Turtles All the Way Down

by John Green

I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now.

I was thinking about how part of your self can be in a place while at the same time the most important parts are in a different place, a place that can’t be accessed via your senses.

I wanted to tell her that I was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: It was a hurdle you jumped over, or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense.

but I could not cinch the lasso on my thoughts, which were galloping all around my brain.

Me: Well, what do you have an interest in? Him: You.

“But you give your thoughts too much power, Aza. Thoughts are only thoughts. They are not you. You do belong to yourself, even when your thoughts don’t.”

Maybe you don’t choose what’s in the picture, but you decide on the frame.”