Addie, please." More tears dripped down her cheeks. "Don't be so hard." "Oh, please," I muttered...and that was as far as I got. 'You broke my heart' were the words that had risen to my mouth, but I couldn't say them. That was what you said to a boyfriend, a lover, not your best friend. She'd laugh. And I'd had enough of being laughed at. I'd worked hard to get to a place where it didn't happen anymore, where I didn't move through life like a walking target, where it was just me and my paints and brushes and my big empty bed every night. "You weren't a good friend," I said instead.

I remember things like that...A lifetimes accredidation of unkindness, all of those little longering hurts that I carried around like stones sewn into my pockets.

He loved me. He loved me, but he doesn't love me anymore, and it's not the end of the world.

When I was five I learned to read. Books were a miracle to me - white pages, black ink, and new worlds and different friends in each one. To this day, I relish the feeling of cracking a binding for the first time, the anticipation of where I'll go and whom I'll meet inside.

If there had been an exercise I'd liked, would I have gotten this big in the first place?

I have these "pinch me" moments when I realize I got to be the thing I wanted to be growing up. I'm right where I belong.

There are a lot of women like me in the world, and we rarely get to see ourselves.