You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

What happens if you don’t process what has happened to you, what you’ve done, what you didn’t do? It sits inside you. It can make you feel like you’re choking, like you can’t take a full breath.

The pain is yours and it will change you.

What do we do with the years we have left?

please dont make me thibk about this

The answer is yes. The answer knocks on all the doors, tries all the windows, slips in over the transom if it must.

I live in the heart of the heart of it all.

okay ohio ill give you this

I was unfolding, learning to take up space.

I’m trying on so many lines written by others but through which I can see my own experience.

here’s the thing about carrying light with you: No matter where you go, and no matter what you find—or don’t find—you change the darkness just by entering it.

What if forgiveness doesn’t need to be the goal? The goal is the wish: peace.

Like watching the sun rise and set—it doesn’t go up and down, it goes around. It comes back. It always comes back.

Whenever I make a wish—birthday candle, eyelash, 11:11, dandelion fluff—I wish for the same thing.

I don’t fully understand, and I suspect understanding will always be out of reach.