If I Never Met You

by Mhairi McFarlane

At some point, you have to give up wishing for your parents to be who you wanted them to be and accept them as they are,

Your closest family returned you to whence you’d came, when you were still a work in progress. They weren’t fooled for a second. Older you was a construct.

Those who said family mattered above all else were wrong. People you love, who love you back, matter above all. Crap people you happen to be related to: you need to stop thinking you owe them a limitless number of chances to hurt you.

keep a close eye on the worst things that happened to you, they could turn out to be a doorway, a route to someplace else entirely, a map you couldn’t yet read.