“When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you”
― Gail Carson Levine
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They See Enormous Things /
I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.
Read MoreSo Many Heartbeats /
"I hope I'm not speaking out of turn but I think you sell yourself short sometimes. I don't think you truly realize how great you are. You have that "thing" that great people have but you don't see it because you are so humble. You excel at everything you put your mind to. You have to see, that in the grand scheme of things, you sit amongst the upper echelon of quality humans. Take that for what it's worth and maybe keep that in mind the next time you're selling yourself. You only have so many heartbeats." —M.C.
Read MoreFucked-Up /
"You do sound really fucked up, but (wait, wait, wait) guess what: anyone pouring their heart out to a friend will always sound fucked up. Know why? Because we're all fucked up, my dear. We've just all mastered the art of appearing not-fucked-up along with everyone else, even knowing everyone's just as fucked up as we are. What a quote that is! You can put that on my tombstone,...which I'll never have anyway because being buried makes my skin crawl. Sounds so much worse than being burned to ash, right? Or is that a fucked-up presumption? Who created the rules for this place anyway? Oh, that's right: countless fucked up human beings over the course of history."
Read MoreWhat Love Is(n't) /
"When you said this… 'I know so many parents stay together for the kids but as your son gets older, he'll begin picking up on this stuff, on the fact that you and her are not in love, that it's a marriage of convenience and practicality, that you put on a show, and there's deception and hurt there. I would hate if that was your son's first true example of what love is.'
…my heart broke." —M.C.
Read MoreVery Much a Dreamer /
"You didn't mislabel me a dreamer. I am very much a dreamer. I fear you misunderstood what I was saying. Love is THE most important thing in my world as well. Everything else can suffer as a result. My happiness begins and ends with love. I would follow this man through the depths of hell for his love. I would be miserable in every other way for his love. His love alone is my happiness. That's never a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but that's what I have with him. I have passion and love...and happiness. I have raw animal sex with him. I write him poetry and letters and passionate rallying cries dripping with pain and emotion and intensity that he returns. And we have happiness too. My soul feels content in ways it never has before."
Read MoreA Kind of Happiness /
"Adam told me before I left that he feared that, for me, happiness was a moving target. You said in an email above that 'dreamers like you and I are never truly happy because this world is brimming with reality.' While there is some truth to both statements, I'm here to tell you that there is a kind of happiness out there that is possible, that the happiness you've written off as never-attainable is attainable. It's a cautious/guarded happiness, the kind that worries you and makes you scared because you never know when it'll retreat, the kind you never let yourself get used to because you know it won't last forever so you must always be ready for the drop back to the darkest corners of the earth, but it exists if you're brave enough to look for it."
Read MoreFearless and Raw /
"Rarely do I encounter someone so fearless and raw. I'm starting to remember why I was so fucking drawn to you back then." —M.C.
Read MoreSome Heartbreaks /
"Some heartbreaks are never full mended. They become a part of us and our story, until we forget entirely who we were without them. You don’t really ever get that kind of advice; that that deep emotional pain never dissipates entirely, that we’re forced to make peace with that pain, to learn how to live with it for the duration of our short lives in something of a reluctant surrender. I wish I had something more hopeful to share. I carry every past heartbreak around with me, including my decision to leave you and our life together. Sometimes the memories, both good and bad, can still bring me to tears. Sometimes the realization that the man who has been by my side for the last half of my life, who’s shared every moment of my life both good and bad, and is no longer there is devastating. Every inside joke, every “Remember when…,” every little thing that was ours…where do those things exist now? Are they still there, waiting silently to awaken between us?"
Read MoreSeventy Years of Sleep # 4 /
"I think we deservea soft epilogue, my love. We are good people and we’ve suffered enough." —Nikka Ursula
Read MoreWater Flows /
“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” ―Margaret Atwood
Read MoreWhen Love is Not Madness /
"When love is not madness it is not love.” —Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Read MoreI Shall /
“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: - I shall not fear anyone on Earth. - I shall fear only God. - I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” —Mahatma Gandhi
Read MoreConquered Hearts /
Happy 2nd Birthday to dear Adalynn, my good friend Kristin's little girl, the sweetest note in the melody of her parents' lives!
Read MoreI am an Artist /
"It has been 14 years since I first picked up a paintbrush. And I spent much of that time feeling like an imposter. I didn’t study art or illustration formally in school. I did not follow traditional pathways to get where I am. Most of what I do most days I taught myself how to do. I don’t even know most of the time if there is better or easier or 'more right' way to do what I do."
Read MoreTragic Dimension of Human Existence /
“As a divinity always ‘associated with the tragic dimension of human existence,’ she sees in Sekhmet’s face ‘the look of someone who sees the irreducible tragedy of life which she can do nothing to avert and which, indeed, she knows she herself has helped bring about – but who does not hide from the pain.”
Fuck a Writer /
"Have sex with a writer because she chooses art over money, even if she’s always complaining about being broke. Unclasp her bra because she’s 31 and still living with three roommates, squeaking by on rent, sliding by on bills, bartending a few nights, working in a bookstore, doing odd jobs, hustling; all because she’s convinced that she will create something masterful that may one day make all of this worth it. Pull off her jeans because you admire the sacrifices she makes to do what she loves, knowing you could never do the same. Fuck a writer because she shivers and starves for her chance to carve her name on the world.” —broke-ass stuart
Read MoreMen learn to love... /
“Men learn to love the woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they fall in love with.” ― Woody Allen
Read MoreLove of My Life /
"Pretty sure you were the love of my life." -A.L.
"Why do you say that?"
"I can never stop thinking about you." -A.L.
How, Then, Shall We Live? /
"Clearly our wounds need our attention. But when we concentrate exclusively upon our hurt, we learn to see the brokenness, losses, or injuries we have been given as the most important things in our lives. We cultivate an attention to these wounds in such a way that, over time, they come to occupy the most important place in our heart. Our wound lives in the center of our thoughts. In this way, we actually come to love our suffering." —Wayne Muller
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