This Lullaby

I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

Some things don't last forever, but some things do.  Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.

Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said "friendly" relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.

Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in the words.

Are those the only options? Nothing or forever?

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...

The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.

You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those songs.

Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.

What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both.

The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote.

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.

...He always did the leaving. But not this time. She kept walking, and did not look back.

She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.

This Lullaby is only a few words,
A simple run of chords,
Quiet here in this spare room,
But you can hear it, hear it,
Wherever you may go,
Even if I let you down,
This lullaby plays on...

And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling into place.

I've seen what commitment leads to.

Going in is the easy part. It's the ending that sucks!

I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all.

But it was happening. So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream.

But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.

But I think, personally, that it would be worse to have been alone all that time. Sure, maybe I would have protected my heart from some things, but would that really have been better? To hold myself apart because I was too scared that something might no be forever?

And I felt a sudden whirl in my head, knowing this leap was inevitable, that I wasn't just standing on the cliff, toes poking over, but already in mid-air.

Maybe marriage, like life, isn't only about the big moments, whether they be good or bad. Maybe it's all the small things - like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day - that stretches out to strengthen even the most tenuous bond.

"See," he began, leaning back into the booth, "I was at this car dealership today, and I saw this girl. It was an across-a-crowded-room kind of thing. A real moment, you know?"
I rolled my eyes. Chloe said, "And this would be Remy?"
"Right. Remy," he said, repeating my name with a smile. Then, as if we were happy honeymooners recounting our story for strangers he added, "Do you want to tell the next part?"
"No," I said flatly.

In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.

He'd always had that fearless optimism that made cynics like me squirm.

I wondered if it was enough for both of us. I would never know from here, though.

And time was passing.  Crucial minutes and seconds, each one capable of changing everything.

This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.

But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.

I am not breaking my rules,' I snapped, hating that I'd ended up on the advice-recieving end of things, jumping from Dear Remy to Confused in Cincinnati all in one summer.

The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in... protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.

There was only so much space between us,  not even a real distance if measured in miles or feet or even inches, all the things that told you how far you'd come or had left to go.  But it was a big space, if only for me.  And as I moved forward to him covering it, he waited there on the other side.  It was only the last little bit I has to go, but in the end, I knew it would be all I would truly remember.  So as I kissed him, bringing this summer and everything else full circle, I let myself fall, and was not scared of the ground I knew would rise up to meet me.

The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.

I closed my eyes and listened. It was like music I'd heard all my life, even more than "This Lullaby." All those keystrokes, all those letters, so many words.

I brushed my fingers over the beads and watched as her image rippled, like it was on water, breaking apart gently and shimmering before becoming whole again.

Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.

"So what do you wear to dump somebody?" she asked me, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. "Black, for mourning? Or something cheerful and colorful, to distract them from their pain? Or maybe you wear some sort of camouflage, something that will help you disappear quickly in case they don't take it well."

"He's getting dumped. And he doesn't even know it yet. He's probably eating a cheeseburger or flossing or picking up his dry cleaning, and he has no idea. No inkling."

Yes, it sucked getting dumped. But wasn't it better to just be brutally honest? To admit that your feeling for someone is never going to be powerful enough to justify taking up any more of their time? I was doing him a favor, really. Freeing him up for a better opportunity. In fact, I was a practically a saint, if you really thought about it. Exactly.

"It's so weird," Chloe said finally, "that it doesn't feel different now."
"What?" I asked her.
"Everything," she said. "I mean, this is what we've been waiting for, right? High school's over. It's a whole new thing but it feels exactly the same."
"That's because nothing new has started yet," Jess told her. She had her face tipped up, eyes on the sky above us. "By the end of the summer, then things will feel new. Because they will be."
Chloe pulled another tiny bottle, this time gin, out of her jacket pocket and popped the top. "It sucks to wait, though," she said, taking a sip of it. "I mean, for everything to begin."

That was the nice thing about the Spot: you could hear everything, but no one could see you.

