“it felt like permission. The kind I hadn't let myself have for six months. The kind of permission that I'd been waiting for, as I sat alone in my aunt's apartment, and grief welled up so high it felt suffocating. The permission I thought I'd given myself, but it hadn't been permission to cry - it had been a command to be strong. To be okay. I told myself, over and over, I had to be okay.
And finally - finally - someone gave me permission to come undone.”