So much past experience remains a present truth for so many of us, even when the present contradicts it at every turn. When the inciting incident in your life is having been left, by marriage, by family, by parents, by culture—by the person or place whose very role it is to hold you close—it is not something you overcome once and get on with afterward. It is something you are always overcoming. It is something you are always trying to get on afterward with. But maybe each time you overcome it more quickly. Maybe the wound does not pierce as deeply.
