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reporting gave me a platform for my voice, and that resonated with people.
New York has a way of making you feel at home, no matter where you’re at. You just have to step off the street, and some neighborhood will claim you as one of their own.
You know how sometimes you say a word so often it loses its meaning?
“Promise me you won’t stop.
“I know,” I say. And I do. In this moment, just barely, the sparkle of the mission leaves me breathless. To be a part of history, to play a tiny role in this massive scientific undertaking.
Sometimes, you have to take your future into your own hands.
“The only feedback I ever hear is that he thinks you’re super cute.”
I want to make a name for myself.
“Your sister put avocado in the deviled eggs. She can’t be trusted.”
I can fake a confident, serious pose, but I can’t fake happiness.”
“If you want to kiss me, kiss me because you like me. Not because you think it’ll make me happy.” “But I—” “You can’t just kiss away all the bad feelings I have. You can’t kiss me and make me better. I think you know that, but … I have to say it.”
I want to tell him I’m here, that he can talk to me if he needs to. Or I can sit here, inches from him, listening to him breathe. In, and out. I want him to know how remarkable it is that, of the billions of people in the world, I am the one who’s sitting next to him, under stars and the champagne’s haze. I want him to know the improbability of two people meeting like this. That it’s astounding, no matter how inconsequential it is. Sure, strangers meet all the time. It’s the universe’s way to say we don’t matter. None of this matters. Our eyes meet. And it’s clear that, sometimes, the universe
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but for now, I feel okay. Only okay, but that’s okay. Okay.
There’s something gratifying about kissing someone goodbye. Just having someone to kiss goodbye is special, and I hope I never take him for granted.
“I’m not lost, just indecisive.”
Leon is me
“I like the sound of that,” he says. “Being yours.”
Just do what feels right to you.”
“Don’t aim to fix people. Fixing seems so permanent, so absolute. Like there’s no room for error. Aim to make things better.
“I need you to support me now. I need you to be okay with how I am now, and not think of me as someone who is broken.”
People aren’t broken, and therapists couldn’t fix them if they were. But maybe someone can make things a little better, or help them be a little happier.
