Big Break

Heartbreak and grief convince Mary she should become a runner. She has never run, which makes the decision ambitious, especially when it includes registering for a half marathon. Diagnosed with a debilitating foot condition, she refuses to be sidelined and continues short runs to support her new identity. That identity ends during an early morning encounter in a park that requires improvisation, concealment, and an exit executed faster than any training run.

Growing Pains

Committed to not repeating her mother’s silence and armed with a five-minute explanation of menstruation, Mary attempts progress. When her daughter reports sexual disappointment and requests a vibrator, Mary agrees. She is then informed that her own device is vintage. Museum vintage. A story about generational correction, delayed competence, and discovering that the upgrade may have been excessive.

Hot Mess

Gaslighting is familiar to most of us, either because we’ve done it or because it’s been done to us or both. Mary traces the discovery of her wife’s infidelity and the slow escalation into surveillance. Proof arrives. So does collapse. Being right doesn’t preserve anything.

Betrayal

The most durable betrayal turns out to be the one directed inward. Mary traces her lifelong habit of saying yes when she means no, inherited from a lineage of women trained to serve without pause or preference. Selflessness is framed as virtue. Exhaustion follows That’s it. No repair. No lesson. Just the pattern.

Denial

After committing to Match and surviving twenty-seven dates, Mary decides the next one will be her last. He wears sandals that reveal far too much and asks an inappropriate question far too soon. She stays for the wine. She stays for the charcuterie. She documents every warning sign internally. Then she stays two more years.

Drama

In Mary’s family, survival required fluency in omission. She learned to lie, misdirect, and withhold information. Her father was not overtly violent. He never raised a hand or his voice. It was his face. His eyes. The look. Years later, behind the wheel and singing along to the Doobie Brothers, Mary forgets she has a relationship with the gas pedal. Her brother knows what happened and says nothing. By morning, a version of events is in place. The garage door disagrees.

Friends

When a friend finishes psychedelic guide training and asks for practice volunteers, Mary says yes before asking any useful questions. She has no idea what she will feel, where she might go, or what parts of herself might surface. What she does know is who she trusts. A story about friendship, consent, and outsourcing control in a room full of witnesses.

Guts

Armed with an adolescent brain and misplaced confidence, Mary investigates the Amsterdam coffee shop menu beyond beverages. The results include twenty-four hours of hallucinations, a public park used as triage, and a friend who keeps her museum plans. A story about poor judgment, chemistry, and the dangers of enthusiasm.

Dazzled

After mastering sex with herself years earlier, Mary is puzzled by how much harder sex with other people turns out to be. She introduces us to the man she hoped to marry, even as the razzle and dazzle stubbornly refuse to show up for her. Instead of speaking, Mary opts for silence. She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, appear demanding, or admit she arrived prepared…with notes.

Baggage

When her daughter asks if she plans to date again, Mary surprises herself with how quickly “fuck no” arrives. Twice married and twice divorced, once to a man and once to a woman, she doesn’t feel deprived. Still, the question lingers. So she offers the audience a thought experiment. What if dating profiles opened with inherited conditions, family histories that do not inspire confidence, and grown children that are still dependent. A story about radical honesty and risk management.

Drive

Therapy becomes a place where Mary practices restraint instead of honesty, even while paying by the hour. Afraid of appearing too damaged to ever become a therapist, she stays silent, cooperative, and fine. She eventually becomes one anyway. A story about the limits of insight and when talking stops being enough.

Adulting

Mary revisits her urgent need to leave home at eighteen and her confusion watching a generation with no such plans. As the parent of Gen Z kids, she witnesses independence being carefully delayed by adults who confuse involvement with protection. Driver’s licenses become optional. Jobs become controversial. A story about parental anxiety, over-management, and raising children who still need reminders to clean the bathroom.

Love Hurts

After her second divorce, Mary’s sister-in-law insists she meet someone new. Reluctantly, she agrees. One relationship begins. Another quickly follows. Introductions are made. Conclusions are drawn. A story about love, projection, and why audiences are very confident right up until they are wrong.

Lessons

There was nothing more taboo in Mary’s family than sex. Sex with self. Sex with others. Even implied sex on television qualified as a situation. Pregnancy arrived without explanation. When questions went unanswered, because nothing was ever discussed, Mary turned to the World Book Encyclopedia and a fair amount of unsupervised research. Alone. Years later, her first therapist asked her one direct question and her education finally began.

Envy

Growing up speaking German and attending German school on Saturdays, Mary learned early what it felt like not to fit in. Even her school lunches betrayed her. While classmates enjoyed chemically engineered Wonder Bread, Mary showed up with charcuterie. Lunch meats no one could pronounce on bread shipped from abroad and sliced at home on an actual bread machine. She had no bargaining power with the sandwich. Dessert was the only item that spoke English and knew how to make friends.

Sweat

In her inaugural Moth appearance, Mary confesses to living with anxiety and demonstrates how the body will testify even when the mouth lies. Her sweat does not negotiate. Enter Bill the painter, a man she hires knowing almost nothing about him. No last name. No address. Background check skipped. A story about anxiety, control, and what happens when the nervous system runs the show.