I had no idea my water had broken until I went in for my regular checkup and the doctor sent me straight to the hospital. Once there, I was given Pitocin, to induce labor, and the process started. At one point, I had made great progress, my son’s head had seen the artificial light of the hospital room, but then I grew weak and could no longer push. The epidural I was given numbed my body. Eventually, my baby was delivered by C-section. My birthing experience had turned out to be the total opposite of everything I had wanted: a natural birth, in a pool, with no pain killers.

I was back at Jackson Memorial Hospital with my mother for my weekly dose of torture at the hands of a scary seven-foot German doctor with the bedside manner of Frankenstein, who would inject a miracle fluid into huge welts on my face and neck.

After my separation from my last ex-husband, I not only had to clear out a whole house by myself, but I also had to shed years of emotional shrapnel. And there was a lot of shrapnel.

It was a Friday evening sometime in the early 2000s and I decided that to overcome whatever challenges were ailing us at the time, we should do something positive. So I announced to my then husband that we should celebrate life. I stopped in at Whole Foods on the way from work, and picked up some gourmet eats and went home to prepare sour apple martinis, which I had recently discovered.

Everything was prepared, we sat down to dinner, were having a lovely time, (especially under the influence of the sour apples), and suddenly, out of the blue, my ex starts jabbering about black men. What? “I know you like them” …

A Hospice nurse was asked what was the most common regret her patients had. Her response? The biggest regret dying people have is that they never lived.

If you were to die tomorrow, would you say you’ve lived?

I was scrolling through yet another slew of pictures of eligible bachelors on my last dating site, when a shy smile and a pair of beautiful almond eyes greeted me. There was goodness written all over them. I melted.

Three years ago, I met the man of my life. What a connection! On every level: intellectually-stimulating, physically-yum, spiritually-well balanced. When we came together you could literally see the sparks flying for blocks. No kidding. We got comments from waiters, store owners and people on the street …

… when I started doing people and portrait photography, I encountered several scenarios. When asked to have their photo taken, men will either say yes or no – end of story. Women, on the other hand, either suddenly pose, which ruins the moment that I wanted to capture, or give me a litany of excuses why they aren’t ready to be photographed: “need to do my hair”, “my makeup”, “have surgery on my neck”, “get a nose job”.