You’re one of those kinds of women—those kinds of people I should say—as am I.”“And what kind of woman is that?” Mary was very curious and excited now.“A woman who is not satisfied doing only what society says should satisfy her.

Every choice we make affects the other. It always has… We share our choices and our burdens. But that way neither of us has to carry the weight alone—You have never been alone.

Mary sat on a bench in the park. It was the middle of the night and she was alone and she felt at peace. She leaned back and looked upward. The sky was endless and expansive and the stars stretched on forever. It made her feel very small but it also made her feel very important. Of all of the things that might have ever had the chance to exist in the history of the universe, she had the privilege of being one of them. A living, thinking, feeling being, with the ability to control her own destiny. As wondrous and expansive as stars and the entire universe were, none of them had this power. None of them had any control. And yet she felt humbled to be a part of it at all. It felt like a trade-off. In this life you could only be one or the other: wondrous and expansive or small and in control.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to suddenly realize that the reason you’ve have been so lost your whole life is because a piece of you was missing and you never even knew it—only to find that missing piece and know that you can’t have it and so you will never, ever be whole?

It was the day he learned that smart, witty girls were brighter than sunlight.