Anonymous

If you go, I’ll have to pick up all the dog poop. I will have to take out the trash. I will have to sleep alone.

I lit-up, inhaled, and slowly released the sweet smoke. It was beautiful and relaxing until I was interrupted with these, dreaded, words: “MOM?! Are you smoking?”

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about personal style and fashion until I started teaching elementary school. I had more fashion lessons this year than a makeover-show contestant, courtesy of 6-year-old girls.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

I often think about the people in my hometown whose lives were ruined because they live in the “wrong” state. That same stigma causes me to feel horrible after I smoke.

What do you do when you have no choice on how you get to work?

I never imagined myself being anyone’s wife so I grieved for my single life when I got married. I began to secretly long for the life I’d left behind.

I was married to my own child for 21 years. I thought I was marrying my high school sweetheart, but I was actually becoming my husband's mother.

I don't recall meeting my first love. It seems he was always with me.

Our first IUI happened, and I can describe it as “OH ALL THE SWEARING THIS HURTS SO MUCH WHY IS THIS TERRIBLE THING HAPPENING.” It turns out that I have a scarred cervix, which requires that it be manually opened in order to put in the catheter.