I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for.

I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for.

Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else.

Partly I was honing my self-consciousness into a torture device, sharp and efficient enough to last me the rest of my life.

I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured. I know now that this isn’t so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things.

When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.

Anxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential ingredients in suffering from pain, as opposed to feeling pain pure and simple.