Travis

by Mia Sheridan

We all possessed unpleasant truths, based on where life had taken us, and what we’d encountered, whether personally or professionally. Most people didn’t mention such topics during social hour. Most people didn’t like to think about those things alone in their own head.

Weren't all of us a compilation of the versions of ourselves we'd once been? Maybe if we were lucky—and insightful—we learned how to extract the good, and leave the bad behind, the parts that hadn’t worked for us, and instead brought nothing but pain.

“Maybe the terrible truth about love is that when it’s gone, it leaves a hole in your heart so big it feels like nothing will ever fill it. The idea of risking again feels fatal. A human being can’t possibly lose that much of themselves and still survive. And so you try desperately to fill it with things that never quite do the job. Things that sometimes hurt other people,”

“We’ve all made mistakes, Travis,” she said. “We get to reinvent ourselves. And if the new version is even better, it means we’ve learned and we’ve grown.”

“All the things that have brought us pain, carve a distinct hole in our heart, and there’s someone else out there with the perfect something that will fill the void. And in turn, we get to do the same for them. And suddenly, it all makes sense. It all fits. Because we haven’t been forsaken. We’ve been prepared.”