“Everybody knows there is no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There's only a messy, inconsistent, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our lives.”

“My whole life I wanted to be normal. Everybody knows there's no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There's only messy, inconsistant, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our own lives. But when I think about what I have, what I strived to reach my whole life, it's not the biggest or best or easiest or prettiest or most anything. It's not the Manor or the laundry closet. Not the multi-million dollar inheritance or the poorhouse. It's not superstardom or unemployment. It's family and love and safety. It's bravery and hope. It's work and laughter and imperfection. It's my normal.”

“We are not defined by the family into which we are born, but the one we choose and create. We are not born, we become.”

“...but hindsight and I have had lots of conversations about what happened..., most of which ends with me saying to hindsight, "Thanks for all the information, but you're a little late.”

“With friends, if you keep making an effort to reach out and you keep getting hurt, you eventually stop trying. But it's much harder to give up on family. Somewhere deep down you want it to work so badly that you keep making the same mistake over and over again.”

“When a marriage fails, the story of the relationship changes. The best parts, the parts that made you think getting married was a good idea, fade from memory.”

“The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose.”