I missed my mother.
I missed the chats we had when I was a little girl because those little chats would have led to chats as an adult which is what I really needed with another woman. Before the school year started, I could have chatted with Ruby, maybe even Nicolette. But now who could I trust?
My mother would have told me to be strong when I felt weak. That it was okay to fail so long as you failed gracefully, got back up and went at it again. If she had still been around, I would have told her that was exactly what I'd been doing. But the road to failure was filled with potholes. Sometimes the failures were too consuming. Too toxic.
I remembered second grade when I took the stage during our talent show, and I completely forgot the words to the song I was supposed to sing. I felt my
