Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il desire. The heart that sighs does not have what it desires.

Love doesn't go anywhere when you die, you know. The person passes on, the body withers, but love, it survives.

As my mother says, your forties are when you finally pay for your past mistakes, the cigarettes and sunburns, the Big Macs and smooth-talking men. She may be right.

We may not get what we want, when we want. But with a bit of perseverance and a lot of patience, we can get what we need.

I focused on the passing houses filled with couples who’d somehow survived this teenage craziness of ‘he likes her but she likes him and he likes somebody else, you just can’t win.’ How did they do it? How did they end up in their golden, warm and cozy living rooms with their 2.3 children and dogs and cats? Because getting from where I was to where they were seemed millions of light years away.

In fiction, I searched for my favorite authors, women I have trusted to reassure me than not all teenage guys are total ditwads, that the archetype of the noble cute hero who devotes himself to the girl he loves has not gone the way of the rotary phone. That all I had to do was be myself (smart, hardworking, funny) and be patient and kind and he and I would find each other. As Bea would say, this why they call it fiction.

If it's true love, then it will abide. If it was a fleeting crush, then it will turn to dust. Either way, the truth will out.