In some ways, I am grateful for majoring in English in college: analyzing literature helped me understand and articulate nuance. I just don’t, or can’t, apply it to myself. As my mother succumbed to her own mental illness, she’d call me “the bad daughter” and my sister “the good daughter.” Instead of understanding that this is an immaterial distinction, and also just a fucked up thing to say, I internalized it: I am the bad daughter. A bad person. If I am bad, I cannot be good. I wish I was good, that I could be good! 

At the bottom of the stairs is a small gray and yellow grocery store. Even the term “grocery store” might be more generous: it is the size of a gas station, maybe. Immediately upon entering, one comes face to face with a cold-case of green vegetables. A slight turn to the side reveals the rest of the small store and its sometimes-crowded, sometimes-empty shelves.