Permission to Grieve

Crying in a public restroom and aging with grace

The night I turned 41 I cried in a public restroom.

There I was in my very own real life Kim Addonizio poem (“To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall”), in a yellow lace dress on a perfect August day, sobbing against the cold tile of a dive bar bathroom.

Except there was no one in the next stall to remind me that joy is coming, as the poem so…