“‘This is Diana—our family dropout,’ my mother said for the fifteenth Thanksgiving in a row, but when my sister’s new husband reached across the table to shake my hand, his grip locked, his face went still, and the room forgot how to laugh before he said the two words nobody there was prepared to hear”

not require you to decide it was acceptable. It just means you’ve stopped spending energy on being confused by it.

That particular energy can be redirected.

It turns out there are better uses for it.

“Are you proud of what you’ve done?” she asked.

I held the question for a moment before I answered, because it deserved to be held. Not because I was unsure.continue reading …