I feel so peculiar; Life is so strange. I feel completely detached from everything and everyone, yet I’m so heavily drenched in the essence of being that sometimes I can barely move. I long to wake up every day feeling a sense of purpose and belonging, but as of now, I am full to the brim with ambivalence and fear for this life and where it’s taking me. a new chapter of my existence has begun, and this beginning is painfully vague and stagnant. I scurry through the pages, ignoring the seemingly small, insignificant words as I desperately search for the climax. I stop and underline a few words: love, loss, liberation. I want to do extraordinary things with these words, but I am terribly limited. I return to Chapter One; I read about a little girl looking up to the starry night sky. Her heart is full, and she is limitless. She looks up and sees forever; she looks up and sees the whole wide world and feels as if she could singlehandedly shake it. There is nothing she cannot do. I study the pages from Chapter One and trace my fingers over every last word as they dance on my fingertips to a song of ambition and joy. I return to the present, and I take a deep breath. I notice in the midst of my hurry I have left the pages torn; they are rigid, dry, and my tears have dismembered a few words. The little girl that I once knew gently takes my shaking hand. She traces every word- the buts and whys, the hellos and goodbyes, the stars and the sunrise. She welcomes me to this new chapter with a tender smile, and at last, we become one.

Elle attendait, mais elle ne savait quoi. Elle sentait seulement sa solitude et le froid qui la pénétrait, et un poids plus lourd à l'endroit du cœur.

‏إنني أريدك وأرفضك في آن واحد، أتجاهلك وكل قلبي منتبه إليك، وفي كل مرّة قررتُ بها أن أكرهك، شعرتُ بأني أحبك أكثر.

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’

ineffable [in-ef-uh-buhl]

I can spend three days locked in my house, reading books and drawing and doing music and then suddenly I have a desire to put on a fancy dress and just run to every party that I know for the entire night- and then go back and lock myself up.