I hid behind instruments, computers, Whitney’s voice, Prince’s guitar. I sat in front of my computer surrounded by cassettes, illegally downloading songs, awkwardly whispering “I love you more than I know how to explain and I’m scared so here’s a mixtape I made you.”

“Selfishly, I’m worried about what will happen if I say out loud that I’m uncomfortable with all this God, if I let my brain run its anxious course. If my atheist, queer, bipolar self comes to choir with me in all its unkempt glory, will I lose my safest place?”

“We’re in Lancaster County at Erin’s family’s house, surrounded by plastic Bible quiz trophies adorned with gold crosses and family portraits taken at national parks. My bewildered partner comes to me, face slack, and tells me I need to call my mother.”

I was only pregnant for seven and a half weeks before my miscarriage. There was no body, no breath; there was no measurable part of a lifetime spent together. I’d only known there was life inside my body for three and half weeks, and yet the experience seems to still have a heartbeat.

“Every day since my father died has been at least a little fucked up. There is no such thing as a non-fucked up day when you are a Daddy’s girl without a father.”

“I made a choice about how I would look, and didn’t realize until I’d done it how unprecedented that was.”

It’s a boy, until and unless he tells us otherwise, I thought. It’s a boy who will be raised without gender roles. It’s a boy who will be defined by their heart and mind, not by the organs that happen to be between their legs. It’s a boy who will be loved wholly, deeply, and completely by the two women who created him.