Anna White

Now I know this is going to seem counter to every instinct that you have, but I'm going to ask you to sit still, or I'll put you in the trunk.

I think this is what we all want to hear: that we are not alone in hitting the bottom, and that it is possible to come out of that place courageous, beautiful, and strong.

All I__ saying is that I don__ want to sort of fall in love with fifty different people. I__ rather find one person and fall completely, deeply in over my head.

I'm broken, but I have to learn how to live. I feel stuck together with scotch tape, like after any breath everything could come apart. If it does, if it all comes undone, I think I'll fall down and never rise again.

Truth: last week I online shopped too much. Then I ate 2 pounds of jelly beans to feel better about that. In fact, while I was trying to read soul-nourishing things all I could think about was shopping and jellybeans. Points to the monkey mind.

Every day is a new beginning, the building of a habit. Every action is a step in some direction. There is no pause in living.

The road to the heart is not a long, linear path, but this turning. There is no race or competition, just me and God going deeper, carving a canyon to the soul.

After giving it some thought, I've decided to name my monkey mind Ricky Bobby. I was thinking about Latin names like Javier, but I don't want to make my jumping, distractable self sound mysterious and sexy. Ricky Bobby makes me laugh. A name like that seems silly, not strong. Just a goofy little thing that doesn't know what to do with its hands, likes to go fast, and loves tiny, infant, baby Jesus.

There__ always a choice,_ Lucian reassured her. __lways._ He kissed herforehead softly. __ love you,_ he said. He lips trailed down her face, brushing slowly over her nose, across her eyelids. __ would stay with you forever, until the end ofTime.

I grew up believing Christians didn__ just believe in Jesus. To be saved, people had to look and speak a certain way. They followed a long list of nots to ensure their holiness. They fit the mold. They followed the rules.

I was taught growing up not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, to withdraw myself from the sinful 'others'. But we are all others. We are all sinners in someone's eyes.

I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown.

My husband says this longing for isolation is not a good quality, that if I wanted to be a hermit I should have moved to the West Coast and adopted a lot of cats, not gotten married and had children that demand to be fed several times a day.

The first night in the hospital with a snuffling baby girl, I learned that my family was not the only thing that had expanded. There was now a whole new world of opportunities for judgment and self-doubt.