Not diagnosing anyone or rewriting history, but examining what distance allows me to recognize.

Why I saved emails, photographs, notes and physical pieces of the relationship, and what preserving those things means when I encounter them decades later.

Pregnancy, children, responsibility and how becoming a mother altered the understanding of myself and my relationships.

The difference between communicating with someone and carrying responsibility for making communication happen.

Revisiting the psychological questions I was already asking before I had formal psychological terminology.

How proximity to a situation changes our ability to recognize patterns.

The difference between loving someone and continually working to make a relationship survivable.

• Reading my journal now reveals just as much about me, my expectations, fears, accountability, need for understanding, and the way processed love

Years ago, I documented experiences I didn't yet have the emotional language, psychological understanding, or distance to fully comprehend. Now I'm going back; not to judge the woman I was, but to understand what she was trying to tell me.

My body doesn’t understand a calendar. It only knows what I’ve asked from it.