The Awareness Of The Damage Done By

People Talk About Grief As If It's Kind Of An Unremittingly Awful Thing, And It Is. It Is Painful, But It's A Very, Very Interesting Sort Of Thing To Go Through And It Really Helps You Out.

Curiosity, Wonder, And Passion Are Defining Qualities Of Imaginative Minds And Great Teachers...restlessness And Discontent Are Vital Things... Intense Experience And Suffering Instruct Us In Ways Less Intense Emotions Can Never Do.

Which Of My Feelings Are Real? Which Of The Me's Is Me? The Wild, Impulsive, Chaotic, Energetic, And Crazy One? Or The Shy, Withdrawn, Desperate, Suicidal, Doomed, And Tired One? Probably A Bit Of Both, Hopefully Much That Is Neither.

Anyone Who Suggests That Coming Back From Suicidal Despair Is A Straightforward Journey Has Never Taken It.

I Long Ago Abandoned The Notion Of A Life Without Storms, Or A World Without Dry And Killing Seasons. Life Is Too Complicated, Too Constantly Changing, To Be Anything But What It Is. And I Am, By Nature, Too Mercurial To Be Anything But Deeply Wary Of The Grave Unnaturalness Involved In Any Attempt To Exert Too Much Control Over Essentially Uncontrollable Forces. There Will Always Be Propelling, Disturbing Elements, And They Will Be There Until, As Lowell Put It, The Watch Is Taken From The Wrist.