The Rom-Commers

by Katherine Center

You had to maximize joy when it fluttered into your life. You had to honor it. And savor it.

I didn’t get to make the rules for reality.

“That’s why fiction,” I said, “is better than real life.”

I fell in love all the time. Just … nobody fell in love with me back.

But it was one thing to live your dreams in theory—and it was absolutely another thing to clumsily, awkwardly, terrifiedly do it for real.

Holding out hope for too long was one thing. Giving up too soon was quite another.

“I just got up every day, and went to bed every night, and tried to be a good person in between.”

We don’t get to know the whole story all at once. And where we’re headed matters so much less than how we get there.

It’s all about writing the very best story of your life. Not just how you live it—but how you choose to tell it.