It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

A relationship could be a place to hide too.

When you're not sure whether you're in love with someone or not, the answer is not.

But an apology too — you think you’re giving something, but you’re not. You’re really asking for something. You’re asking for forgiveness, you’re asking for the other injured person to make it okay for you. Apologies were harder work for the person getting one than the person giving one.

Maybe we all just wanted someone to believe in. That's all each of us wanted, and it should be so simple, but it never was simple.

Maybe love, too, is beautiful because it has a wildness that cannot be tamed. I don't know. All I know is that passion can take you up like a house of cards in a tornado, leaving destruction in its wake. Or it can let you alone because you've built a stone wall against it, set out the armed guards to keep it from touching you. The real trick is not to let it in, but to hold on. To understand that the heart is as wide and vast as the universe, but that we come to know it best from here, this place is gravity and stability, where out feet can still touch ground.

I could forget that part, but it had to have been true.