05/29/2026
Let's close out the month of May with this excerpt from Diane Nguyen.
Viewing Windows (Excerpt)
I’ve always imagined myself as having a daughter. Maybe this is why. Or perhaps it’s simply vicarious, as if to reclaim some semblance of a girlhood that is lost to me. The other reasons I can’t discern; only acknowledge the symptoms. A slight cerebral envy I have when I see families out. That yearning which undulates beneath my consciousness, the ticking of the proverbial clock.
In my youth I never had an inkling of having children. I’m not sure when the change happened. Maybe it was the change in hormones, now settled on stable levels. The progesterone and the estrogen. Or maybe it’s just the process of letting go of the person I thought I had an obligation to be. But my womanhood feels truncated, and I’d beg to slow the time to savor.
