Maybe in Another Life

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“You’re a great nurse,” I tell him as we head back. “Do you know that?” “I hope so,” he says. “I love my job. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really felt I was meant for.”

“Being a nurse… seems like a hard job. But fulfilling,” I say.

‘Nurses might not be the ones who cure you, but they certainly make you feel better.’ ”

When you sit there and wish things had happened differently, you can’t just wish away the bad stuff. You have to think about all the good stuff you might lose, too. Better just to stay in the now and focus on what you can do better in the future.

That’s what you do when you want something. You don’t look for reasons why it won’t work. You look for reasons why it will. So

If you love someone, if you think you could make them happy for the rest of your life together, then nothing should stop you. You should be prepared to take them as they are and deal with the consequences. Relationships aren’t neat and clean. They’re ugly and messy, and they make almost no sense except to the two people in them. That’s what I think. I think if you truly love someone, you accept the circumstances; you don’t hide behind them.”

Nurses help people. And I’m starting to think there’s nothing more important I can do with my time than that.

“Look at you. About to be a mother and a nurse,” she says, by way of hello.