Early on in my memoir Girls, Assassins & Other Bad Ideas, there is an essay entitled The Anthill. At the very start of the chapter, a teenage girl named Amy comes to my rescue. This is “Amy” pictured here, with one-year-old me!
Her name isn’t actually Amy.
She and her mother both were actually pretty large parts of my early childhood days. Amy’s mom and my mom were good friends, which I guess is how Amy came to spend so much time with us. There were times she would sleep over, in my room with me. Sometimes she’d babysit me, and sometimes I’d spend chunks of time at her house. They had this Gatlin Brothers record and I would ask to hear the song Broken Lady again and again and again.
This song made an appearance on the playlist of GAAOBI, though I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s the only song I really skip when I play the list. It’s painfully hard for me to listen to. I knew very early on that I had to put this track into the book. I still love the song and find its lyrics pretty profound when it comes to the actual story I brought to life. Even so, it stirs some pretty hard and uncomfortable things within me when I hear it…
Amy and I are still connected. She actually only lives a few hours from me, which is a miracle since we are both from small-town New Mexico! She is now a very proud grandmother. She was a badass single mom to two kids, a boy and a girl. She’s been a huge supporter of the book and such a validator because she knew my mom.
I’ve been sharing behind-the-scenes stories, omitted essays, and other little secrets over in my Patreon group, but wanted to use this space to share one of them here, today!
xo,
M
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Rainy Day in May... 