Anonymous

This support my gender-fluid child receives at school means so much to my family, but the ripple effects of what the children will learn will go far.

Yelling. Throwing things. Name-calling. The only thing that holds me back from calling my teenager’s behavior abuse is that they are my child.

I had grown to learn that fighting=love. I was dead wrong.

Despite our fear of getting caught, the richness of experience, the beauty of the land, and the generosity of the Cuban people made the risk more than worthwhile.

What's more dangerous — meeting people on the Internet or meeting people in real life?

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 wasn’t thankful. I was too negative. I wasn’t doing enough. When I found out my mood swings weren't my fault, that I had bipolar disorder, I cried.

I’ll be the first to admit that a large part of my twenties was spent in a euphoric haze brought on by fairly regular pot smoking. I loved the stuff — and it certainly loved me. I don't feel I ever had a “problem” with it, but I did feel a strong pull to have it in my life.

Women who are nuns do not have intimacy with the opposite sex. Some people never get any. But for me, that was the deal killer. It is like eating potato chips; you can never have just one. Besides, I don't like to watch the news by myself.

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.