Dialogue with a stranger

"The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open." Chuck Palahniuk

Things progress, the depths rise up to meet the heights, and the storm is followed by this quiet peace. I survived. The worst, the unbelievable, the unbearable came to pass and I survived. All these broken pieces add up to much more than the sum of their parts...

- "Remarkable", he called me. "Courage in the face of such devastation, of such challenges, woman", he said, "is rare. And you are rare".

- "It isn't courage", I said," it's loyalty. Promises ought to be kept, and devastation, challenges, storms will hit us all, I just got them sooner than most, and learned that it is those who weather them with you that give you the courage, the strength, the love. That is where this quiet peace come from... I was too young when my insides started to dissolve, and that was suffering, loneliness, regret, but I got strong, and I got clever and I was never alone. Like my dad always said, Caro, you are not an oak, you are stronger than that, you are bamboo, you always know when to duck..."

 
Happiness is a choice, like life can often be; and the only true way to know  happiness is your choice  is to have faced misery and chosen to walk a different path.