We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

I still haven’t found that place where I can be my true self. But maybe you never get to be your true self, either.

we’ve done and more to do with who they are

way people respond to us has less to do with what

The entirety was overpowering. I was sad and horrified, ashamed and bereft, lonely and exhausted, caffeinated and guilt-ridden and grief-stricken and many other things as well. The system crashed

My heart grew thorns, each beat a stab.

If I were playing a part, I could establish a distance, pretend to only pretend to be feeling the things I was feeling

Maybe I’d softened, but I hadn’t forgiven.

Life is all arrivals and departures.

But where you succeed will never matter so much as where you fail.

Language does this to our memories—simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft-told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.