I am amazed to see that it has been 9 months since I wrote here—long enough to have a baby! And I remember that many things in life are a birth. Since the sentencing, I have not looked back. I have been running this race in earnest.

“Take a deep seat,

Don’t look back

And Ride to Win.”

(-Secretariat’s jockey, in an autograph to me when I was about 10.)

I feel compelled to squeeze the life out of every second. Even quiet moments have their volume turned up emotionally. I can’t figure out if I’m living or if I’m dieing. It seems the same. Both get us closer to the end. I can’t tell if my heart is continually breaking, or swelling with life. A new baby opens its eyes. Do the eyes of a loved one from heaven see her? People fight, but they make up. Friends’ lives go on, but they forget you. Again, should I be happy, or sad? Every breath has its pain and its joy. So I choose the joy, while swimming upstream against the pain. We go on either because of something, or in spite of it.

Above all, catastrophe is not an excuse to fail. It is a reason to succeed.

I have been giving birth to my new life.