If this was adulthood the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that she could now eat dessert without eating her vegetables.

Dying was apparently a weaning process; all the attachments to familiar people and objects have to be undone.

The strength you've insisted on assigning to others is actually within yourself.

Depression was a very active state really. Even if you appeared to an observer to be immobilized, your mind was in a frenzy of paralysis. You were unable to function, but were actively despising yourself for it.

That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along.

If you kept moving, you never had to mourn what you were leaving behind.

One didn't issue instructions to comets. Grown children did what they had to do, and parents could only grit their teeth and watch and pray for them to get through it.