“‘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”

real and achievable and would make my mother proud and provide everything a reasonable person could want.

I just didn’t want it.

I couldn’t say that yet, not even to myself. But sitting on that porch watching the fireflies, I was beginning to understand that there was a difference between a life you can picture and a life you would choose.

I graduated continue reading …