I began losing my eyesight when I was three – a result of poor genetics and squinting at the television too often. My sight worsened until I was nineteen; by then, I was nearly legally blind and opted to have my vision corrected through surgery. Until that point, losing my eyesight afforded me both a gift and a curse – the gift of insight and the curse of knowledge. I saw the world in layers of truths and half-truths, of what people thought they knew and what actually happened behind closed doors.

From the time she was little, my mother knew she  wanted to be a mom. But that didn't stop her from having other ambitions. She went to school and received her bachelors and masters degrees before marrying my father.

In fifth grade, for Halloween, I wanted to dress up like my mom. 

In fact, I did.  But only for show her.  It was supposed to be a surprise, because I didn’t want to be a hippie for the third year in a row.  I remember sitting on my pink, blue, and green swirled comforter thinking that I wanted to dress up like someone I like.  I didn’t want to be just another witch or the fourth kid to have the brilliant idea to be the pink power ranger.