“I didn't know what to do, there was a feeling of time running out and a loss of momentum, of opportunities wasted.”

“I figured it out eventually," she says. She's sitting on the edge of the gurney again; her features slowly materialize as my vision clears. "It's momentum.""What?" I whisper. The feeling returning to my lips, spreading out to my fingertips and toes."Momentum," she repeats. "You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run.”

“It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn't have something in the first place. I guess that's what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.”

“I began for the first time to really understand the loss my adoptive mother must have felt from not having her own child. I was terribly sad for her and realized that she had missed out greatly - we both had - and there was nothing I could do to change that. I could never be her natural daughter and I could never make her feel better about that loss. Guilt is a strange waste of time in the cold light of day.”

“It isn't necessarily easier if you know what it is you're meant to do-- but at least you don't waste time in questioning or doubting. If you're honest--well, that isn't necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you're honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you're less likely to feel that you've wasted your life, doing the wrong thing.”

“I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.”