I know what it's like when the things you believe make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.

You build a wall to keep something unwanted out … or to hold something precious in.

You know someone's right for you when the things they don't have to say are even more important than the things they do.

I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-new house to gather dust. Maybe that was the process more commonly described as bonding: the act of learning your child as well as you know yourself.

How could you not want to draw breath one more day? How could your own life be such a cheap commodity? But then I started to understand: when your existence is hell, death must be heaven.

We make messes of our lives, but every now and then, we manage to do something that's exactly right. The challenge is figuring out which is which.

I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I don't want to tell myself it's over when it's not.