I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.

The lizard stared up at us, and we stared back, taking each other in. He was little and defenseless, I felt sorry for him already. This was a screwed-up place he'd just come into. But he didn't have to know that. Not yet, anyway. There in that room, where it was hot and cramped, the world probably still seemed small enough to manage.

But I always worked harder when I was up against something, or when someone assumed I couldn't succeed. That's what drove me, all those nights studying. The fact that so many figured I couldn't do it.

It passed, though. That was the bad thing. It always passed.

In a way, I was almost happy to see her. The worst part of me, out in the flesh. Blinking back at me in the dim light, daring me to call her a name other than my own.

In the dark everyone felt the same: the edges blurred. When I think of myself then, what I was like two years ago, I feel like a wound in a bad place, prone to be bumped on corners or edges. Never able to heal.

I didn't trot my pain out to show around. I kept it better hidden than anyone. I did.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.

Her life was perfect. But as was often the case, the rest of us were still adjusting.

Once, I was easy. Now, I was choosy. See? Big difference.

"One word," Ted replied, dead serious, "can change the whole world." There was a moment while we all considered this. Finally Lissa said to Chloe, loud enough for all of us to hear (she'd had a minibottle or two herself), "I bet he did really well on his SATs."

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

As if he was beating me to the punch, his words living forever, while I was left speechless, no rebuttal, no words left to say.

I'd seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he'd have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.

...as if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

"I planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing."
"No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet."

"So," she went on, "it got me thinking about what cost beauty. Or for that matter, what cost anything? Would you trade love for beauty? Or happiness for beauty? Could a gorgeous person with a mean streak be a worthy trade? And if you did make the trade, decide you'd take that beautiful swan and hope it wouldn't turn on you, what would you do if it did?"

"I should have told you from the start. I will let you down.

I knew this feeling, the 2 a .m. loneliness that I'd practically invented.

"Welcome to adulthood," she said. "It sucks as much as high school."

Despite our differences, we did have a history. No one understood where I was coming from the way he did.

But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight. Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.

Maybe, you just misplaced it, you know? It's been there. But you just haven't been looking in the right spot. Because lost means forever, it's gone. But misplaced... that means it's still around, somewhere. Just not where you thought.

So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.

I drove off, with my friends watching me go, all of them grouped on Lissa's hood. As I pulled onto the road, I glanced into the rear view and saw them: they were waving, hands moving through the air, their voices loud, calling out after me. The square of that mirror was like a frame, holding this picture of them saying good-bye, pushing me forward, before shifting gently out of sight, inch by fluid inch, as I turned away.

I was heading off to my new world. But I was taking a part of my past, and the future, along with me for the ride.  

Silent Melody

It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous  and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.
He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.

It was not easy to leave. Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.

"Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said.
"Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing. Leave love to take its course. 

She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.

Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.

But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly  as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself. He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.

That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be. Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing.

It takes character to refuse a man you love more dearly than life merely because marrying him would be the wrong thing to do.

There was at least as much to learn as there was to be taught.

She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge. A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence...

Gifts were dangerous things, she thought. Sometimes one succeeded only in taking far more than one gave.

"Ah, those eyes," he said. "They can speak volumes, but sometimes even I cannot translate the language. And we never did invent enough signs for deeper thoughts and feelings.

Perhaps we should do the learning - and learn not to communicate, or to do it in a different way. Now there is a thought. Perhaps we could learn your peace if we could share your silence.

Kare No Ondo

Your I love you’s  sound like I am sorrry ‘s to me

Between The Devil And Desire

     He wondered briefly what it was like to dream. He never did. Possibly because he so seldom slept. He was obsessed with obtaining all the wealth he could, burning the midnight oil as often as possible. It protected a person from having to do things he didn't want to do.
     "I don't trust good fortune that comes so easily. There is always a price to be paid, Frannie. Always." He gave her a cocky grin. "I want to know the price before I have to pay it."
     He doesn't need to know the path to adventure. He simply needs to recognize that it awaits.
     To take from life what you can, while you can.  

