We're Going to Need More Wine

by Gabrielle Union

It would be naïve of me to say that hair is just an accessory. I recognize that black hair has been politicized, and not by us. We have since reclaimed that politicization.

“Your world is only as small as you make it, Nickie,” she said.

“There are so many more people than you realize,” she told us girls, “people who look up to the same sun and the moon and the stars. It’s your birthright to explore this world.”

You can love what you see in the mirror, but you can’t self-esteem your way out of the way the world treats you.

It’s the moment where you reclaim your sanity by going insane, the burst of clarity that comes with blind rage.

“You can’t even think of ten things that make you happy,” she said. “What made you think you were ready for marriage? How is someone else supposed to make you happy if you don’t even know what makes you happy?”

When you’re in a place where you don’t know what makes you happy, it’s really easy to be an asshole. I put other people’s pain on my Happy List.

She is fun, and smart, and pretty, and she told me she feels invisible when she goes out.

At the end, we are our stories, some shared and some lived alone.