(unedited)

At 6:00am on November 19, 2016, I stood in the yard, predawn, clutching my coffee mug to my chest for warmth, fighting the nightmares and the headache they brought me, and I looked up.

There, clear and bright, the three-fifths moon glowed, surrounded by thin clouds edged with the complete spectrum of colors.

I didn’t see our moon. I saw, clear and bright, the millions of people around me who were once considered (by people who look like me) to be only three-fifths of a man. Those who were defined that way by a hateful law enacted in 1787, and who were not free… no freer than is the moon from the earth’s gravity. And with the three-fifths men, I saw the full spectrum of humanity – women who were considered nothing, the women AND men who were considered nothing because they did not and do not conform to the blinding white light of the sun.

[21 September 2015, spontaneous birthday essay]

In this skin lives a baby who was blessed to be wanted and loved and born on this day in 1963, with all the parts that humans consider average, two parents, and a roof over her head.

In this skin lives a little kid who was fascinated with every little detail and color in nature, who adored animals of all kinds, but who also learned to value books and reading and (eventually) writing as she sat in her mother’s lap listening and looking at the pictures—a little girl who could say “my daddy is a physicist” and “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” at age two.

In this skin lives a shy 12-year-old who didn’t make the adolescent metamorphosis gracefully, and who then sat at home in her shyness and undiagnosed depression (that some misconstrued as being stuck-up) at 16 and wondered if she’d ever fit in, or date, or choose a career path, or even reach adulthood. This kid didn’t realize, until she learned the value of metaphor, that when someone said “you’re so talented—I hate you!,” it was a figure of speech, so she learned to deprecate her own abilities.

In this skin lives a broken 18-year-old rape survivor, victimized for the only time in her life just as she was beginning the scary journey to independence—a survivor who had no social or emotional support and didn’t know she was a victim, rather than a shitty human who deserved whatever she got, until a professional therapist told her—at 38—that it was not her fault. A rocket meant for distant galaxies, destroyed on the launchpad.

In this skin lives a young woman in her twenties and thirties who searched for her identity everywhere except within herself. Her self-doubt and self-loathing led her to bad decisions, lousy self-care, and missed opportunities, a failed marriage, short-lived dead-end jobs… to constantly feel hurt, to hurt herself, and to unintentionally hurt others. This rudderless ship drifted from idea to idea, from person to person, finding neither safe harbor nor destination.

In this skin lives a woman in her unglamorous forties who learned, who woke the hell up, who sought professional help better-late-than-never after physical and mental illnesses brought her time and again to her knees and to the brink of ending her own life. This woman learned to embrace her other-ness, her weirdness, her intellect, her love for animals, her odd skills and her imagination. She began finding her voice and using it to advocate for all those she’d watched from the hidden vantage point of her invisibility. Ever so slowly, she began advocating for her right to be fully herself, to detach from others’ expectations and to let go of her own expectations. She realized that she didn’t need a partner to be whole and valid, and was better off without the burden of someone else’s baggage and without inflicting hers on someone else. She stopped caring so much about not fitting in, about being judged by people whose opinions don’t really matter, and even by those whose opinions do matter. She stood up; she spoke up; she doesn’t shut up.

And now, in this skin lives a woman entering her fifty-third year, with whatever grace she can muster. Having claimed a little internal healing and beaten some of her demons into submission (putting them into little boxes where she can examine them as needed without having them take over), she plans to work on salvaging her physical body and health before it’s too late. She no longer has to worry about being “hot” or attractive to others or to think about the fact that whatever looks she may have had are now gone, because really, who the hell cares? But she still has plans—real plans—and work to do, and things to see, places to experience, and walks to take, and dogs to love and help find good homes. And she still has a lot to write.

This aging solitary woman with a soul covered in self-inflicted scars has discovered that her best role in this world is not to be the blooming flower, but to be the fertile soil, the sunshine, the rain, the bees, the mulch that make flowers bloom.

All these people live in this one skin—we don’t always coexist comfortably, but we’re not done yet. There’s room and time for more.