Teeth, Love, and Growing Up

On the first day of 2025 it snowed, really snowed, for the first time all winter. All day, snow came down thickly, silently, relentlessly, blanking out the sky into a flat, bright white. I couldn’t keep myself from pressing my face against the window, more snow than I’ve seen in years. It kept snowing on and off for the next week, and I hardly knew what to do with myself – content but also weary, bracing for the cold snap to end, snow exchanged for rain.  So far it hasn’t. While daytime temperatures vary depending on cloud cover, January temperatures after sundown have stayed consistently in the single digits to low teens. When outside, any uncovered skin hurts, and extremities go numb and stiffen within minutes. Most evenings I’m at the ice rink, coaching youth teams (we have two rinks on-site, one inside a typical climate-controlled arena, the other protected from the elements by nothing more than a roof and thin walls on two sides). By the third hour on the outside rink, I’ve su...

My first semester of law school was one of the most isolating experiences of my life. On paper, everything was going fine. Pretty well, even. I didn't have any egregiously bad cold calls, my peers were pretty easy to get along with, and I was actually interested in the course material. By early November, though, I genuinely believed that my failing out of school was not just a possibility but an inevitability.  I thought I was missing something that everyone else had. Despite spending six to eight hours a night carefully briefing cases, I was lost in all of my classes. Nothing was clicking for me the way it seemed to be for my peers. I rarely raised my hand in class, certain I'd be wasting everyone's time if I did. I felt the same way about office hours, so I stopped going. I questioned my place and purpose in law school, especially after some demoralizing talks with career advisors and other mentor figures about my aspirations.  I knew coming in that law school would be ha...

It snowed last night. I sat in my childhood bed, watching the glittering flakes fall underneath the streetlamp outside my window, and I felt at peace. It was quiet; no screeching sirens, no dinging bells from the Green Line. I drifted asleep, thinking about my empty apartment in Boston, where the sounds of ambulances and T cars filled the empty space. Six hours later, I awoke to the muffled hum of a snowplow in my driveway, and I half-asleep smiled with my eyes still closed. I heard this sound almost every winter morning as a kid – and I had forgotten about until it appeared again, a gift. This Christmas, I returned home with a more confused perception of what home really is. In past years, I took my first steps into our house and invariably remarked how “it smells like home!” But this time, I forgot to even notice the smell. I hugged my parents, I filled a glass of water, and I went to bed. My bedroom has always felt like a sanctuary for my introverted tendencies, and it still doe...