My problems aren't invalid. Not to me. Just because they aren't life altering, life-threatening, doesn't mean they don't make me feel bad. I wake up with them every morning, carry them around all day like a lead backpack, and I fall asleep with them at night. They're real, and they're mine. I know I'm lucky. I know that. But it doesn't change how I feel.

There are many reasons why bad things happen to young women, and at the same time, no reason at all.

Honestly, I don't care what the future looks like, however wonderful or mediocre or disastrous. I just want it.

That's what intimacy is, I think. That's love. Knowing the smell of someone else's head.

I don't even remember who brought it up. It might have been Julie. Sometimes when we're all together, I get confused about who is who. Where one of us stops and the others start. We overlap, bleed together.I love it.

You can't erase your past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.

But friendships are mercurial. They're shape-shifters. I've learned to allow them to fluctuate and take new forms. I love my friends; that's all that matters.