I realize that I can be with someone, but on a deeper level I'm not available to them at all. I have attention deficit disorder of the soul.

The only wrong thing, perhaps, is permanently hesitating on the verge of courage.

All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself.

I wondered what it was like to be inside her, just a curl of flesh swimming in the darkness, the quiet things that had passed between us.

I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness.

How often do we do that, he wondered--look at someone and fail to see what's really there?

I realize what a strange in-between place I am in. The Young Woman inside has turned to go, but the Old Woman has not shown up.