This is my eighth-grade year book picture…after I scribbled me out. There was a time when I hated everything about myself. In 1987, “I hate you,” “You’re ugly,” “Nobody loves you,” were the words I screamed, while blotting out my face. Recently, someone gave me a compliment or at least they thought they did. They said, “Girl—I love your Marilyn Monroe hips." I smiled, and said, “Thanks”—I guess? Her words caused a whirlwind of self-hate and self-disgust to manifest that had b

“Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp” – Frederick Buechner. When I was eight, I sat on the blue stairs, listening to the gurgles that my aunts pool made, while flicking water with my toes. The movement created small ripples, unlike the larger ripples at the other end where my sister’s played Marco Polo, collected floating rings, slid down the fiberglass half-pipe, and did the cannonball off the diving board. When it