It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music & starting to stumble through it, only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying.
Jodi PicoultSometimes when you find something you didn't really realize you were looking for, you just don't know how to react.
Jodi PicoultWhat I mean is that those thoughts, they're human. And just because you turn out differently than everyone's imagined you would doesn't mean that you've failed in some way. A kid who gets teased in one school might move to a different one, and be the most popular girl there, just because no one has any other expectations of her. Or a person who goes to med school because his entire family is full of doctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead.
Jodi PicoultHow do you tell someone that you weren't the person he thought you were? And more importantly, how did you tell him that you'd meant the things you'd said, when everything else about you turned out to be a lie.
Jodi PicoultTurn around, and the people you thought you knew might change. Your little boy might now live half a world away. Your beautiful daughter might be sneaking out at night. Your ex-husband might by dying by degrees. This is the reason that dancers learn, early on, how to spot while doing pirouettes: we all want to be able to find the place where we started.
Jodi Picoult