Perfect Match

-] Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck.

-] This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.

-] You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny indeed - the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand.

-] Life turns on a dime, and - it turns out - so does one's conscience.

-] Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.

-] You build a wall to keep something unwanted out - or to hold something precious in.

-] Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.

-] If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.

-] But rules only work when everyone plays by them. What happens when someone doesn't, and the fallout bleeds right into his life?

-] Whats stronger- the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

-] We have been naive enough to believe that we were invincible; that we could run blind through the hairpin turns of life at treacherous speeds and never crash.

-] "You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face.
"I had to," he said. "So you could save me back."

-] Just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.

-] There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.


-] But then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them. Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.

-] Does fate ever play by the rules?

-] I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.

-] Justification is a remarkable thing - takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.

-] You ask your readers if they can account for every minute of their lives, every thought in their heads, and be proud of it. You ask them if they've never jaywalked.... never gone thirty-one miles per hour in a thirty-mile zone... if they've never sped up when they saw that yellow light. And when you find that single, sorry person who hasn't taken a misstep, that one person with the right to judge me, you tell him he's just as human as I am. That tomorrow, his world could turn upside down and he might find himself capable of actions he'd never believed possible... you tell him, he could have been me.

-] After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.

-] The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, falling is the first step in learning how to fly.

-] And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.

-] Change your point of view, and the perspective is completely different.

-] "Can you see the pond?"
From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground.
When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?

-] After years of seeing the world in absolutes, he has taught me how to pick out all the shades of possibilities.

-] She isn't the girl who used to live next door, hasn't been for years. Back then she had freckles and jeans with holes at the knees and a ponytail yanked so tight it made her eyes pull at the corners. Now she wears pantyhose and tailored suits; she has had the same short bob hairstyle for five years. But when Patrick gets close enough, she still smells like childhood to him.
-] Where is this going to take me? she had asked. And Caleb's answer: Where do you want it to?

-] Just so you know: if this ever happens to you, you will not be ready. You will ask yourself How come; you will ask yourself What if.

 -] You cannot be doomed, after all, as long as you can still see the faint outline of hope on the opposite shore.

-] "Is Understatement 101 a course in medical school?"
"Of course. It's the prereq for Lying Through One's Teeth."

-] A level of a house, his father has told him, is called a story.
Nathaniel likes that. It makes him feel like may be he is living between the covers of a book himself. Like may be everyone in every home is sure to get a happy ending.

-] There are a lot of places," I reply, "that I thought I'd never go."

-] When the door opens, I realize that the only thing worse than waiting is the moment you realize a decision has been made.

-] I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words.

-] "What would you like to be?" Nina asks.
Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth. "A superhero," he says. "A new one."
Caleb is sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. "What's wrong with the old ones?"
Everything it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.
"How about Ironman?" Caleb suggests.
Nathaniel shakes his head. "He could rust."
"Aquaman?"
"Needs water."
"Nathaniel," Nina says gently, "nobody's perfect."
"But they are supposed to be." Nathaniel explains, an d Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible.

-] ...because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of filler that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty.

-] I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't wear badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a buttoned down shirt. They look the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening - to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wisest.

-] They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware. There had to have been a moment where they made a conscious decision to turn away before they saw something they didn't want to.

-] Where is the line? We're taught to stand up for ourselves; we're taught to stand up for others we care about. But all of a sudden, there's a new line drawn by the law. You sit back, it says, and let us deal with this. ...what's morally right is considered wrong...and what's morally wrong, you can get away with.

-] But if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.

-] The future may unfold in indelible strokes, but it doesn't mean we have to read the same lines over and over.

-] How far can a person go... and still live with himself.

-] Those eyes, they've got a history with mine. They were the first things I saw when I came to, after being hit in the skull with a baseball thrown by Patrick at Little League. They were the fortification I needed at sixteen to ride the chairlift at Sugarloaf, although I am terrified of heights. For almost my whole life, they've told me I'm doing all right, during moments when it was not in my own power to answer.

