But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

I think being a woman alone enhanced the impulse in others to be generous. What we're told is that to be a woman alone is to be in a dangerous situation. The message is that people are gong to prey on you and do bad things to you. That may be true in some cases, but what I experienced was the other case.

If someone is being unkind or petty or jealous or distant or weird, you don't have to take it in. You don't have to turn it into a big psychodrama about your worth. That behavior so often is not even about you. Don't own other people's crap.

The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.

I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.

He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.