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Be absolutely accepting of everything. Don’t think that if you can’t work on your novel, business plan, budget, or taxes there is something wrong with you. Remember the last time you were unemployed? Did you learn a new language, yoga poses, sign language, how to make beef Wellington? No. You played Words with Friends, you watched videos of cats slapping dogs, you stared into space and then since there was a mirror in front of you decided to cut your own bangs. Don’t do that. Leave your hair alone. And don’t paint a room or varnish anything. Put down that credit card and cancel the cart full of stretchy, New Age, muted outfits. Walk outside. Get your heart beating harder—if you can’t go outside, access your stairwell and do some flights, anything to get your blood moving, your brain suffused with energy.

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When I was newly sober, a long time ago, I did a bunch of stupid things. I went on a date with a guy who plied me with coffee in his condo in Jersey City until I actually overdosed on caffeine and had an anxiety attack that sent me into the street having a panic attack like I’d not experienced since my sister had died. I called my sponsor and she asked me a question, “How much coffee have you had?” My answer, ”Too much.” And, “Why are you dating?” which was an important question as I’d recently left a physically and mentally abusive marriage and ten minutes into any date, no matter how much I liked the guy, his face morphed into my ex-husband’s and I frequently fled after ordering something I didn’t really want or like or need. I felt like I had to do something to justify my right to be alive.

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Women’s History Month celebrates the vital role of women in America. This year the focus is on the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. My mother was born into a country where suffrage was universal, but she was also born into a nation filled with misogyny, racism, and fear of anything connected with the unknown. And boy, was she the unknown. A graduate of Harvard Design School with colleagues who ended up with work designing the skyline of cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago, she worked in a firm with men who saw this long-legged beauty and felt it appropriate to ask her to make the coffee and on several occasions made remarks and physical advances that in our current climate would be regarded as assault. Rather than complain about these incidents, she preferred to focus on the positive, her family, her friends, her limitless curiosity, her belief that all human beings deserved to be treated equally.

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