Because I feel no anger toward my mother. Only loss, and loss is a feeling you can’t fight your way out of as easily.

I'm just a butterfly, a mourning cloak, sealed inside a cocoon with blnd eyes and stiky wings. And suddenly I wonder if the cocoons sometimes do not open, if the butterfly inside is ever simply not strong enough to break through.

I realize now how much courage it takes to choose the life you want, whatever that might be.

It's been so long since I've let myself feel anger that I don't just feel it. It covers my mouth and I swallow it down, the taste sharp and metal as though I'm gnawing through foilware.

Caring about anyone leaves you vulnerable.

Everyone has something of beauty about them. But loving let's you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the one you love as pieces, as why's, you can love those parts too, and it's a love at once more complicated and more complete.

I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.