The first thought I had after my best friend broke up with me was, "Don't you want to grow old with the person who taught you to put in a tampon?" We had met when we were 10, became best friends when we were 16. We went from being the daughters of immigrant（移民的） mothers who knew that nothing goes in that hole until there's a wedding ring on your finger. To becoming people who chose professions（职业） and paths（道路） outside our parents' expectations（期待）. And in the immigrant household（家庭） I was raised in, I had learned that friendship（友谊） is a lifelong（终身的） expectation（期待） because friendship（友谊） is synonymous with liberation. The fabric（织品） of my family was fractured（破裂） by genocide（种族灭绝） three days after I was born and our people scattered across the globe. As the years passed, I watched my parents reunite and melt（（使）融化） into the embrace（拥抱） of friends they had not seen in 10, 15, sometimes 30 years.
I come from a culture where it is common to hear that your cousin's, neighbor's, brother-in-law's, best friend's, daughter's family was coming to your neck of the woods and could you watch over them for a few days? You would bring them into your home, make（使） sure that they were fed and when it was time to sleep, they'd get the big bed and everybody else would be in sleeping bags or on the couch. Friendship was a resource（资源） that was generationally tended（趋向） and that was how we made（使） sure we were held. And then my best friend broke my heart and it altered（改变） my vision（视） of possibility. Today I stand in a room of people who presumably（据推测） hold similar values（价值） to me, values of community care, freedom（自由） and equality（平等）. But I will bet（打赌） most people in here have been on one side or the other of a tampon breakup（破裂） story.
So what does that say about our ability to tend to each other consistently（一贯地） and collectively? There are a few lessons this experience taught me. Lessons that are about friendship and lessons that are about love, liberation（解放） and our right to dream. The first is that letting people choose a path that is right for them is key to finding（找到） a path（道路） that is right for us.