace movement that could bring the world together through sport.
The growing evidence that even heading into this year's election― Americans are less divided than you may think
IN JANUARY 2021, IN THE TURBULENT wake of the last presidential contest, a former professor named Todd Rose asked some 2,000 people a question.
Monument removals and revolutionaries
Four years ago, amid reinvigorated public debate about historical monuments, statues began coming down across the country.
The D.C. Brief
LOUISIANA GOVERNOR JEFF LANDRY knew the score when he signed into law a requirement that every classroom in his state-from kindergartens to college chemistry labs-must post a copy of the Ten Commandments.