The Cut - The Suburban Identity Crisis Is Real

In “The Liver,” the series finale of Fleishman Is in Trouble, Toby Fleishman takes a woman off life support. She’s a seemingly dutiful wife and mother who had a rare underlying disease triggered by a wild weekend of drinking in Vegas with her friends, prompting the demise of her liver. In a metaphorical parallel, Fleishman’s old camp pal Libby Epstein is hanging on by a thread to her own idea of life.

When forced to reckon with how, after many thankless years swimming upstream as an underestimated journalist at a men’s magazine, she somehow continued the cycle of self-sacrifice by trading her own friendships, needs, creative desires, and New York City for marriage, family, and the suburbs, Libby has an epiphany: “I was living this life that wasn’t mine anymore and then I was living a life that had never been mine.” After disappearing to “the city” for a few days to avoid her own existential midlife crisis by caring for her friends in theirs, she remembers how inspired she once was in New York, how alive she once felt, and wonders where that feeling went — where she went. She returns to her family in the burbs but is so resented for shirking her wifely and motherly duties for a couple of days that her family treats her like a speed bump, an inconsequential annoyance, as punishment.

At least these guys are enjoying the rain in California. Biden has revealed his new plan for student-debt relief. And for anyone suddenly feeling very passionate about their gas stove, know that the president doesn’t support a ban on them. Remote work has emboldened some employees to move and travel without telling their bosses … but that doesn’t always work out well for them. How state agencies became the best follows. Given the way things are going here on Earth, we shouldn’t be surprised that 2022 was a record year for space launches. In a 24-hour experiment, one New York Times journalist tried to go plastic free. Here’s how it went. And we’ll end with some good news: Abbott Elementary is officially getting a third season!

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