Someone Else's Shoes

by Jojo Moyes

She realizes she is having another imaginary argument

“I think we’re going to do the Maldives this year. You know, before they sink.”

“How many of the decisions you make each day are because you actually want to do something, and how many are to avoid the consequences of not doing it?”

Sometimes Sam feels she has been so conditioned to be useful every minute of every day that there is almost nothing she does in which she is not simultaneously keeping a subconscious tally. Do men hear this constant inner voice, telling them constantly to strive to be better, to be productive, to be useful?

but now it’s as if her eyes have been opened to the myriad ways in which just being female is like being dealt some infinitely crappier hand—a hand nobody else even acknowledges.

We write all sorts of inaccurate stories in our heads.”