I pointed to Abby. The woman looked closely. “Good Lord,” she said. “That woman looks exactly like Abby Wambach.”
“That woman is Abby Wambach,” I said.
She said, “Wow! Your ex-husband is remarried to Abby Wambach?”
“Close! I’m married to Abby Wambach.”
It took her a minute. A full minute of quiet. Selah. Old structural ideas burning, a new order of things being born inside her.
Then she smiled.
“Oh! Wow,” she said.
Tish’s first word was “Wow.” On an early-December morning in Virginia, I pulled her out of her crib and walked her over to the nursery window. I lifted the shade, and we both saw that the backyard was covered in white. It was her first snow. Tish’s eyes got big, she reached out her hand to touch the cold window, and she said, “Wow.”
When people encounter our family, their eyes get big and they say “Wow”—in one tone or another—because they haven’t seen a family exactly like ours before. Our family is specific, because we are specific people. We did not use a blueprint created by someone else and then struggle to fit each of us inside. We create and re-create our family again and again—from the inside of each one of us—out. We will continue to do that forever, so each of us will always have room to grow and grow and still belong. That is what family is to me: where we are both held and free.
Eight years ago, I found myself in a therapist’s office asking for strategies to cope with betrayal-induced rage. The therapist said, “Your anxiety is controlling you, which means that you are lost in your head. You don’t know what you want. You are so disconnected. You need to remember how to get back into your body somehow.”
She then suggested that I go to yoga. The next morning, on my way to the studio, I wonder: Why did I leave my body to live in this dangerous mind of mine? I sit on my mat in a ninety-degree room and immediately remember why.
As soon as I get still, the snow settles, and I sink into my body. I start to feel itchy and agitated and annoyed. This is why I left! Because I am shame and fear wrapped in skin. I don’t even want to visit my body, much less reside here. But now I’m stuck: The perimeter of the yoga mat is my entire world. The other women are silent. There is nothing on the walls to read. There is no escape. Where’s my phone? There’s the door. I could go. I would not have to explain.
The instructor walks in, and I ignore her to continue plotting my escape, until she says, “Be still and know.” That phrase again. I so desperately want to know. Whatever it is that I am missing, whatever it is that other people know, whatever it is that helps them cope and lets them just live: I want to know it.
So I stayed on that goddamn mat until I knew.
Just like I stayed in my addictions until I knew.
Just like I stayed in my marriage until I knew.
Just like I stayed in my religion until I knew.
Just like I stayed in my pain and shame until I knew.
And now I know.
I’m sitting on my couch between two friends, sipping coffee. My dog’s asleep in my friend Saskia’s lap. We’re all listening to Ashley tell her story about staying in the hot yoga room until it made her sick. After she says, “I mean, the door wasn’t even locked,” the room falls quiet. Ashley has said something important. Saskia rubs the dog’s head. Karyn squints her eyes. I think this:
The truth of my thirties was: Stay on your mat, Glennon. The staying is making you.
The truth of my forties is: I’m made.
I will not stay, not ever again—in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself. When my body tells me the truth, I’ll believe it. I trust myself now, so I will no longer suffer voluntarily or silently or for long. I’ll look at those women to my left and right who must stay, because it’s that time for them, because they have to know what love and God and freedom are not before they can know what love and God and freedom are. Because they want to know. Because they are warriors. I’ll send them every bit of my strength and solidarity to help them through this part. And then I’ll pick up my mat and slowly, deliberately, lightly walk out.
Because I have just remembered that the sun is shining, the breeze is cool, and these doors, they’re not even locked.
In my favorite holy text, there is a poem about a group of people desperate to understand and define God.
They ask: What are you?
God says: I am.
They say: You are…what?
God says: I am.
What are you, Glennon?Are you happy?
Are you sad?
Are you Christian?
Are you a heretic?
Are you a believer?
Are you a doubter?
Are you young?
Are you old?
Are you good?
Are you bad?
Are you dark?
Are you light?
Are you right?
Are you wrong?
Are you deep?
Are you shallow?
Are you brave?
Are you weak?
Are you shattered?
Are you whole?
Are you wise?
Are you foolish?
Are you sick?
Are you healed?
Are you lost?
Are you found?
Are you gay?
Are you straight?
Are you crazy?
Are you brilliant?
Are you caged?
Are you wild?
Are you human?
Are you alive?
Are you sure?
I am.
I am.
I am.
For every woman resurrecting herself.
For the girls who will never be buried.
Mostly, for Tish.
The reason this book exists (the reason I exist) is because of the people listed here who, each day, breathe my art—and me—into existence:
ABBY: If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.
CHASE: You Are Our Family’s Knowing.
TISH: You Are Our Family’s Feeling.
AMMA: You Are Our Family’s Imagination.
CRAIG: For loving our children so masterfully, for trusting me to make art about our new family, for your humor, forgiveness, and relentless goodness.
MOM, DAD: For the patient courage that helped me find and keep myself and the love of my life. For trusting me as I learned to trust myself. I vow to give your grandchildren the same gift you give me: to live both held and free.