Children take in more information than we'd like to believe.

I know for a fact that sickness is easier, but health is more interesting.

The joy is an absurd yellow tulip, popping up in my life, contradicting all the evidence that shows it should not be there.

And so I am feeling numb. It's a curious feeling, and I get it all the time. My attention to the world around me disappears, and something starts to hum inside my head. Far off, voices try to bump up against me, but I repel them. My ears fill up with water and I focus on the humming in my head.

My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless... I'm not going to have a happy ending.

I think many people with a chronic illness would prefer not to have their chronic illness, simply because it's high maintenance.

He leaned down and whispered to me: No matter how thin you get, no matter how short you cut your hair, it's still going to be you underneath. And he let go of my arm and walked back down the hall.