Bed Stuy

Animals often came together to ward off predators. With humans, the predators were already inside us. Humans created their own demons and sought emotional safety from others in an effort to fight those demons.

if you were fortunate enough to have people you liked in your life, you could create your own family. Family was whom you chose, and it could be comprised of those who made you feel most loved and appreciated.

just because someone is family does not mean you have to like them. Family can hurt you in the same ways, if not worse, than the stranger on the street.

I had to look at myself in the mirror and ask, What is it that we are doing when we reach out to love another person? What great gaping hole are we trying to fill? What was it that cut me so deeply that I will forever be trying to stop this bleeding? Why am I such damaged goods that I keep connecting with other, worse-damaged goods?

It’s weird but, like, I think we underestimate this shit. Just how many of us are a hair’s breadth away from losing all of our shit at any given moment.

Love was a lot like one of those gorgeous symphonies Rachel had introduced him to. There were gradations and fluctuations, crescendos, crests, fortissimo, and eventually, at some point, the inevitable diminuendo. No movement lasted forever, but the really special ones reverberated through time and rested in your bloodstream as long as you breathed.

And I’m pretty certain that on 9/11, my husband, along with several thousand others, was looking to the sky and begging for God to save him. And all of these people have one thing in common: God never came. He couldn’t be bothered.

He had done a lot of reading on the subject. Animals loved each other, but with animals it was a little different. Animals, like humans, came together out of necessity. There was the all-encompassing need to procreate—to protect the species. Animals often came together to ward off predators. With humans, the predators were already inside us. Humans created their own demons and sought emotional safety from others in an effort to fight those demons.