Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

I wasn’t really a fan of being overcome by emotion. In fact, I’d structured my life around lack of emotion. I’d built it around routine, and safety, and order. Feelings were a lot of trouble. I avoided them as much as possible.

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Remember: What women think of as sharing, men see as complaining.”

When we’re little, they’re everything—the gods and goddesses that rule our worlds. It takes a lot of growing up, and a lot of disappointment, to accept that they’re just normal, bumbling, mistaken humans, like everybody else.

“I’m just not really a joiner. Of clubs.” That was true. Human connection had its upsides, but it sure was a lot of work. The risk-reward ratio was low, at best.

“Choosing to love—despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway … That’s not weakness. That’s courage.”