How to Save a Life

No one measures a life in weeks and days. You measure life in years and by the things that happen to you.

I'm still going to love you, always. And in the rock-paper-scissors of life, love is rock. fear, anger, everthing else...no contest.

It's just so out of control. Life, I mean. The way it flies off in all these different directions without your permission.

And part of being American is respecting all people's right to be whatever they want to be and at the same time respecting your own right to bitch about it, as long as you're educated and can reason your way through your bitching.

It's a jagged thing in my throat, how much I miss her.

He felt it too, the air between us, the invisible lines that something or someone had drawn to connect us. That's the way I remember it.

Sometimes you should have something you don't need but that you want.

The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal note every day.

That's how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I'm still waiting.

My whole life has been one big broken promise.

I never had a connection like that to anyone, where every day you think about what you’ll tell them and you wonder what they’re doing, and you know they’re wondering what you’re doing.

Don't ask me how I am,' I blurt. 'Please.' I want to keep feeling good. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean I have to look.

It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.

I don't yell back at my mother. When I'm angry or scared or upset, I don't yell. I stay quiet. I've seen how she is, how she would get with Kent and with me and with other people, life if someone at the pharmacy got in the wrong line or asked too long a question, or if someone on the bus accidentally bumped her. I've watched her my whole life, the way people react to her. It doesn't actually help you get what you want, yelling and being like that. It only makes people think bad of you.

Sometimes you want to hear your own mother's voice.

I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks. As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me. He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't. I'm really sorry, Jill. Four little words.

Life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong, and complaints about the world around you.

Sometimes trust isn’t something you can just choose to do even if it makes sense. All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn’t abandoned me, is me.

Love is just a word we use to describe what boils down to a selfish and temporary state of happiness.

There are so many pieces to grief. Sad pieces, angry pieces, guilty pieces, pieces of regret, and pieces that are a certain kind of pain that doesn't even have a word.

You have to dig down and find some part of you that doesn't care what people think, doesn't care if it's hard, doesn't care if it hurts, doesn't care if you have to momentarily experience humiliation, uncertainty, fear.

Death changes things,' I said. 'It happens and you can't stop it. You don't have a choice. This is different.' 'Life changes things, too.

I can be human to strangers and coworkers, just not to the people who actually care about me.

You used to not give a damn about anything, but that was because you were brave, not cynical. You used to have so much courage.

All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn't abandoned me, is me.

The American dream is kind of stupid, anyway. Slave ninety percent of your life so that you can spend the last ten percent of it doing nothing? And there's no guarantee you even make it far enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Look at the state of the world. At this rate it's all going to implode any second, anyway, and you could...die unexpectedly. So you should do what makes you happy.

And when you can't stand yourself, you don't want people around who are constantly saying how much they love you, because you know you don't deserve it.