My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?

Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.

She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.

As for me, I've chosen to follow a simple course: Come clean. And wherever possible, live your life in a way that won't leave you tempted to lie. Failing that, I'd rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for who I am not. So, I tell my story. I write it down. I even publish it. Sometimes this is a humbling experience. Sometimes it's embarrassing. But I haul around no terrible secrets.

I have no doubt that over the years my children will find plenty of things about me to criticize. But something tells me that twenty years from now not one of them will sit on some therapist's couch complaining because their mother didn't spend enough time vacuuming up glitter.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.