MY REFLECTIONS AND ARTICLES IN ENGLISH
WHO DO YOU REST FOR?
Sunday, eight-forty in the morning. You wake up without an alarm for the first time all week and, before your eyes are even fully open, your mind has already clocked in. The laundry. The groceries. The electric…
WHO GAVE THIS PROBLEM THE SIZE IT HAS RIGHT NOW?
Something is taking up space in you right now. It doesn’t have to be big. It could be the message that has gone unanswered since yesterday, the one where you read two words on the other end…
HOW MANY PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT YOUR PAIN — AND HOW MANY STAYED?
Have you ever told the heaviest thing in your life to someone who couldn’t tell you your mother’s name? I have. More than once. At a birthday party, to people I’d met two hours earlier, somewhere between…
YOUR COMPANY WANTS TO KNOW WHY YOU STOPPED TAKING PART. HAS IT EVER ASKED WHAT MADE YOU STOP?
A meeting is under way. The manager lays out a problem the team has known about for months and asks if anyone has a suggestion. A few people stare at the screen, others check their phones. One…
WHO VOTES WHEN YOU VOTE?
Sunday, after lunch. Dishes still in the sink, someone dozing in the armchair, and a phone passing from hand to hand until it lands on the couch where you and your brother-in-law are sharing the same stretch…
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TO CONFESS TO BE FREE?
Twenty-two years with the company. Cake in the break room, a speech from the director, a framed card signed by the whole floor. When it’s his turn, he takes the microphone and says thank you. Thank you…
THE FLAWLESS DISCIPLINE OF SOMEONE WHO ALREADY LEFT
She gets in at 7:42. Not 7:40, not 7:45. Seven forty-two, for eleven years now, with a precision that has become a running joke on her floor. Same parking spot, same corner of the desk for her…
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE VERSION OF YOU THAT WORKED?
Every company has one. Every family does too. You know exactly who I mean. You might even be living inside that person. The one who fixes things. First in, last out, picks up the problem nobody wants…
WHY DOES NO ONE FEEL LIKE AN IMPOSTOR IN THE PLACE THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN?
By Marcello de Souza Something happens to people who move house, and almost nobody talks about it. In the first few weeks, at the end of a long day, you get in the car, turn on the…
DO YOU LOVE THE PERSON, OR THE LAST VERSION OF THEM YOU SAW?
You don’t know the person you share a bed with. You know the version of them you stopped updating. The sentence stings. It stung me too, when it showed up on an ordinary Tuesday, halfway through lunch,…
