When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean
after years of puddle-jumping.
It’s hard to stop loving the ocean,
even after it has left you gasping and salty.
So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made.
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.
And know this; you are the type of woman who is
searching for a place to call yours,
But you have always been The Place.
You are a woman who can build it herself.
You were born to build.
~Sarah Kay
I’d done it. I’d made it through the long, boring summer, and all through the majority of September. It was the middle of the month, and all of my meager belongings were safely stacked in cardboard boxes in my room in my new apartment. It was almost surreal, to sit here on a different bed in a different room, and stare out my window and see a new view entirely. There were two other girls due to arrive today, and I was about to burst out of my skin at the thought. I planned to ask them to go out to dinner with me, and I wanted to walk there, to soak up everything that Seattle had to offer with its busy streets and constant noise.
Thanks to my family, I hadn’t gone insane over the summer. They’d brought me puzzle books, board games, magazines, and anything else they could think of. I’d learned how to build houses in Minecraft with Seth and Jacob. I’d binge-watched television with Sue, cooked and baked more than in my entire life, and finally let Harry teach me wood carving. I was actually pretty good at that, and now I had a small wooden wolf family I’d made for myself sitting on my desk. Emily had come down again and taught me basket weaving; she’d just accepted a position at the Quileute Tribal School to teach weaving and fabric dyeing full time, utilizing her knowledge of the Pacific Northwest Native American traditions.
