i.

You have to meet people where they are, and sometimes you have to leave them there.

“I restore myself when I’m alone.”

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

“One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, love, anger, loss or betrayal, change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.”

“…the wholeness of a heart that knows how to beat for itself and another.”

“I felt free and therefore I was free.”

When you are silent you are again beautiful.

Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you, as the sun reaches out, as it warms you as you stand there, empty-handed—

I’m in love with you because you make me feel safe. It sounds corny and vague. People always talk about feeling safe with someone and you wonder what it even means. I still don’t really know. All I know is that when I’m with you, I feel like I’m clutching a giant thing of pepper spray or reliving a moment of being carried to bed by my parents when I was five years old and fell asleep in front of the television. All day long, I can feel fragile, like a raw nerve, and when I come home to you, it’s like I just put on the thickest winter coat and installed bulletproof windows in my apartment. ‘Honey, I’m home…and no longer terrified.

The most beautiful part of the pain is the poetry that follows

“[She] and I felt something for each other from the beginning. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights traveling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go.”