Since Ireland’s independence declaration was a century older, I could not be sure if his self-evident truths meant as much as they would in America.

I had to free myself from my devotion to him... to us... without losing my ability to believe in love.

My heart had a crush on him from the moment we met, but it was faint, and the rest of me stubbornly refused to play along.

I have always been quite good at falling in love, but I don’t pretend to know anything about literal happily ever afters.

I have never been the fiddle-dee-dee, carefree Scarlett O’Hara his fantasies imagined. I’m more of the Civil War version—tired, hard, and determined.