“There is a difference between the fear of upsetting someone who loves you and the danger of losing them. For a long time, I couldn’t separate them. It has taken me some work to discern the difference between the pain of hurting those I love and my fear of what I might lose. Hurting those we love is survivable. It is inevitable. I wish that I could have done less of it. But no matter how much of it I did, I would never have lost her.”