The glass milk bottle with the friendly face of a smiling cow printed in black ink has waited, empty, for months. I purchased the half pint of milk while on a two-day personal retreat in September because I don’t think one can adequately prepare for the tsunami of cuteness that hits you upon beholding an adorable half pint of organic farm-fresh milk in a glass bottle with a yellow lid and *a smiling cow* while perusing the aisles of a small town grocery co-op. One look, and I was done. I put the ridiculously overpriced thimbleful of milk in my cart, smug with the knowledge that I would definitely get my money’s worth from Little Half Pint by repurposing it into a vase when I was through consuming its contents.

That September solo retreat was the first time I started writing about BELONGING—a topic that has shaped and shifted across the months yet has remained firmly rooted in my heart along with the notion, “there’s something to this” and the desire to dig deeper. Certain this would be the topic of my next book (let’s disregard the fact, for now, that all the books I’ve written still live in my head), I began to write about belonging with gusto. And then, life happened—as it so often does. . .