Life & Love

Tessa Dóniga Johnson We met just before lockdown, sharing a croissant and a walk along the L.A. River. I reveled in how kind and quiet he was, how different from the toxic men I’d chosen in the past. He is the first good man I fell in love with. I fell with my whole heart.

Mari (left) and Laura (right).ANGELLA CHOE Growing up in the 1990s in the Jura region of eastern France, Laura Herbst knew by elementary school that she loved fashion, but she didn’t know where her passion came from. There was almost no social media back then, and she had no knowledge of clothing trends in the

Artwork by Asami Watanabe By the time the medium kicked off the online séance in late 2021, more than 120 people had signed on in hopes of making contact with the dead. One assumes that each had lost someone close to them—a parent, sibling, child—and there was a shared sense of pain, grief, and confusion.

Leah Romero “Who let those dykes in here?” a sorority sister asked, pointing at me and Alissa from across the dining room. Earlier that day, we had become the unwitting targets of a “dyke” rumor that spread like wildfire to the entire sorority. As we shoveled baked spaghetti onto our plates in shame, another sister

One year after the two officially became husband and wife, Jennifer Lopez is commemorating her secret Las Vegas wedding with Ben Affleck with a song. In her fan newsletter, On the JLo, the multi-hyphenate shared lyrics for a song titled “Midnight Trip to Vegas.” The song detailed the stress that comes with planning a big

There’s a special shade of green—somewhere in between a yellowy chartreuse and a loud neon—that hits the trees in Philadelphia each spring and summer. I had never noticed it before, this green that enthusiastically and bossily announces that it is green, but then again, I had never noticed a lot of things before this year,

When I was a kid, I would read Anne of Green Gables voraciously. I was genuinely obsessed with the ideas imparted within the pages of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s book about dreamy friendships, wherein two people were absolutely soulmates. They never had glaring differences, communicated wordlessly without having to ask about past traumas or trying nervously

In ELLE.com’s monthly series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. This month, we spoke to Sarah Paiji Yoo, co-founder and CEO of Blueland, a brand specializing in cleaning products and self-care essentials that aim to eliminate single-use plastics. As a

In February, nearly 10 years after she was first placed in my arms, I instinctively felt something was severely wrong with my French bulldog, Petunia. Every vet I brought her to could find nothing in her tests or blood work that indicated cause for concern, but I knew my pet, and I knew she was

In March 2022, Brianna Kohn felt something was missing. The telltale signs of the pandemic had left everyday city life, but with that, so had most of her close girlfriends, who had moved out of New York in the meantime. The women she would typically call up for a cup of coffee, a walk, or

What if apologies became obsolete? Alternatively, imagine they’re replaced with fruit. For example, a driver hits your dog, and the next day an apple appears on your front porch. A first-grader is reprimanded for kicking sand into the eyes of another child on the playground—he presents his victim with a banana. Step on the back

The summer after ninth grade, I worked as a nanny in The Hamptons. I was actually called a “mother’s helper,” but I can’t say I was much help. The mother had to prompt me, “Any chance you could get out of bed and watch the kids, or at least fold some of these sheets?” I’d

The year is 2013. Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year is “selfie.” People are posting nudes on Tumblr and watching season 2 of Girls. There’s a documentary about Burning Man. The Feminist Porn Awards are still a thing. Lindsay Lohan is shooting The Canyons opposite an adult film star. It was a different time, and

I started dating myself, and I have to be honest, at first it wasn’t easy. Taking myself out wasn’t exactly scary, but it was definitely awkward. We are so busy all the time, so scheduled and constantly connected, that being alone in a restaurant came as a bit of a shock. When I started taking

My heart was racing and my head was faint. Don’t touch me, I thought. This inner voice was a stark wake-up call when I came home from a work trip to Indonesia and recoiled from my husband’s embrace. At the time, I was reeling in sadness and confusion because I was contending with the inner

As a child studying at the School of American Ballet, I supplemented my formal training with open ballet classes all over Manhattan. These studios were populated by a mix of aspiring professional dancers like me as well as grown-ups in their thirties, forties and beyond, who clearly had no hope of going pro. They baffled

“When I think about the future,” Kyana Moghadam, 36, says over plates of lukewarm rigatoni at an overpriced Williamsburg café. “I go blank. There’s just nothing there. It’s a sense of horizonlessness.” She seemed almost surprised by the word. But I knew exactly what she meant. A Bay Area-based multimedia journalist and audio producer, Moghadam

“Congratulations on your engagement!” Over the past few months, I’ve spent my evenings sending out a flurry of emails to what feels like the entirety of the tri-state area wedding industrial complex. In response, nearly everyone—planners, videographers, florists—has answered my admittedly novice inquiries with this same euphoric sentence: “Congratulations on your engagement!” Then, once we

Accountability has always been my biggest hurdle when it comes to exercise. I wish I was the type of person who’s self-motivated and can work out alone, but that’s just not who I am. I was a competitive lacrosse player from childhood through college, but I was never able to stay consistent in my training

Jordan Turpin would argue that Justin Bieber saved her life. The young woman, who is now 22, grew up in the most unusually cruel and isolated of environments—effectively what people mean when they hyperbolize that someone is “living under a rock”—and still felt the impact of Bieber’s world-dominating stardom. It’s the reason she was able

How often do you think about your vagina? Probably not often, until something changes—it smells different, it’s itchy, or it’s drier than usual—or you want or need help in the intimacy department. Widespread and valid concerns about harsh cleansers and douches have led to blanket skepticism about intimate products and uncertainty about what’s safe for

One night in November, when I was 13 years old, my parents took the train to New York City to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They took in a show, went out to dinner, and had the last fully carefree experience of their lives together. When they returned from the trip, my mother was sick. They

The entrepreneurial spirit is distinctive. It’s driven by a combo of ingenuity, solutions-seeking, and—well—drive. You’re the type to identify opportunities and solutions in the market and inherently have the drive and savviness needed to execute. Whether you already have a small biz brewing or 2023 is the year to launch, it’s go time. The idea

The symptoms were intense and unexpected. There was the time I was attending a conference and suddenly became so hot I had to immediately find the nearest bathroom so I could run cold water over my wrists and dry off my sweaty neck and breastbone. And the day I was having lunch with one of