This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they've never been. - Glennon Doyle

Recently, my friend Erika called my cell phone. I will never understand why people insist upon calling my cell phone. It's such an aggressive action to take: calling someone. Each time my phone rings, I have a heart attack like my pocket's on fire and a tiny siren is going off. I'd also like to take this opportunity to address texting. Texting = Better Than Calling. Unless. Unless you are one of those people who doles out texts like IOUs. Unless you believe that whenever you feel like it, you can just poke at me, ping me, jump into my day like Hiiiiii and feel so entitled to a response that the next time I see you, you will arrange your face in an injured manner and say quietly, "Hey. You doing okay? I just never heard back…" At this moment, I have 183 unread texts. Texts are not the boss of me, and neither is anybody who texts me. I have decided, once and for all, that just because someone texts me does not obligate me to respond. If I believed differently, I'd walk around all day feeling anxious and indebted, responding instead of creating. Now that we've established why I have no friends, let's return to Erika.

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?

I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. My goal is not to remain the same but to live in such a way that each day, year, moment, relationship, conversation , and crisis is the material I use to become a truer, more beautiful version of myself.