We sat in the quiet restaurant off a side street in Paris. Despite being the dead of winter, the night was sticky. Maybe it was the slight ting of smog covering the city or the crowds causing the stick.

When I first moved to Nashville, I bought a bunch of clothes off Poshmark, an online thrifting site. I bought wide-leg fringe jeans, a cropped hoodie, new sneakers -- things I thought would help me feel like I belonged in this new place where I lived.

A few summers ago, when working in Maine for a summer, I found myself going to a small methodist church down island.