It's Bad For Your Brain Not To

You Can’t Know, Sweetie, Because You’ve Never Had A Baby Become A Brilliant Young Reader With A Side Interest In Horrible Television Shows, But The Joy You Bring Us Is So Much Greater Than The Sadness We Feel About Your Illness.

I Find It Really Offensive When People Say That The Emotional Experiences Of Teenagers Are Less Real Or Less Important Than Those Of Adults. I Am An Adult, And I Used To Be A Teenager, And So I Can Tell You With Some Authority That My Feelings Then Were As Real As My Feelings Are Now.

"nothing Ever Happens Like You Imagine It Will," She Says. The Sky Is Like A Monochromatic Contemporary Painting, Drawing Me In With Its Illusion Of Depth, Pulling Me Up. "yeah, That's True," I Say. But Then After I Think About It For A Second, I Add, "but Then Again, If You Don't Imagine, Nothing Ever Happens At All."

And In My Classes, I Will Talk Most Of The Time, And You Will Listen Most Of The Time. Because You May Be Smart, But I've Been Smart Longer.

I Wanted To, You Know, Get My Story Out In The World, Which, It Turns Out, Is A Very Misguided Notion.