I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient

You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time.

My point in mentioning this is only to say that people who feel any sort of regret where you are concerned will suppose you are angry, and they will see anger in what you do, even if you're just quietly going about a life of your own choosing. They make you doubt yourself, which, depending on cases, can be a severe distraction and a waste of time. This is a thing I wish I had understood much earlier than I did.

How I wish you could have known me in my strength.

I do have an impulse to sort of leverage what I say against something I disagree with.