I started writing this book five years ago, in the winter. I started writing it after a long, dry spell of not writing much. I started writing it during the times when my then-toddler napped.

I remember I would get him down to sleep and then bring my laptop into my room and sit on the lumpy chair and force myself to write 500, 1000, 1500 words at time. Then I would write beyond that. I would write and write until he woke up.

As always, I wrote in a fury. I wrote when that not-so-carefully patched up thing within me busted open again.

I started writing this book out of a sense of desperation and loss. I felt I had something to say about how hard it is to grow and survive and to learn how to thrive and be self-reliant. But it took me quite a few drafts to get to exactly the place where it is now. The place where it says just what I want it to.

Not everyone is going to love this book. Not everyone is even going to like it. Some people may even hate it. Some people will be put off by hard truths. Others may feel I don’t go deep enough into the truth. But the reactions of these readers are now beyond my control.

And thanks to my editor, Andrew Scott, and my publisher, Victoria Barrett, and thanks to Penn Whaling and Ann Rittenberg and the Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency, and thanks to my husband for his faith in me and my child for his unwavering certainty that his mommy is the best (and thanks to him for taking those naps back then as well) and thanks to all those many people who have believed in me and supported me all these years, this book lives today.

As soon as this book hits your hands, it is no longer mine but ours. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Available for preorder from Lacewing Books, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, and Amazon.