From the Boston Globe, interview with Jennifer Silva.

I was trying to get at this idea that milestones are no longer these shared common or recognizable rituals, like getting married in a church in front of your friends or getting a degree in front of an audience at a graduation. Instead, milestones—basically out of necessity, because the external milestones are not achievable—have become much more internal….It’s more about telling a story of suffering or emotional turmoil, whether in the family or through relationships or struggling with an illness, and sort of recognizing you have a problem and saying, “OK, maybe I can’t control my past, but I’m going to become a better person.”…This was a huge shock to me. I didn’t expect to hear these kinds of stories at all.