You never see your loved one’s flaws. You fall in love too quickly, in a rush of delight at finding such a person, a burst of wonder that, in all this wide and fragile world, there exists a mind just like your own. Before long, they have settled down inside of you, in the vulnerable parts of your chest. Any doubt, any flaw, is drowned out by the rhythmic thump of a voice that says you are not alone.

It’s like that with books.

There are so many books, so many writers I could tell you about, which would make me look clever, or deep, or wise. But let’s be honest with each other for a moment: those are not the books which live within you. The books you fall in love with are the books with flaws. They are the books you devoured late at night under the sheets…

Here’s something I’ve noticed a lot – people want to help. People have good intentions. People want to show support. But they don’t really know how. They don’t know why something matters, or how to get mileage out of it.

Here’s what else I’ve noticed a lot – people really love to rage. And that’s important; there are issues that require it. And raging does change things.

BUT.

There is a really big difference between being a person who only rages and a person who both rages and makes a real move for change. And maybe people don’t realize that. Maybe they don’t get how. But I’m tired of seeing raging with no support counterbalance, and I’m tired of people thinking raging is enough without backing it up in a meaningful way. I’m tired of people not realizing how limiting the effects are when all you do is talk…

 Before I married my husband, I told him to make sure that he was marrying me for who I was that day, and not for any future changes he hoped to have wrought in me through the “transforming” power of marriage. Though we were both young, I had seen enough unhappy marriages to make me wary of the institution, and who wants to be institutionalized, really?  I had no question that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but I wanted us to start off with as little illusion as possible.  I wanted to know that he saw me, and not some airbrushed version of a girl to be placed on a pedestal.  It is easy to fall in love if you believe all the fairy tales and movies.  Beautiful women with flowing hair and flawless skin meet muscled men with pure hearts and chivalrous intentions and they ride off to his manor with servants aplenty…