#iwlmiic

i am a professional holiday girlfriend.

i have great references and highly impressive past work experiences.

i have been featured in 7 family holiday photos: 6 christmases and 1 hanukkah.

specialties include my "famous brownies."

i will:

- do the dishes;

- look through baby photos with your mother;

- have a long list of baby names to suggest for the child we will never have, but your grandmother will pitifully dream about us having before she dies.

i have:

- plenty of clean, respectable dresses;

- drinking games to impress your cousins.

world-class gift giver and wrapper

(it's easier to nail it when you only ever have to give one gift). in one particularly extraordinary history, i made a baby blanket from scratch for a relative who was expecting.

i will never complain about missing my family's festivities for your own, and i will accept contract termination by spring.

i am 5'4", with a perfectly straight smile (dental records included, no history of braces) and i will fill any empty space in your family photo.

It’s all-consuming.

I feel everyone’s emotion like it’s my own.

To carry.

To endure.

To process.

To mourn.

I am alone in this and am angry when no one else relates.

Or cares as deeply.

Or acts like it doesn’t affect them.

But doesn’t it?

Do you not experience everything so viscerally?

Do your shoulders not feel heavy by the weight of the world?

I can’t decide whether this is a blessing or a curse.

a story like mine

from I would leave me if I could

by halsey

for women's day 💜