Am I There Yet? The Loop-de-Loop, Zigzagging Journey to Adulthood

It didn't feel like a season at the time; it felt like the rest of my life. That's how most seasons feel while you're living them, and then your surroundings transform just as you're getting settled in.

They say saudade is unique to Portuguese, impossible to define in English. Nostalgia gets pretty close, but saudade is more complicated. It's the remnant of gratitude and bliss that something happened, but the simultaneous devastation that it has gone and will never happen again. It marries the feelings of happy wistfulness and poignant melancholy, anticipation, and hopelessness. it's universally understood by a cross-ocean culture with a constant feeling of absence, a yearning for the return of something now gone.

You've felt it before. You'll feel it again. Heartbreak is one of the trade-offs of getting to spend a precious few decades in this world. Never let the futile fear of it stop you from sending that text, saying it first, trying again, or letting it go.

There were so many times I felt like I was sitting around waiting. So many times I was meandering around with a heavy heart, mourning the loss of a happier season without any idea what would come next, and when, I can see now that those were the seasons of loss--my own personal autumns--and they were some of the most important.

Acceptance is not a relief; it's the realisation that you will always carry grief with you.

You may not always have the same friends or same relationship you have now, but you'll always be with you. As a new adult, now's the time to become the person you want to live with for the rest of your life.

Show up with stories to tell. Your whole life prepares you for the big moments, so go in confidently knowing you have years of experience to your name. This goes for interviews, dates, or any important conversations. It's ultimately about whether they're a fit for you than you a fit for them, so be funny and self-assured and wear hot pink if you feel like it.

With every change, I took a step toward my own happiness, and I strengthened the muscles that would lift me out of the place where I thought myself to be stuck.

I quickly learned that choice is a luxury, and is largely responsible for pleasure. Half the enjoyment of putting on perfume is the decision to do so, and the decisions of which one, where, and how much.

I'd have to go through this pain alone, and it was up to me to decide if it would make me stronger or weaker.

Falling in love with someone else is a little bit about falling for yourself.

The end of summer is slower. This time of year is precious to everyone. It belongs to the soft cotton pat of your heart that never ages past ten years old. You can smell it - fresh pencil shavings and cinnamon.

In the throes of heartache and grief, I had felt stuck in the awkwardness of not knowing quite how to move forward, I felt bound to the ditch for so long, unable to see what it looked like from above. At times it felt like I'd never get out, and I got used to the constant tripping and stumbling around. It didn't feel like life should be, but it was how my life was. I accepted it. But over time, I strengthened into a different version of myself. I had new muscles, a new way of moving in the world.

My life doesn't end here, I told myself. In many ways, it begins here.

Acceptance is not a relief, it's the realization that you will always carry grief with you.

Spring is the promise of a solution to a problem (the problem being winter...) I believe we all kind of secretly expect that on March 21 of each year the cold clouds will part like silver drapes, unveiling a Renaissance painting interpretation of our cities. It's not what we were promised, nor what we've even probably experienced, and yet we feel entitled to it. It is embarrassingly infuriating when we are forced to continue slogging through with no expiration date.

Knowing that I'm not immortal now--that no one is--every morning I get a rush of adrenaline at the sheer thought that I am alive. This feeling is as wonderful and terrifying as it sounds. I am fully aware that my world could end tomorrow, which leaves me invigorated, but also more anxious. I am living intensely and quickly and productively and richly, but on the flip side, the sudden realisation of mortality kept me up at night throughout my grieving process.

Seasons of loss, like the colder seasons, are the hardest ones to endure, even if you logically understand they won't last forever.

She reminds me that women endure so much pain, and must do so with strength and grace. But in turn, we are gifted with intuition, empathy, and sensuality.

Sure is cold out there but tomorrow it’s going to be alllll sunshine!

But over time, I strengthened into a different version of myself. I had new muscles, a new way of moving in the world. My creativity and resilience and courage had grown. All this growth made me feel worthy of a new kind of romantic love – one in which I was far less concerned about whether I was worthy of a man and much more interested in his worthiness of me.

Are you sad to leave?" "So sad. But really glad I met you.

We sat on the edge, our feet dangling over the sea. We were quiet, as though we were together at a museum paying our respects to the masterpieces in front of us.

I like thinking about that person in 1974 who probably thought it was a huge mistake at the time, but look, now we're in the future and I'm sure nobody remembers except me, because I look at it every day and I'm totally endeared to it.

Abundance means more: there was more happiness, more creativity, more adventure, more life to be had. In my most optimistic moments in the hospital, I knew this illness was a hiccup and not a limit; there was so much more for me.

What if I was just an ordinary person who got a dose of bad luck in a certain period in my life? What if there was no universe-orchestrated happy ending, but just a continuation of some bad days and some good days? What if there were just seasons, and no eternal spring?

Shouldn't people going through mental or emotional health upsets have their own version of a cast, so that others know to take care?