Your first breakup is always the hardest: It rewires your brain. It breaks your heart in ways you didn’t know were possible. You retrace every step that led to the breakup, wondering if you made the right choices. You are filled with every emotion humanly possible, and you try your best to handle them. In my case, I was confused about everything that led to my relationship ending. I was angry that I let a cruel boy break my heart, and I was sad because I missed that cruel boy. I hated everything about the situation I found myself in, so I tried everything to get over my feelings.

The middle seat teaches you to see the world from a different perspective. While we don’t get to choose our circumstances, whether it is a seat number, daily commute or a group project, we still fight for our best within the given range of possibilities. It is a good metaphor for how much of our existence happens between what we want and what we settle for. Life rarely gives us a perfect course. Instead, you learn humility, patience and resilience in the process. 

Walking into the flower shop was like walking through a tunnel in a dystopian novel. Not because there was anything haunting about it, but because it was dark, cavernous, humid and at the end of a long hallway was a little room with a check-out desk and skylight.

People used to talk a lot about how much they hated getting hand-me-downs. As the youngest sibling, I had a plethora of clothing that was older than me filling up my closet. But nowadays, I seek out hand-me-down clothing, whether that’s from my family, my friends or local thrift stores. I get so much more enjoyment out of the history (or potential history) behind the pieces than simply buying a shirt from a department store. 

A few houses down, on the top floor of a double decker, an elderly man with a bird on his shoulder stood in his window. An amber light shone down on the pair of them, so there’s no way for me to tell what color the bird really was, but I think he was something like blue and orange and yellow. I also wasn’t wearing my glasses — so who’s to say if it was really a bird at all.

We must educate children to be mindful and compassionate members of society. It starts with books.