He was uncomplicated and upbeat and easy. At one point, I might have thought these traits made him a simpleton, but now I think they just translate to happiness.

The worst is when someone in your past trumps the person in your present, and you think to yourself: if I'd known this, then maybe I wouldn't have let him go.

I will find the good in this loss. I will make something happen that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.

There is no grief like heartbreak.

In my stories, I think, as I've gotten older, the characters have become stronger and more independent, and more capable of making unconventional decisions.