Walking your path doesn't mean you don't hurt, it means the pain is worth the progress. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to remake it, and that includes yourself, or it did for me. There were moments when I wept for an easier road, but in the end I would not trade my path for anyone else's. It is mine and the traveling of it has made me who I am, and continues to shape and remold me into the best, happiest, most productive, most playful me, I've ever been.

We aren't the good guys, Anita. We're the necessary guys. -Edward

Once upon a time wasn't as long ago as it used to be.

His eyes widened just a bit, his lips flexed. I realized he was trying not to laugh. I hate it when people find my threats amusing.

Why is everything always my decision?" I asked. Because you will not tolerate anything else." Oh, I remembered now. "Great", I whispered. - Anita to Jean-Claude

Some days you go bear hunting and you get eaten. Some days you come home with a nice rug to roll around on, and bear steaks. What they don't tell you as a kid is that sometimes you get the rug and steaks, but you also get some nice scars to go with them. As a child you don't understand that you can win, but that's it's not always worth the price. Once you understand and accept that possibility you become a real grown up, and the world becomes a much more serious place. Not less fun, but once you realize what can go wrong, it's a lot scarier to go hunting "bears".

That was the problem with loving people: it made you weak. It made you need them. It made the thought of not having them the worst thing in the world.