• no matter which road you take, it will be both glorious and unbearable.

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• what a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be. (ellen burstyn)

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• 原生家庭不是一时的暴雨，而是一生的潮湿。the family of origin is not just a fleeting downpour, it’s a lifetime of dampness.

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• what a blessing to be tired in the pursuit of a challenge of your own choosing.

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• some things don’t return. not because they are lost, but because they were complete.

• I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much pressure there is to know who you are when you’re seventeen. Or eighteen. Or twenty-two. Or thirty. Like everyone expects you to have this one, clear, perfect plan that’ll make your life make sense. A major. A dream job. A future that impresses people at dinner parties. But the truth is… I don’t know what I’m doing. And maybe that’s okay. My point is, I don’t think there’s a single path we’re meant to follow. We’re all just trying. Messily. Quietly. Loudly. Every day. And whatever your path looks like— whether you’re going to college, or staying home, or taking a gap year, or running straight into your dream job— I hope you’re doing it because it’s yours. Not someone else’s version of it. Not what your parents wanted, or what your friends expect. Yours. (NoNomDePlume, “Chapters of an Ending (...

• he always forgot; he was always made to remember. (hanya yanahigara, “a little life”)

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• and sometimes those stories, like the presence of the Lord, are hard to believe. unless believing is what makes them true. (mitch albom, “the stranger in the lifeboat”)

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• there are many kinds of selfishness in this world, but the most selfish is hoarding time, because none of us know how much we have, and it is an affront to God to assume there will be more. (mitch albom, “finding chika”)

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• why would you sing the national anthem for people who’d been killed by soldiers? (han kang, “human acts”)

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• we pull our boots on with both hands but we can’t punch ourselves awake (richard siken, “little beast”)

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• here i am leaving you clues. i am singing now while Rome burns. we are all just trying to be holy. my applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. we are all going forward. none of us are going back. (richard siken, “snow and dirty rain”)

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• how much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder? (richard siken, “portrait of fryderyk in shifting light”)

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• how poor a gift is freedom to the spirit that loved the labor. (mary oliver, “jack”)