It strikes me that I need to throw out the dictionary the world gave me about what it means to be a mother, a wife, a person of faith, an artist, and a woman and write my own.

I want to fall in grown-up love. I want risky, true, scary love. I want to learn how to let my body bring me to love with an equal partner. I want that.

But what if I’ve been wrong? What if what’s real is out there, not in here? What if the purpose of life is connection, and what if you can only connect on the surface? Maybe the price of refusing to live in my body is loneliness.

I am either hovering above my life or diving deep beneath it.

Just as an experiment, what if—just for a week—you tried on the hypothesis that Craig is a deeply flawed but good man who loves you and is working hard to keep you? If you decide he’s that man, you might find proof to back it up.

She will continue on.

Pain transforms one woman into two so that she has someone to walk with, someone to sit with her in the dark when everyone else leaves. I am not alone. I have my hurt self, but I also have this representative of me.

I stop reading love stories, and this helps me stop wondering.

I’ll stay lonely for the rest of my life if it means my children have a family.