A pride story: I didn’t come out. I simply started talking about women in a way that sounded like I might want to kiss them in the mouth and expected everyone to go with it.

Although I might be holding on by yet another loose thread, I cherish knowing morning does come.

The water is too deep, I decided. I am a trained swimmer but I respect deep water. So, as I have done many times in the past, I resigned myself to being an observer rather than an active participant. Watching the brave ones live life from my window. My chest tightened when she reappeared back at the shore.

I was tired, I think, of telling myself no. Had I come all this way to be afraid?

Loneliness doesn't get to sit at the table with the other emotions. Like grief. Like heartbreak. Like sorrow. Those things people tend to understand as unfortunate consequences of life. But loneliness? A personal failure.

My Mother’s father had died in his sleep on a Sunday afternoon and by Monday Linette gave up her role as gracious host to uninvited guests. Her children now reminders of the life she was forced to live alone.

I had solved a great Black family mystery – If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?

Turns out the answer is yes. Twice.

Clearly this is ground zero for the illuminati. The article states, “In the '60s Norman Mailer documented that student leaders of the protest movement lived there. From 1994 to 2003 it served as Mrs. Rosa Parks home-away-from-home and is a designated historic site on the African American Heritage Trail.” I’m in!

“Where are you now?” he’d laugh and ask over the sound of the newspaper folding in his lap. I could hear the cars going by. He was on the porch waving at neighbors. Another afternoon spent in those impossibly uncomfortable white plastic chairs…