Once You Know Some Things, You Can't

I Think We Are Bound To, And By, Nature. We May Want To Deny This Connection And Try To Believe We Control The External World, But Every Time There's A Snowstorm Or Drought, We Know Our Fate Is Tied To The World Around Us

In The Darkest Hour Of Winter, When The Starlings Had All Flown Away, Gretel Samuelson Fell In Love. It Happened The Way Things Are Never Supposed To Happen In Real Life, Like A Sledgehammer, Like A Bolt From Out Of The Blue. One Minute She Was A Seventeen Year-old Senior In High School Waiting For A Sicilian Pizza To Go; The Next One She Was Someone Whose Whole World Had Exploded, Leaving Her Adrift In The Milky Way, So Far From Earth She Was Walking On Stars.

When I Looked At Her, She Appeared To Be A Different Person From The One I'd Known... She Had Rewritten Everything, Our History Together, Our Friendship. Now I Was The Girl Who'd Stolen Andres; The Girl Who'd Lied To Her About Who I Was. Therefore, She Owned Me Nothing.

I Never Even Believed In Happiness. I Didn't Think It Existed. Now Look At Me. I'm Ready To Believe In Just About Anything.

I Wrote To Find Beauty And Purpose, To Know That Love Is Possible And Lasting And Real, To See Day Lilies And Swimming Pools, Loyalty And Devotion, Even Though My Eyes Were Closed, And All That Surrounded Me Was A Darkened Room. I Wrote Because That Was Who I Was At The Core, And If I Was Too Damaged To Walk Around The Block, I Was Lucky All The Same. Once I Got To My Desk, Once I Started Writing, I Still Believed Anything Was Possible.