Grief shatters. If you let yourself shatter and then you put yourself back together, piece by piece, you wake up one day and realize that you have be… - Glennon Doyle

And what if I demand freedom not because I was "born this way" and "can't help it" but because I can do whatever I choose to do with my love and my body from year to year, moment to moment — because I'm a grown woman who does not need any excuse to live however I want to live and love whomever I want to love?

That's when I stopped looking at Abby and thinking: What is my anger telling me about her? And started asking: What is my anger telling me about me? My anger was delivering a package with one of my root beliefs in it — a belief that was programmed into me during childhood: Resting is laziness, and laziness is disrespect. Worthiness and goodness are earned with hustle.
When Abby rested right in front of me — outside family-designated and approved resting times — she was challenging that root belief. She was activating it, unearthing it, bringing it into the light where I could see it. But unlike my root belief about honesty and fidelity, I didn't like this one. It didn't feel true to me. Because when I looked at Abby relaxing, my anger was almost a bitter yearning.
Must be nice.
Must be nice to rest in the middle of the damn day.
Must be nice to feel worthy of the space you take up on the earth without hustling to earn it every minute.
Must be nice to rest and still feel worthy.
I want to be able to rest and still feel worthy, too.
I didn't want to change Abby. I wanted to change my belief about worthiness.

we all seem to function in the exact same way: We hurt people, and we are hurt by people. We feel left out, envious, not good enough, sick, and tired. We have unrealized dreams and deep regrets. We are certain that we were meant for more and that we don't even deserve what we have. We feel ecstatic and then numb. We wish our parents had done better by us. We wish we could do better by our children. We betray and we are betrayed. We lie and we are lied to. We say good-bye to animals, to places, to people we cannot live without. We are so afraid of dying. Also: of living. We have fallen in love and out of love, and people have fallen in love and out of love with us. We wonder if what happened to us that night will mean we can never be touched again without fear. We live with rage bubbling. We are sweaty, bloated, gassy, oily. We love our children, we long for children, we do not want children. We are at war with our bodies, our minds, our souls. We are at war with one another. We wish we'd said all those things while they were still here. They're still here, and we're still not saying those things. We know we won't. We don't understand ourselves. We don't understand why we hurt those we love. We want to be forgiven. We cannot forgive. We don't understand God. We believe. We absolutely do not believe. We are lonely. We want to be left alone. We want to belong. We want to be loved. We want to be loved. We want to be loved.