“It is the weekend Beyoncé releases her “Formation” single and a bad queen has just performed it without breaking a sweat. I am watching the queen and learning that the way not to sweat is to move so little that every move seems like drama. I’ve got the not moving part down, which is how I am here at a club with a roommate whose friends want to meet the Black girl she let live in her house.”

“I was unstable and grieving and more suited for a patient friendship than the dramas of new love. But I loved her and in thirst, I acted unlovingly by climbing into a lap in which I wasn’t welcome. My behavior is the definition of obscene.”

“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.”

“Why some people mean? One income that isn’t a livable wage plus racism will do that to you, and you can’t imagine the rage until you’ve lived it.”

“Instead, I jump back into the mind of the girlish woman I was at 28, the one who didn’t know enough about the consequences for unacceptable motherhood to plunge headfirst into the fire. It has taken me much longer than my mother to see the gift of my own naiveté.”

Dementia used to be called madness, I was told.

“Other people built a gender for me and trusted that I would defend what they built. But what I was handed never made sense.”

“Loving women and loving the land are the two things I told myself I would never do, and somehow, they got all tangled up in each other.”

“Dear Editor: You are cordially invited to have brunch with country music icon Dolly Parton this Sunday, August 7th.”

“I’m going to be a single, poor, gay, mom, and it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be amazing. I mean sure, I might date sometimes, but I don’t need a partner. Partners just get in the way. And what are the odds that I would meet a woman I would want to be with who would also want to have children with me? I can’t even picture it!”

Ah, pregnant beginnings. Literally and figuratively. The first trimester of this rainbow pregnancy (yes, that’s actually the term for a pregnancy after a loss). Is it possible to grieve and hope simultaneously?

“Not being an asshole” to myself meant admitting that my mom’s death and her illness permeate every single part of my being, and always will.

“It’s so easy to yearn and ache for people to fill the space surrounding you, but it’s so difficult to find those who can do so in a way that doesn’t immediately consume all your hard-won oxygen and freedom.”