-] The relationship between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.

-] And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? May be, Caleb thinks with a small shock, he isn't the same person he once was, either.

-] As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds.

-] Best place to be?" Adrienne asks after a moment.
On the other side of this wall. In my bed, at home. Anywhere with Nathaniel.
"Before," I answer, because I know she'll understand.

Then Came You

Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.

Sooner or later everyone was driven to love someone they could never have.

I don't agree with you, Derek. I've had my ... I mean, I've done . . .that . . . and it wasn't at all what I expected. And Giuseppe was known everywhere as Italy's greatest lover.
Everyone said so."
Derek's bright green eyes filled with mockery. "Sure 'e did it right?"
"Since I conceived a child from the act, he must have done something right," Lily retorted.  

"Dearest Lily." Penelope took her hand and pressed it between her own. "Since I was a little girl, I've
always thought of you as the most beautiful, most courageous, most everything. But not practical. Never practical."

Everyone striving to be witty and sought-after, everyone talking and no one listening...

"I'm sorry for being such a scapegrace," Lily said. "Perhaps if I'd been a son, we might have found some
way to get along together. Instead I've been rebellious and foolish, and I've made such mistakes . . . oh, if
you only knew, you'd be even more ashamed of me than you already are. But you should be sorry, too,
Papa. You've been little more than a stranger to me. Since I was a child I've had to forge my own way.
You were never there. You never punished or scolded me, or did anything to show
you were aware of my existence. At least Mother bothered to cry." She raked her hands through her hair
and sighed. "All the times I needed someone to turn to ... I should have been able to rely on you. But you
kept to your books and your philosophical treatises. Such a fine, scholarly mind you have, Papa."
George glanced at her then, his eyes filled with protest and rebuke. Lily smiled sadly. "I just wanted to
tell you that in spite of everything . . . I still care about you. I wish ... I wish you could say you felt the
same."

Lock and Key

Everyone has their weak spot.  The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.

My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?

Not every thing's perfect, especially in the beginning. and its all right to have a little big of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble.

If you didn't always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper.

In the moments that it really counts, maybe it's enough - more than enough, even - just to be there.

The further you go, the more you have to be proud of.  At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with.  In the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters.  Just that you get there at all.

Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. "You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone."
Yeah," he said adding some cheese straws to the cart, "but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't."
I picked up a box of cheese straws, examining it. "Yeah," I said. "But it's not all about chance, either."

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

I was only then, when I knew I was alone, at least for the moment, that I reached under my gown into the pocket of my dress. As I pulled out my key from the yellow house, which I'd kept on my bureau since the day Nate left, I traced the shape one last time before folding my hand tightly around it.
Behind me, Cora was calling again. My family was waiting. Looking down at the pond, all I could think was that it is an incredible thing, how a whole world can rise from what seems like nothing at all. I stepped closer to the edge, keeping my eyes on my reflection as I dropped the key into the water, where it landed with a splash. At first, the fish darted away, but as it began to sink they circled back, gathering around. Together, they followed it down, down until it was gone.


Still, there was also was something reassuring about working for Commercial, almost hopeful. Like things that were lost could be found again. As we drove away, I always tried to imagine what it would be like to open your door to find something you had given up on.

We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody get's hurt. It's basic.'

My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

Whenever something great happens, you're always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself.

You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.

The night before, I'd offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to recieve in return.

"Family," she announced.  "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick.  The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose."
"You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat.  "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common.  Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color.  It's like they're part of your blueprint.  If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them."
I nodded and kept writing. "But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you.  So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals.  Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end.  Like it or not."

"That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened - good, bad, or anywhere in between - it was always, if nothing else, all your own."

There's this other half of him I dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret.... if he would just let me inside so I can help.

Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.

"And the rest is history," I said.
"Nah." He shook his head. "The rest is now."

