“The Tables Will Turn,” They Said.
If you were raised in the last two or three decades, you probably grew up being told that other people’s opinions don’t matter. You were told that it was important to be yourself and do what you love, and if other people have a problem with it, well that is their problem. When you were a little girl in middle school who wanted to have short hair and long shorts, someone probably told you to express yourself, because your uniqueness would be appreciated later. When you were a teenage guy who would rather go listen to 
musicals than watch a football game, someone probably told you to follow your passions, because it would pay off when you were a famous movie star. And when you just could not seem to fit in, and you found friendship in literary characters and wholeness in solitude, someone probably told you that all those smarts would pay off eventually. Basically, you believed that life would turn out as some great reversal of fates à la Revenge of the Nerds. Continue reading
From my front porch, I can look to the left and see two buildings. The first, just down the street, belongs to a young woman who lives on her own. I have only met her once, when passing out cookies to the neighborhood. After offering her cookies, she cocked one eyebrow, looked at me like I was Anthony Weiner trying to get her Twitter handle, and said, “Why?” I replied that we just wanted to be good neighbors. As her expression softened, she said, “It’s just that this is the first time anyone has done something like this for me since I started living on my own.” 
Life Reconciling 