For fifteen years of my life, between my first breakup and my last one, I was committed to a nearly opposite belief in sadness as a rarefied state: an affective distillery that could summon the strongest and purest version of me. But walking through Zagreb that week, two and a half years married and two months pregnant, I was not looking for places to smoke and feel lonely, scraping out my insides with unfiltered European cigarettes. I was looking for fresh fruit that might satisfy my sudden and overwhelming cravings: a paper bag of cherries from the outdoor market, or doughnut peaches so ripe
...more