"Don't I know it."

There comes a point when things are undeniable and can't be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.

A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.

You don't have to make things harder then they have to be just to prove a point.

There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?

We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.

The point," Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.

But sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something.

"You know? Conciseness is underrated"

It's never something huge that changes the everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture.

Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all.

"For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else."
"Really,' I said
"We're passive-aggressive people," she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. "Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common."

"To me," Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, "family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins."...

Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. "Huh," she said. "I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, just as you're getting pissed off at another."
"So it's an endless cycle," I said.
"I guess.' She took another sip. "Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about?"

She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family.

Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

More than anyone in that room, I was aware of exactly the sort of person who did such a thing. What I hadn't realized until that very moment, though, was that it wasn't just my mother who was guilty of all these offenses. I'd told myself that everything I'd done in the weeks before and since she left was to make sure I would never be like her. But it was too late. All I had to do was look at the way I'd reacted to what Cora had told me that morning- taking off, getting wasted, letting myself be left alone in a strange place - to know I already was...
Perhaps I was just like my mother. But looking up at Cora's hand, I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to try and prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.

It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When I got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my consciousness memory.

You have to admit, it's kind of impressive.... Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?

Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even just alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can. Maybe my sister and I shared more than we thought. We were both waiting and wishing for something we couldn't completely control: I wanted to be alone, and she the total opposite. It was weird, really, to have something so contrary in common. But at least it was something.

Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.

After all with me and Marshall, it had never been about words or conversation, where there was too much to be risked or lost. Here, though, in the quiet pressed against each other, this felt familiar to me. And it was nice to let someone get close again, even if it was just for a little while.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own.  Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd.  Or sheltered by it.  Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined. It wasn't like I was some expert on the meaning of being supportive. Was it being loyal even against your better judgement? Or, like Olivia, was it making your displeasure known from the start, even when someone didn't want to hear it?

"You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked.
"I want you to give her a possibility," she told him, looking at my necklace again. "And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?"

It wasn't so much that I was positive.  I just wasn't fully subscribing to such a negative way of thinking anymore.

How ballsy it was to just assume you know, with one glance, the things another person could live without.  As if it was the same for everyone, that simple.

Don't trust the natives, Olivia has told me, but I was already a step ahead of her.  I didn't trust anyone.  Not for directions, not for rides, and not for advice either.  Sure it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go.

"You know," I said to him. "Pining isn't attractive. On anyone. ... The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it."

Later, though, I wished I had spoken up, or at least tried to explain that once I knew Cora better than anyone. But that was a long time ago, back when she wasn't trying to save the whole world. Only me.

There were so many times during those years, though, as we moved from one house to another, that I would find myself thinking about my sister. Usually it was late at night, when I couldn't sleep, and I'd try to picture her in her dorm room forty-odd miles and a world away. I wondered if she was happy, what it was like out there. And if maybe, just maybe, she ever thought of me.

Was it really this easy, once you escaped, to just not care?

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn't ever want to be found.

But accepting help doesn't have to mean giving up control.

I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second.

Sure, there was no guarantee any of these things would actually happen as he envisioned. But maybe that wasn't the point. It was the planning that counted, whether it ever came to fruition or not.

There was something striking about a single key. It was like a question waiting to be answered, a whole missing a half. Useless on its own, needing something else to be truly defined.

Sometimes. It was a good escape. Until, you know, it wasn't.

You just had to know where to look.

There were so many levels to the unknown, from safe to dangerous to outright nebulous, scariest of all.

Maybe I'd just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing

But the original was there as well - more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side

If this was my instinct talking, I didn't want to hear what it was saying.

How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me.

"Even if you do make tons of new friends," I told him, "try not to forget where you came from, okay?"  

I hoped this was true. Even if it wasn't, all I could do was hand over what I could, with the hope of something in return. But of course, this was easier said than done.

If nothing else, now we knew where to find each other, even if only time would tell if either of us would ever come looking.