The night before we left for Indiana, I called my “college dad”, Mitch, crying so hard I was hyperventilating. He assured me I wasn’t being ridiculous. “Your feelings are real, and understandable,” he said to me. And here’s where all that emotional work I’ve been doing over the past few years really kicked in, because to my surprise, I believed him. I didn’t stop crying right away, but at least now I knew enough to know that my tears weren’t a sign of weakness. They were reasonable. It was okay that I was worried about what it would look like when Kelly had family flying in from California for this party, and all of my family who lived 2 hours away couldn’t be there. It was okay that my feelings were a bit hurt, even if nobody did anything wrong. I was and am allowed to feel however I feel.