I allowed myself to suffer how jarringly destructive the present feels and how fragile the past.

Maybe the truth is, there's a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn't having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things.

Don't talk to me. I'm tired and grumpy and I'll probably make fun of you.

It was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.

When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.

Lena was an introvert. She knew she had trouble connecting with people. She always felt like her looks were fake bait, seeming to offer a bridge to people, which she couldn't easily cross.

Exactly! We run or we lose ourselves in something, somebody, anything to try and ease our pain.