Within Arm's Reach

by Ann Napolitano

No one ever tells you, when you are young, that your entire personality can change—will change—as you grow older. The twenty-five-year-old Kelly McLaughlin is a completely different woman from the fifty-six-year-old Kelly Leary. My behavior is different, my needs are different. When I was young I needed someone to take charge of me, to take me a few steps away from my family.

i love this! rings true.

The first hour or two of these family gatherings are always torturous. We see one another once, maybe twice a year. We are family, but we have very little in common except that we are all terrible at small talk.

absolutely