Puddin' (Dumplin', #2)

by Julie Murphy

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. —Dolly Parton

the body I have shouldn’t change how deserving I am of my dreams. I stopped obsessing over my body being too round or too wide or too lumpy. Because I’m not too much of anything. I’m just enough. Even when I don’t feel like I am.

I have tasks that need accomplishing. I need help, and the only way to get it is by asking for it.

“Find the things you love and do them every day, even if it means failing.

“If you only love what comes easy for you, you’ll find you don’t have much to love.

“We’re all dying,” says Abuela. “It’s just a slow process.”

“Girls don’t have to be nice,” she says simply. “But they should stick together.” She shakes her head. “The wider world wants you to think other women are drama . . . or catty. But that’s just because when we work together, we’re unstoppable.”

We are unstoppable!

I wish to feel like this all the time. That I’ve found my place, and that my place isn’t just a geographical coordinate, but a living, breathing thing that I carry inside of me.

that’s what stories do. They connect people. Stories change hearts and then hearts change the world.”