num_pages: 288
description: Acclaimed essayist and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott presents a charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on her successful lifes to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the listand herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought shed cracked the code: Always be right and youll always be happy. But once shed completed her lifes to-do list (job spouse house babiescheck!) she found that instead of feeling content and successful she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars grueling small talk and sprawling traffic. Shed done everything right but she felt all wrong. Whats the worse failure she wondered: smiling and staying the course or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? In this memoir-in-essays full of spot-on observations about home work and creative life Philpott takes on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood with wit and heart. She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises dont happen just once or only at midlife; reassures us that small recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary; and advises that if youre going to faint you should get low to the ground first. Most of all Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life you dont have to burn it all down and set off on a transcontinental hike (unless you want to of course). You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are who youre not and where you belong. Who among us isnt trying to do that? Like a pep talk from a sister I Miss You When I Blink is the funny poignant and deeply affecting book youll want to share with all your friends as you learn what Philpott has figured out along the way: that multiple things can be true of us at onceand that sometimes doing things wrong is the way to do life right.
language: English
title: I Miss You When I Blink: Essays
publisher: Atria Books