As women we are often far too comfortable in our unhappiness, we have made ourselves experts in fashioning lives out of grief, we consume our own pain and convince ourselves that it is nourishing. I watch the women in my family teach themselves how to breathe in their own sorrow, I watch them believe it sustains them. I see the way that the roots of neglect can creep out of a woman and make her a tree. The way that soon her pain becomes an addiction. Last night I felt my lungs begin a new dance in the deep parts of my chest, the rhythm of my heart grew sharp jagged edges, I felt the room harden itself around me, and at my seam lines little roots appeared to grow.

No more playing small.