It’s an interesting dilemma to be in, when you have so much you have and want to talk about, but you cannot, because to do so would be to share parts of your life you don’t want to share. The book I just finished, well, it deserves every award it was nominated for and won. It also touches on an event that I have also experienced, and expresses it in a way I both deeply appreciate and feel seen by. But it is a painful, traumatic part of my life. I wish the friend who’d lent me this book had warned me it; they know this event happened to me, and it’s a major theme of the book. I’m not upset they lent it to me, just that I’d have appreciated a warning. Still, I’ve read it, it has burrowed and curled and settled into my heart. I ache for what the author went through, and am grateful to be seen and acknowledged by how she put it to page. But I could not speak of this to my dinner companion. I could only discuss politics and plans for her surgery.