TikTok and Instagram made it easy for me to pretend my life was a perfect fairy tale, but in fact, my fairy tale life is the one that didn’t happen: elite prep school, Ivy League college, graduate studies abroad, a career in animal science, a nice husband and children. All that disappeared before I had a chance to even imagine it. Now I was trapped inside that Simple Life caricature, this me-but-not-really person who was out in the world living my life.
