And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice. It was my mother.

Something had changed in me, even if I didn't know what it was just yet. All I could think was that I felt alive for the first time.

And to know me, as you have discovered, is to love me.

We laughed ourselves silly, taking back our shared past, gently, piece by piece.

It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you." You said the other day life was long," I shot back. "Which is it?" It's both," she said, shrugging. "It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing." Nothing can be two opposite things at once," I said. "It's impossible." No," she replied, squeezing my hand, "what's impossible is that we actually think it could be anything OTHER than that.

We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.