Our Infinite Fates

by Laura Steven

In truth, a part of me believed that everyone I’d ever loved would come back to me again in another life, in another form. They wouldn’t necessarily know we had met before, and nor would I, but that energy would still thrum between us, that recycled love, that historic bond.

And so, in the absence of any abiding religious convictions, this was the one blind faith I had: that love was a physical force, and it was never wasted. Once it was called out into the universe, it would echo back to us forever.

And so even when there’s no big joy—even when it feels like we’ll never leave this trench alive—there’s still the small joy. A sunset, a flask of tea. Your hand in mine.”

“It’s impossible to have bravery without fear. Bravery is picking up the fear and carrying it alongside you, rather than allowing it to block the path.”

life gives us grief like mounds of wet clay, ripe and heavy beneath our reluctant hands, and with it we can do one of three things. we can carry it with us wherever we go, stooped beneath its awful weight, we can shove it to the back of a wardrobe, buried beneath an old waxed coat, or we can make something beautiful, and let it live on beyond us. —AUTHOR UNKNOWN