The Tell (Oprah's Book Club)

by Amy Griffin

Like so many women, I have been conditioned not to take up too much space.

I pushed myself more. Wasn’t that what it meant to be better? The way pressure makes a diamond, I thought that striving for exceptionalism, no matter how burdensome it felt at times, was a virtue. It was my superpower.

Back then, freedom was a kind of abandon—wild, reckless, unselfconscious. Now I felt free when I could control every detail, from the temperature to the song on the stereo to where I would go next.

But at some point I had come to believe that I was loved not for any inherent worth but because of all my accomplishments. With each new accomplishment came more praise; that praise, I thought, was love. Yet I burned through the praise so quickly: There was never enough to sustain me. I was constantly looking for my next hit of validation. I needed people to affirm that what I was working so hard for was worth it, that I was separate from the crowd.

The same way I always did, the way I still do. Smiling to make a man comfortable.