Dear reader,

Kristi Soto, our creative director, has teased me a few times that she’s wanted me to turn my editor letter into a Carrie Bradshaw-esque column. I think I’ll leave that to the Sex and the City reboot, but because she’s been so patient with me through all of…this, I suppose I’ll dip my toe in the water. 

This issue will mean I’ve been with the magazine for a year, so I think I owe you some vulnerability. So how about I put my big, sloppy heart on display and tell you I met a man. For the purposes of this letter, we’ll call him Frenchie. Now please understand that in everything I write, I must keep in mind my Catholic grandma—so if you’re hoping for something beyond PG, you will be disappointed (sorry, Kristi).

While it might seem entirely chaotic to mention in a letter a man who is new in my life, I will say this: I have a good feeling. He orders food at restaurants with such precision and specificity that I have taken to sometimes calling him Sally—from When Harry Met Sally—a movie that is one of my favorites as well as my mom’s. So I’ll refer to one of the movie’s lines from when it cut to couples telling their stories: at that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon. 

C’est parfait, non?

But sure, everything in this life has the potential to fall apart in big and small ways—boy do I know that. Still, I don’t think I’ll ever regret marking a time when I felt shadows lifting. I didn’t understand how feeling I couldn’t trust men had been holding me back until I found one I could. 

Because recently I had been absolutely stuck in a dark, dark place.

Protection-order bad, alongside men in power continuing to defend and shelter this man, and the feeling of betrayal that comes with that. Living-as-small-as-possible sad (those who know me know I live big). Best-friend-telling-me-she’s-never-seen-me-so-unhappy bad, and for such an extended period. 

I never thought I would write that in this magazine, but guess what? My silence is just another way I’ve allowed them to hold power over me, and I have fight in me—I got it from Mom, and to turn my back on it is to dishonor her memory. 

In all of this, I’ve been thinking about her—because I wish she could make it better, that I could talk to her about everything. But also, in her dying so much sooner than she should have, I’ve felt an obligation to live that big, happy life. To not spend my life sullen and crushed.

Lately, it feels like dark clouds could be lifting. Certainly, before Frenchie came along, but his entrance into my life has given me new momentum. The timing feels right, and timing can be everything.

While generally I agree that people shouldn’t depend on men for validation, I will say he reminded me of who I am at a time I needed reminding. Honestly, it’s not that I am dealing with that mess because of him, but rather that it’s possible for him to come into my life because something clicked, and I feel ready to let down my guard. It certainly helps that Frenchie is a man with incredible patience, which makes tackling that work a lot less overwhelming. I don’t feel rushed to get back to normal—I don’t even feel an expectation of normal.

Because I can feel myself going through a period of shifting, I would say I’m trying to reach Mom in ways that aren’t entirely centered around grief, but rather exploring what it means to have a relationship now that she’s died. Because I don’t want to give up on talking to her—that’s too hard to bear.

I have dear friends—including a woman whom I refer to as my Virgo Queen—who are into astrology and horoscopes. I’ve been told countless times that I’m such an Aries, and I’m along for the ride, curious as to how they can tell me things about myself that seem like interesting mirrors. 

I don’t know if I believe in astrology or horoscopes—but I don’t not believe, if that makes sense. One of the songs that has helped me grieve lately is “Marjorie” by Taylor Swift. I recently realized that the song is four minutes and seventeen seconds…and my birthday is April 17. I choose to believe that’s from Mom, and that, as the song says, she’s still around. Why not make room for more of the unexplainable, or the idea that we could all be connected and exist in ways we don’t quite understand? This is all to say, Frenchie wanted me to find something that had my time of birth. I found the answer (5:06 p.m.), on folded loose-leaf paper with Mom’s handwriting:

We loved you so much…

you were so tiny and sweet.

We were afraid we’d drop

you during your bath…

but somehow we all did OK.

Maybe the point wasn’t him finding out what my birth date/time/place was. Maybe the point was discovering this note, which confirms that I have made plenty of room for the unexplainable in my life already—it just takes a different expression.

I found this paper while I was on the phone with Frenchie. I read it over and over. I sent him a picture. I posted it on social media. 

I’ve wanted to get some sort of tattoo for Mom since we lost her, but I never felt like I had come upon the right thing. Now I have. I will be getting a tattoo with my best friend holding my hand, as she has through all of this—in Mom’s handwriting: but somehow we all did OK. These words, in isolation, open to so many beautiful possibilities of meaning and interpretation. Wearing them out of context feels right.

Dear reader, I wish for you a period of happiness and growth. But if I’m reaching you at a dark period, and that’s simply not possible, know that I believe for you that somehow, you’ll do OK.

All my love and then some,

Megan Louise