And then I start to cry, harder than I ever thought I could. I cry for five-year-old me trying to hold my mom’s eyes open to show her a picture I’d made, because all I wanted was for her to be proud of me. I cry for seven-year-old me, who went to bed hungry after eating only condiments all day, because those were the only things that were in the house. I cry for nine-year-old me, sitting in the back of a foster care worker’s car, watching my mom get farther and farther away in the back window.
