Jane and Dan at the End of the World

by Colleen Oakley

Jane often thinks all of the difficulty with parenting can be summed up by one sentence: Am I overreacting? And how 99 percent of the time, the answer is yes, but how is one to know when it’s the 1 percent of the time worrying is warranted? Frankly, it’s exhausting.

How do you know what you’ll need out of a partner? Who you’ll be ten years, twenty years down the road? You just hitch your wagon to someone and hope you both keep heading in the same direction, through all the bumps and detours and peaks and valleys.

The truth is, most people are doing the best they can, given their situations.