With one of those birthdays coming soon, the kind that makes us pause and reflect on life, I do and do not resonate with my age. The girl of my childhood, she still exists inside of me, so much like Gardenia Beam from Gods of Delphi. There is a part of me that still feels like a teenager, that gets excited to discover a new band, that loves to look up at the sky and ponder the expansive universe and the mysteries of life, that is headstrong, like Galen Ross from Be Still, My Soul.

But as an adult, I relate most to Helene from A Calamity of Wings. She is the personification of all those things that I keep hidden from the world because, like Helene, I know how uncomfortable this makes people. I have dreams of events before they happen. I sense things about others that I can’t explain. Helene represents my world weariness, the painful things I’ve gone through that challenged me and remolded me, again and again. She is also my hope for a more tolerant world, for humanity overcoming the darkness that overshadows it. Even Hal Winston and Molly Owens from In the Thick of a Whippoorwill Heart were born out of a desire to forgive the unforgivable.

Entering into this new chapter, I can honestly say that I regret nothing. To change one thing would mean changing everything and I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t have met all the wonderful souls or had all the beautiful experiences, or even the painful ones that forced me to sit with them. This is what it means to be alive. It isn’t always comfortable. It is seldom easy. We have to do hard things. If I’ve shined just a little light into someone else’s darkness with my writing, or lifted someone up, I’ve done what I came to do in my short time here, and that is enough.

Happy Friday!