If we always take the path of least resistance, if we embrace inertia, if we never leap, if we never accept accountability for our choices, how can we find any triumph in our victories or any remorse in our losses?

There is a moment in every relationship when one of the parties senses its imminent demise. There's a moment of incredible clarity when your stomach drops with a heavy sense of dread, and you feel like control is slipping through your fingertips even as you try to hold on.

I might have felt broken, but at the end of it all, I didn't allow myself to break.

Eventually kids become grown-ups too, and from there, the world is whatever they choose to make of it.

You have to know... What you have to know in all of this, through all of this, is that no matter how lost you are in this maze of hell and confusion, that in the end, I promise you, you will be found.

There is the before. And then there is the after. Happiness is what you choose, what you follow, not what follows you. These are the things I have seen, these are the things I now know, these are the things I will carry with me as I go.

There's no time to hold grudges when you've seen how fragile things can really be.