This is a Love Story...

“Women like me do not fall gracefully, we stumble over our spines, trip over our vowels, and collapse into your arms.

Our hearts are open books, Russian novels containing fifty pages on the way your voice drifts across the telephone wires each night. Our hearts are first drafts, unedited verses about each and every person we have ever loved: the stranger on the subway, the girl who gave us a balloon, the boy who stole our virginity but not our heart.

Women like me will love you from a distance of a thousand syllables while laying in your bed, we will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible, and when we leave you will finally understand why storms are named after people.”

Kindness does not require passivity or social grace. Kind characters can stick to their guns and stand up for what they believe in. They can yell and scream and curse. Kind characters can be angry and disappointed when others do not show them the same compassion they show others. Kind characters can be tactless, oblivious. They may be rough around the edges (but have a heart of gold).

Kind characters often value justice and strive to stay connected to their humanity, even when the things they must do threaten to strip it away from them. Kind characters sometimes have to make difficult choices. Sometimes, kind characters even behave in a way that is unkind.

Kindness is complex, and it’s only a single solitairy characteristic that contributes to a character’s personality. While it can absolutely present as soft-spoken, honest, and open-hearted (my personal FAVE), it certainly doesn’t have to be.