And when I talk to them, I tell them the story of my mom. I tell them there’s still so much time and still so much to be done. I tell them it doesn’t have to be full-time, or all-or-nothing, or all-at-once. I tell them what my mom tells me—that you just have to take one step, and that when you do, the next one will appear. I tell them the path doesn’t have to be a straight line, and that often it only makes sense when you look back at it. I tell them that when my mom was my age, she was a stay-at-home mom. She wasn’t yet an oil painter or a potter or an AIDS activist or an expert on
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