Begin Again

I want to love and be loved without ever having to wonder if it’s conditional. I want a life that is sometimes just my own, without feeling like I’m responsible for anyone or anyone is burdened with being responsible for me. I want back what I lost—at least however much of it I can still get.

Anything worth doing starts with a mess.

Like—getting a new start doesn’t mean you have to wipe the slate clean. Just pick up the pieces. Begin again.

Go make the most out of it, because every day is a chance to begin again.

he kind of moment that forms a tattoo in your heart before you even fully understand how much it means to you, living in it and outside it at the same time, making it a part of your story before you know how the story ends.

For these heart-stuttering, breathtaking moments when you realize that if you carve us all down to our barest parts, we’re all the same.

You kids are all so focused on doing too much. So much of everything all the time. What you need is balance. Priorities.” She makes sure I’m looking at her when she says, “You need to decide what’s important to you, or then nothing is important. You understand?

want to love and be loved without ever having to wonder if it’s conditional. I want a life that is sometimes just my own, without feeling like I’m responsible for anyone or anyone is burdened with being responsible for me. I want back what I lost—at least however much of it I can still get. “What?

But people who only like to do stuff they’re already great at? They end up limiting themselves. And they end up regretting it.

The way I’ve been throwing myself into so many things that I can’t quite give my whole self anywhere. Not to the things that matter most. Not just the things that matter while I’m here, but during whatever comes next.

Because the truth is, knowing I can be helpful means that I’m not a burden.

I just—I like situations I can control. Writing things down alone in my room is a situation I can control, but a live show is something else entirely. And I feel like there are already so many things we don’t get to control.

it’s the understanding of how fragile everything really is, when I try to account for it. How easily plans can come undone. I spent my entire childhood with dreams that got smaller as I got older, but I’ve held fast to them. Now with every little setback I can’t help wondering if they’ll get smaller still.

Most of the time I can bury it. The faster I move, the more I keep busy, the easier it is to ignore.

I don't want to hurt anymore. I just want to understand.

As if we’re both thinking, in that moment, of the pieces we’ve been trying to leave behind. The ones that will never really leave us. The ones that will only pull us back the longer we try to pretend they don’t exist.

It makes my chest warm in this familiar way, like when you spot a face you don’t just recognize, but have started to know well.

Now I understand just how in over my head I am academically. I spent eighteen years trying to get here, and it only took an hour for it to fall apart.

I want a life that is sometimes just my own without feeling like I'm responsible for anyone or anyone is burdened with being responsible for me. I want back what I lost, at least however much of it I can still get.

The faster I move, the more I keep busy, the easier it is to ignore.

All this time, I've been so eager to get here that I didn't think much past beyond doing it. Now it feels like there's an entire new world to consider. I'm so giddy from the potential of it, I want to break into a run, swallow this entire place whole.

When you get used to living a certain way—used to measuring your life, and maybe even your worth in a certain way—it’s so much easier to keep going in an old rhythm than to try to pick up one you’ve never known.

My favorite flavor is indiscriminate fruit.

Because there is a part of me that genuinely enjoys giving advice and helping where I can.

White cheddar Cheez-Its,” I mutter under my breath, pointing myself toward my door. “Well, I’ll see you later, then.

Yeah, but aren’t all books kind of self-insert fanfiction?

People with problems so personal but so universal that it reminds me, the way running an advice column often does, that at our cores we’re all more alike than we think. Hung up on the same worries, wishing on the same stars.