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the family you choose is just as meaningful as the one you’re born with.
All the joy is gone. It’s not an escape anymore, because there’s no hiding from this kind of grief. But maybe someday it will quiet just enough for me to find my way back to design. Maybe…My thoughts slow just long enough for me to drift off to sleep.
“I think fairy tales might be more like cautionary tales than anything else. And fate is just an excuse for people to be inactive participants in their own lives.”
I don’t believe in fate. I can’t. I refuse to believe that first Mom and then Dad dying was part of some grand scheme. If that’s true, whatever’s at the end of my rainbow isn’t worth what it will have cost me.
When someone calls me brave for going out or wearing a fitted dress or for some other normal thing that every other girl does, what it really means is: I would be mortified to look like you, but good for you for merely existing even if all I can think about is how fat you are and how I’m terrified I’ll one day look like you. So brave.
Don’t you see how belittling this is! I’m not brave for wearing a dress. I’m just living!
When I close my eyes, I hope Dad is there calling back to me, like he always was when I needed him most.
When Dad died, I heard so many people tell me they were sorry over and over again to the point that the word doesn’t even carry meaning anymore. It’s just a cloud of a word. You can hear it. You can see it. You just can’t feel it.
I grin down at her as I take out my mouthpiece. “Just playing by the rules. Moo, bitch. Moo.”
“You’re like an antidepressant in human form,”
I put on a pair of frayed denim shorts and a T-shirt that reads I DONUT CARE ABOUT YOUR DIET.
The truth, though, is that clothing is fashion and fashion should be for everyone because clothing should be for everyone.
Do you hate when people say they’re sorry? I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “I feel bad for people mostly. No one ever knows what to say or how to talk to me. It’s like dropping a bomb on any conversation. The ultimate mood killer.”
“I think that’s love. The real stuff. When you love someone at their worst. When you believe they can be better.”
And I wonder if all the language around grief and your loved one being there with you always makes it that much harder to deal with their deaths.
The hardest part about Dad dying was not being able to say goodbye. The last time I saw him was just like any other time.
“He’s dead to me,” Drew says, like a switch has flipped in her brain. “Scorched earth. Dead to me.” Anna nods. “His pulse is nonexistent. The doctor is pronouncing the time of death as now o’clock. They’re calling the morgue. He’s dead.”
And there it is. I fell in love. I’m in love with Henry Mackenzie. I always assumed I would have a difficult time knowing if I was in love. What if I didn’t recognize the signs? Or what if it wasn’t as intoxicating as the whole world has built it up to be? But, for me, it feels very simple. It’s the kind of thing I know with just as much assurance as my birthday. It’s not something I feel lost in or confused by. It’s a truth,
Choose what makes you happy. Things, places, people. Only choose the ones that bring that delight to you. Don’t be a hostage to duty or obligation. I didn’t carry you and birth you and raise you to waste your precious life on anything except unbridled joy. Choose joy.
The best part about crossing any bridge is the chance to look back and be able to fully understand where you came from. You’re not a machine. You’re not a computer. You’re an artist, and any good artist knows life feeds into art and art feeds into life.”
