Free So Sad Today by Melissa Broder

own. It doesn’t look old yet.
    I feel bad for using the word
old
as synonymous with
bad
. Where did I learn that to look old as a woman is bad? Maybe I learned it, like, everywhere.
    I feel bad that I was more upset when this dude told people I look old, than when I found out he was an alleged rapist. I didn’t even confront him about the rape allegations. I just said,
Thanks for telling people I look old. That was really fucking great to hear.
    I feel bad about my knees. I have MILF-y knees and I don’t even have children. I’m a childless MILF with old knees.
    I feel bad for judging people who have children. Recently I was at the Cheesecake Factory (which is one of my favorite restaurants and I feel bad about that)and I saw this very Cheesecake Factory–looking couple with their baby. I thought,
Oh great, just what we need, another American
. They looked happy. I felt like they were wrong.
    I feel bad about my deeper, underlying reasons for judging people with children. I judge them as a defense mechanism, because I am sad about my motivations for not having kids. I am self-centered and dysmorphic with low self-esteem. I am scared I would give birth to my own childhood self-hatred. I am scared I would give birth with my head in the oven.
    I feel bad that I don’t identify with the purity of babies. I used to think I would just adopt an older child one day—that way I wouldn’t have to do the initial fucking it up. But now I think the only thing I am equipped to deal with less than my own child is someone else’s child.
    I feel bad that when I interact with children I assume they are judging me.
    I feel bad that sometimes I wish to just be struck pregnant. I don’t want to make the decision to get pregnant. If I actively choose to have a child, then the child can look at me and say, “I never asked to be born.” But if I get knocked up, then I can just blame it on “the universe.” This is disempowering, irresponsible, and ignores the reality of abortion. Yet I find it comforting.
    I feel bad about my vagina. The right inner labia islonger than the left inner labia. I swear I can trace this to the time my high school boyfriend fingered me really hard in the car and I wasn’t wet. It hurt, but I didn’t tell him to stop or lick it first, because I didn’t think it mattered that it hurt. I remember the dry right labia getting sort of “caught” in the friction of the fingering. When I went home that night, the right labia looked like a blowfish. It never really unswelled.
    I feel bad that my vagina used to be more pink. As I remember, it was totally pink. Now the inner labia have turned more purple with age. Now, when someone refers to it as my
tight pink pussy
I feel like they’re lying.
    I feel bad that I wax off all my pubes. What kind of artist waxes off all of her pubes? I should at least leave a stripe or triangle on top, and just wax my asshole, inner thighs, and outer labia if I’m going to wax at all. But my problem with leaving the triangle, or a strip, is that during the grow-out phase, my OCD really flares up. Like, if there are two lengths of pubic hair “on the mound” it makes me anxious. I feel like it looks mullet-y.
    I feel bad that my pubic hair isn’t aligned with the current pubic hair trend among porn stars, which is all-bare plus triangle on top. I feel bad that my pubic hair isn’t aligned with the current pubic hair trend among hippie girls, either. My friend who lives in Maine with a bunch of hip, organic homesteader women said that the girls in Maine are waxing. But they leave a big triangleon top to give the illusion of not waxing. To me, these girls are cheating. If you are going to get that organic farm-girl cred, then you should probably earn it by not waxing your pussy at all. Far be it from me to tell another woman what she should do with her pussy. But it just seems a little unfair. They get homesteader cred and a clean butthole? No.
    I feel bad that I’m afraid to