Ellie

“What were you before you met me?"
"I think I was drowning"
"And what are you now?"
"Water”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I was not and had never been a part of a queer community, how to access such a thing was not just a mystery but an impossibility. The loss of which was sizable. Agony in isolation, the shame and pain that I thought was mine alone. My heart aches for my younger self. A tiny bug running to the rim of an upside-down juice glass. What a difference it would have been to sit with queer and trans pals and have them say "I feel that way, too. I felt that way, too. We don't have to feel that way. You don't have to feel that way.". Not a magic eraser of shame, but it would have undoubtedly quickened things up.”
― Elliot Page, Pageboy

“I wanted to tell her that I was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: It was a hurdle you jumped over, or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“At twenty-two I was beginning to wonder if adulthood was just a series of endless losses.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir