I thought: Just one step. One step at a time. You don’t have to do them all at once.

But I bring it up to let you know that this is the way I feel right now. Like Pluto and Jupiter are aligned with the earth and I'm floating.

I remember running down a road on my way to a nursery of flowers. I remember her smile and her laugh when I was my best self and she looked at me like I could do no wrong and was whole. I remember how she looked at me the same way even when I wasn't. I remember her hand in mine and how that felt, as if something and someone belonged to me.

It's my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.

What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.

I just sat there letting that music cover me like a big, cozy blanket.

Sorry wastes time. You have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier just to do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for.