Personal Essay

Personal Essay

By Jennifer Mattern

Sophie, Jen Mattern's daughter, performing a solo. | My Daughter Finds Her Voice

My Daughter Finds Her Voice

Somewhere along the way, she became fearless. Quietly fearless.

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Personal Essay

By Jennifer Mattern

pancakes

A Quiet Goodbye

This is what I have always loved so much about my uncle: he has no trouble being proven wrong from time to time. His ego is not attached to a need to be right. In fact, he often seems to enjoy being proven wrong, perhaps because it means he’s learning something new.

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Personal Essay

By Monica Bielanko

Why I Can Never Order from Chipotle Again

My need to please people in general is a sickness. My need to please service professionals borders on pathology.

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Personal Essay

By Tina Rowley

woman meditating

In Defense of Spirituality (With or Without Religion)

I don’t know where this core meets God or the divine or the big humming nothingness, but I believe it meets it somewhere.

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Personal Essay

By Jennifer Mattern

Girl and Grandfather Covered in Flour | My Father the Introvert: A Photo Essay

My Father, the Introvert: A Photo Essay

This, I realize, is what I have been waiting to see, waiting to capture. My father, no longer holding his breath.

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Personal Essay

By Monica Bielanko

Vintage photo of kids at a birthday party

Children’s Birthday Parties: An Introvert’s Worst Nightmare

All that forced interaction in the name of good parenting creates a constant low-grade panic that ratchets up when the bane of all parent-introverts rears its ugly head: the birthday party.

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Personal Essay

By Jennifer Mattern

people on the crosswalk

Happily Invisible: Why Tokyo Is the Perfect City for an Introvert and Her Camera

Whenever I can slip away to explore, I do—just me, my camera, and the thousands of strangers on the streets of Tokyo. I lose myself happily in crowds, the camera around my neck both a comfort and a buffer zone.

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Personal Essay

By Quinn Cummings

family standing infront of drawing of a house

Life as an Introverted Former Child Star

As we stared at one another, a dozen examples of how normal I wasn’t danced through my head. For example, if I ever mention that a party I attended was “wonderful,” you can safely assume the hosts had a well‐stocked library where I could hide for most of the evening. If I say the party was “WONDERFUL!”, they also had an affable cat that hid with me.

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Personal Essay

By Kelly Quirino

boy in superhero costume sitting on window ledge

On What to Be

I spent half my day in the Gifted and Talented class. There were maybe ten of us, and at 5 years of age, I was the youngest. We had bunnies, fish, and a ferret named Violet.

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