Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?

I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment.

I guess no matter what your family is like, you're not surprised.

We are walking down the street holding hands. There is a playground at the end of the block, and I run to the swings and I climb on and Henry takes the one next to me facing the opposite direction. And we swing higher and higher passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast that it seems we are going to collide. And we laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost or dead or far away. Right now we are here and nothing can mar our perfection or steal the joy of this perfect moment.

It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.

...and I suddenly feel that Henry is there, incredible need for Henry to be there and to put his hand on me even while it seems to me that Henry is the rain and I am alone and wanting him - Clare

Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying to read- books I'd heard were important, Naked Lunch, and The Fountainhead, Ulysses and Women in Love... It was as though I had dreamt the perfect lover, who vanished as I woke, leaving me pining and surly.