You forgive yourself, over and over and over again.

You build little glass cases around your emotions, one by one.

You don’t always like feeling sectioned off—but you forgive yourself for that, too.

You are fragile now.

You learn how to be fragile.

Fragile means you need to play by different rules, for a while.

“No” becomes your religion.

Solitude becomes your faith.

Your entire life pulls backward, like a tightened bow and arrow, going backwards, backwards, backwards, backwards, until you worry your certitude will snap.

But you don’t.

You won’t.

You never will.

Tension is a necessary prerequisite for power.

Every setback is not necessarily a backset.

And sometimes what we perceive as falling, is actually arriving.

Funny enough, survival looks a lot like shrinking.

But don’t let appearances fool you.