“

This was the year I realized that family doesn’t always mean love, and romance doesn’t always mean forever.

“

It’s always the ones who didn’t choose us that force us to choose ourselves.

“

I was never prepared for us to become you and me. But here we are.

“

Pieces of the same old me are back, some pieces will never return. Now I want to live, not just survive the day, a feeling I thought would never return.

“

Sometimes it feels lonely. It feels like you’re the only one who sees the light at the end of the tunnel, what lies on the other side, the magic that could happen if everything goes right.

“

I had a growing sense of the limitations of my worldview as I traveled. Every day since the end of college, I have been faced with the reality that life is so complexly grey.

“

I listened to many words of advice about new doors opening when old doors close. It was comforting and sad at the same time.

“

I joined the Marine Corps less than six months after I turned eighteen, so adulthood remained a mythical land – full of freedom and good fortune.

“

People tell you you’re running away from your problems, and maybe you are.

“

When I look back at how naïve I was as an eighteen-year-old recently graduated from high school.