When Michael Met Mina

I'm starting to realize that being born into this social world is a little like being born into clean air. You take it in as soon as you breathe, and pretty soon you don't even realize that while you can walk around with clear lungs, other people are wearing oxygen masks just to survive.

Grief, especially when it's still raw, is like having a thirst that no amount of water quenches. It can't be consoled; it can't be alleviated. It's unrelenting and constant. I wish I could tell her that it will get easier with time. But if I told her that I'd also have to tell her that easier doesn't mean it ever goes away.

The scariest thing about people like Terrence and my parents is not that they can be cruel. It's that they can be kind too.

Maybe you only get one chance at meeting somebody who really gets inside you, wakes corners of your mind and heart that you didn't know were asleep.

Words. And meaning. You can't own one and not the other.

A reminder that for some people in this world, freedom and ordinary aren't basic rights. They're luxuries you should never take for granted.

At [my old school], when teachers stood up to address us in assemblies, it was to urge us to study hard, stay focused, remain resilient, set goals, seek support. If there was a “leader,” she was the exception, not the norm. Listening to [the adults here], I wonder if things would be different if we spent thirteen years being told that we were born to lead, and that the only thing that would ever hold us back would be a limited imagination.

But then some people showed me: That anger is good But with action is better. That remembering is good But with hope it is better. That change is good But with discovery it is better. That questioning is good But with trust it is better. That resisting is good But sometimes those you resist do not matter. And that standing up is good But standing up alongside others is better.

I wear my politics like hand-me down clothes: some bits feel like they don't fit me properly, but I expect I'll grow into them, trusting that because they're from my parents they've come from a good source.

It's so much easier to live in a world where everything is black and white. I've never done grey before, but I suspect it's one of those things that, tried once, you can never go back.

I've never done grey before, but I suspect it's one of those things that, tried once, you can never resile from.

I want to tell him that when we were in the camps waiting for a boat we spoke about what we imagined Australia would be like. Kangaroos, koalas, wide open spaces. Then, when we arrived, we were locked up and the images we had shrank smaller and smaller until Australia became tiny patches of sky beyond the barbed wire.

Before Mina, my life was like a complicated jigsaw puzzle. Mina's come along and pushed the puzzle upside down onto the floor. I have to start all over again, figuring out where the pieces go. But some of the pieces to the puzzle don't seem to fit the way they used to. The thought terrifies me.

I think some people just can't handle people who go about their life genuinely not caring about what other people think.

Unrequited love is better than returned love that fails. That way I can dream.

I know I've got to work twice as hard as everybody else because I've got twice the distance to run just to catch up.