Puddin'

For the longest time, I thought the power of positive thinking would get me by. And it helps, that's for dang sure. But it takes more than thinking and hoping and wishing and praying. You need a whole lot of doing.

I kind of wonder what it feels like to love something so much that you’re even happy to fail at it.

My magic truth-the thing that has changed everything for me-is this: the body I have shouldn't change how deserving I am of my dreams. I stopped obsessing over my body being too round or too wise or too lumpy. Because I'm not too much of anything. I am just enough. Even when I don't feel like I am.

Girls don't have to be nice," she says simply. "But they should stick together...The wider world wants you to think other women are drama...or catty. But that's just because when we work together, we're unstoppable....One day you'll wake up to find that there's a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season of your life.

Sometimes we have to break the rules to get what we want. But now I think it’s time we change them.

I try not to cringe. Dog-earing a book feels like a violation of some sacred unspoken rule.

If you only love what comes easy for you, you'll find you don't have much to love." -Abuela

Find the things you love and do them every day, even if it means failing. That's all there is to it.

You will. One day you’ll wake up and find that there’s a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season in your life.

I believe the bad parts of us always live inside of us. It's just up to us to take those flaws and repurposed them for good.

I don't exactly get to be moody or snappy when I don't feel like putting on a happy face, because when most people meet me, I'm already starting out with a deficit. Fat girls don't get that luxury.

Even the wrong direction sometimes feels better than no direction at all.

But everything happens for the first time at some point, so why can't that first time be me?

I think so many of us waste too much time dreaming of the things we believe we can’t have. But I’m done dreaming. I’m ready to make my dreams my reality.

I know. They don’t put fat girls on the news. Well, they didn’t let fat girls win runner-up in the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant either. But everything happens for the first time at some point, so why can’t that first time be me?

I'm constantly left to wonder if the people we are online will lever materialize in real life.

I guess...well, that's what stories do. They connect people. Stories change hearts and then hearts change the world

I'm not ashamed of my dreams. But something in me has always felt like the more people you share your hopes with, the flimsier they become. Suddenly everyone else is poking holes in your future until there's not much left to hope for at all" -Millie

Love is in the details" -Millie

Diet Dr. Pepper is my survivalist elixir, my lifeblood, if you will.

But you have Aurelia. She’s, like, your ride or die. I don’t have a lifelong BFF like that.” “You will. One day you’ll wake up and find that there’s a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season in your life.

I know thinking like that isn’t gonna get me anywhere. And it’s the exact reason why I’m not going to fat camp and obsessing over diets with my mom anymore, but all those horrible thoughts still exist. I’m just trying to figure out how to live in spite of them.

kind of wonder what it feels like to love something so much that you’re even happy to fail at it.

I don’t need a church to be a Christian. And I don’t have to be thin to be a good person. Or a pretty person.

Like, the way they talk about gay people and loving the sinner but not the sin. I mean, if you can’t love the whole of a person, do you really love them at all?

My magic truth—the thing that has changed everything for me

Callie: I don't have a lifelong BFF like that. Abuela: You will. One day you'll wake up and find that there's a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season in your life.