"No matter the issue, parenting always involves this balance between what you know, what you guess, what you fear, and what you imagine. You're never certain, even (maybe especially) about the big deals, the huge, important ones with all the ramifications and repercussions. But alas, no one can make these decisions, or deal with their consequences, but you."
- from This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel (author's note)
"We've always been living a fairy tale... From the moment we met. From the moments before we met. we have this perfect love story. we have this love story that feels like a fairy tale and must be because how else to explain something so magical? But the problem with fairy tales is that they end, and quickly too. The lead-up is everything. Then you get transformation, love, and happily-ever-after all in one breath. That story's nice, but it's not big enough to hold us. There's no room for the hard parts. There's no room for the transformations and the loves that come next and next and next. You know what's even better than happy endings? Happy middles. All the happy with none of the finality. All the happy with room enough to grow."
"Secrets lead to panic... You get to thinking you're the only one there is who's like you, who's both and neither and betwixt, who forges a path every day between selves, but that's not so. When you're along keeping secrets, you get fear. When you tell, you get magic. Twice. (Twice?) You find out you're not alone. And so does everyone else. That's how everything gets better. You share your secret, and you change the world."
"... and if they could not entirely plan for who she might be two and ten and twenty years from now, they didn't need to. They could make hard decisions, together, when it was time to decide, and in the meantime, they could embrace what was now and what was good. They could be mindful of what was hard for everyone... the trouble all humans in the whole world had knowing who they were and what they needed and what would help the mysterious, unknowable, miraculous beings in their care."
