Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling with the facts. Why me? Didn't I already have a big love once? And lost it? So why should I get it again? I've had to stop trying to look for cracks and flaws to prove that it's not as good as it seems. Because it's as good as it seems. Even when we fight, we fight inside the container of good. Somehow, through a flip of the coin, I ended up here. Feeling like somebody at the top of the heart-lung transplant recipient list. Damaged but invigorated and fucking lucky.

-- "Magical Thinking,"
by Augusten Burroughs

What's painful and wonderful about loving somebody is loving their small things, like the way he is able to smile when he sips his wine, the way his hands fall down at his sides, fingers slightly cupped, or the way he is conducting the orchestra on the radio. Or now, the way he is lighting candles, just now this one in front of me. This is the one he lit first, actually. The one in front of me. Even though there was one on the way, he passed that one, lit it next.

-- "Magical Thinking,"
by Augusten Burroughs

It's strange to remember someone you've known all along. It isn't like returning to the home you grew up in and noticing how it left its shape on you, how the walls you've raised and the doors you've opened since then have all followed the design you saw for the first time there. It's closer to returning home and seeing your mother or sister, who are old enough not to have grown since you last saw them but young enough not to have aged, and realizing for the first time how they look to everyone else, how beautiful they would be if you didn't know them, what your father and brother-in-law saw when they judged them most and knew them least.

"The Rule of Four,"
by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason