Lauren

“At age twenty-nine, she still saw herself as only slightly more mature than the teenage girl who snuck out of her parents' house to attend underground concerts and once let a friend pierce her ears. (The infection lasted for weeks.) That stubborn, irresponsible young girl couldn't possibly be a parent. She didn't want to swap her late nights lingering at the bar for early mornings breastfeeding. She certainly didn't want to deal with nine months of pregnancy and god knows how many hours of brutal labor, nor had she ever wished that upon any of her girlfriends over the years. She wanted the freedom to stay home all day in her sweatpants and do nothing at all, or to quit her job and travel the world, to someday own a second apartment in London or Madrid.”
― Nikki Erlick, The Measure

“That the beginning and the end may have been chosen for us, the string already spun, but the middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.”
― Nikki Erlick, The Measure

“I forced myself to stop thinking about it. To do what I always did—find gratitude in what I’d gotten instead of dwelling on what I’d lost.”
― Abby Jimenez, Life's Too Short

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.”
― Nikki Erlick, The Measure