The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

justing n. the habit of telling yourself that just one tweak could solve all of your problems—if

fygophobia n. the fear that your connections with people will keep dwindling as you get older; that one by one, you’ll all go flying off the merry-go-round in wildly different directions, sailing through various classes and jobs and interests, ultimately landing in far-flung neighborhoods where you’ll hunker down with your families plus a handful o

And if you are lucky enough to feel sad, well, savor it while it lasts—if only because it means that you care about something in this world enough to let it under your skin.

For a moment you’re able to shake off the spell of language and see things as they are, in all their unknowable complexity. This world is far bigger than the handful of places you’ve seen or heard about; your inner experience is far richer than the stories you tell yourself; your loved ones are far deeper than the roles they play in your life; stra

ledsome adj. feeling lonely in a crowd; drifting along in a sea of anonymous faces but unable to communicate with or confide in any of them.

Maybe you’ll never get over the initial shock of existing at all, and will spend your life as a perpetual newcomer, still trying to catch your breath, right until the last.

Sometimes you have no idea what to think about yourself, feeling somehow better than everybody but not good enough for anybody.

You see yourself as you are, with your failures just as clear as your successes. But you see most other people on their terms—only from the side they want you to see, like a statue on a high pedestal, stoic and confident. At first glance, they’ve got everything figured out, with every feature set in stone, exactly as they had intended. They appear

And when she’s alone, she’s someone else entirely, a person you’ll never get a chance to meet.