After a fairly traumatic early childhood, I was a very anxious and self-conscious tween. My fifth-grade teacher noted to the whole class that I wouldn’t speak up when called on during instruction time and made a snide comment about how she would be shocked if I ever did, causing every classmate to turn and stare furthermore when I was called on to read aloud or answer a question. As you can guess, my social skills didn’t improve much that year. In another didactic effort to

On a placid, cloudless July afternoon in 1988, I stood on the altar at the First Baptist Church in Batesville to marry Chris Lawson in front of almost everyone on planet Earth I held dear. When it was my turn, I solemnly repeated my vows — the very most significant, spectacularly life-altering words I would ever speak from that day forward. And I meant them with every fiber of my being. I really wish I could remember what I said. In fairness, our vows were hardly notable. We