At 17, the smallest crises took on tremendous proportions; someone else's thoughts could take root in the loam of your own mind; having someone accept you was as vital as oxygen. Adults, light years away from this, rolled their eyes and smirked and said, 'This too shall pass' - as if adolescence was a disease like chicken pox, something everyone recalled as a milk nuisance, completely forgetting how painful it had been at the time.

We believe what we want to, what we need to. The corollary is that we choose not to see what we'd rather pretend doesn't exist.

All teenagers knew this was true. The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face. For years, parents tell you that you can be anything, have anything, do anything. That was why she'd been so eager to grow up-until she got to adolescence and hit a big fat wall ofreality. As it turned out, she couldn't have anything she wanted. You didn't get to be pretty or smart or popular just because you wanted it. You didn't control your own destiny, you were too busy trying to fit in.

If he says jump, she doesn't even ask "How high?" She goes out and buys a pogo stick.

Just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.

You live and let live, eventually that becomes enough.

She shrugged. "You can be happy for someone else's good fortune, but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.