Joy S

“Why else do we read fiction, anyway? Not to be impressed by somebody's dazzling language - or at least I hope that's not our reason. I think that most of us read these stories that we know are not 'true' because we're hungry for another kind of truth: The mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“I met a girl in a U-Haul.
A beautiful girl
And I fell for her.
I fell hard.
Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way.
Life definitely got in my way.
It got all up in my damn way,
Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden 2x4's
nailed together and attached to a fifteen inch concrete wall
behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame that
no matter how hard I shoved against it-
It
wouldn't
budge.
Sometimes life doesn't budge.
It just gets all up in your damn way.
It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wishes,
my wants, my needs.
It blocked out that beautiful girl
That I fell so hard for.

Life tries to tell you what's best for you
What should be most important to you
What should come in first
Or second
Or third.

I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized,
stacked in chronological order, everything in its perfect space,
its perfect place.
I thought that's what life wanted me to do.
This is what life needed for me to do.
Right?
Keep it all in sequence?

Sometimes, life gets in your way.
It gets all up in your damn way.
But it doesn't get all up in your damn way because it
wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn't get
all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all
over and be carried along.
Life wants you to fight it.
It wants you to grab an axe and hack through the wood.
It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through
the concrete.
It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal
and steel until you can reach through and grab it.
Life wants you to grab all the organized, the
alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to
mix it all together,
stir it up,
blend it.

Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your little
brother should be the only thing that comes first.
Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your career
and your education should be the only thing that comes in
second.
And life definitely doesn't want me
To just let it tell me
that the girl I met,
The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girl
That I fell so hard for
Should only come in third.

Life knows.
Life is trying to tell me
That the girl I love,
The girl I fell
So hard for?
There's room for her in first.
I'm putting her first.”
― Colleen Hoover

“I got schooled this year
by
a
boy.

A boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.
And he taught me the most important thing of all...

To put the emphasis
On life .”
― Colleen Hoover, Slammed

“Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room.”
― Emily Giffin, Something Borrowed