Then came the earthquakes. A divorce, single motherhood, a bankruptcy. Bing, Bang. Boom. Even though I was an emotional wreck, I never ballooned to outrageous proportions. Still, for the first time in my life I had to shimmy into a girdle to control the overflow of tummy flesh. I was mortified.

I have a bone to pick with you. You are a million tiny dark clouds that, en masse, have been growing inside of me, haunting me. Terrorizing me, really. You are like pigeons who hang around garbage dumpsters. . .

At that point, I turned to international adoption. I learned that not every country will allow single parents to adopt, which eliminated several countries from consideration right off the bat.

We just don’t have words in the English language to describe between the pupa stage of our child-bearing years and the full grown butterfly of elderhood.