Author’s Note

Memoir is art. Every person understands, remembers, and feels truth differently. This memoir contains the truth as I feel it. I have written this book to the best of my ability, clarity of memory, integrity, humility, and compassion of spirit. In some sections, certain elements of time have been compressed in honor of narrative cohesion. With some characters, certain identifying qualities have been changed in order to preserve their privacy. These creative devices have neither touched the veracity nor tampered with the meaning of the specific and larger story.

I began writing I Am Yours in 2013. It sprang from my need to mend my past. Then, as the pages evolved, I realized I had entered into a larger dialogue—a shared experience of connected and collective healing, hope, and triumph. A reckoning of self, story, and society.

This book was written as a love letter and a call to action. A shared memoir.

It is time.