I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays by acclaimed writer and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott, the modern day reincarnation of Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin all rolled into ones (The Washington Post), about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on a successful lifes to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she had cracked the code: Always be right, and you will always be happy. But once she had completed her lifes to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies check!), 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. She had done everything rights but still 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? Taking on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood, Philpott provides a frank and funny look at what happens when, in the midst of a tidy life, there occur impossible-to-ignore tugs toward creativity, meaning, and the possibility of something more (Southern Living). She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises do not happen just once or only at midlife and reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary. Most of all, in this warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly (Esquire), Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you do not have to burn it all down. You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you&;re not, and where you belong. Who among us is not trying to do that? Be forewarned that you will laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you will want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know (Real Simple).