Our inner selves go on without us sometimes, trusting we’ll catch on eventually. Sometimes it’s too late when we do – too late to let the other person know what we’ve learned.

The only groups I willingly joined were spontaneous, short-lived, and usually game-playing.

His deep brown eyes added both confidence and compassion to his looks. He had creases—around his eyelids, his nose, his mouth—that may have originated in sunlight and outdoor work but seemed graven in a love of humanity … The creases were his statement to the world: This man loved life and just as deeply feared losing it or anyone he loved in it. He carried on his shoulders the uneasy fraternal twins of love and responsibility.

Death wasn’t something to romanticize. It was something to stave off, to avoid, to fight as long as possible. Even though she had her battles with melancholy, she never seriously considered suicide. Something in her trusted that there would be an upswing and it would be worth waiting for.

Strategically placed at the level of her T3 vertebra, just below the deepest back on any of her blouses, was a tattoo of the human brain. He had to look away or else he’d jump her bones all over again. The brain got him every time.

Mallory’s brothers and sister were very much like their parents. Only Mallory seemed to need extra hugs and support. At the same time she knew she’d never get that from her parents or siblings. She’d have to go beyond them for that kind of attention. She wasn’t needy; she was just on another end of the normal range from them. She had learned to hold back from asking for what she needed, afraid it was too much.

The ski club was a frugal and intergenerational group. It gave dime-store trophies for speed and agility within categories of gender, age, and experience, and so eventually everyone got a trophy.

I didn’t think of myself as competitive. I thought in terms of having fun playing games and trying to win, but with me it was more hoping to win. I didn’t have that killer instinct they say is required to get to the top. I couldn’t see myself behaving as my dad did with his vociferous love for golf and football. The house resounded with his yells and groans during PGA and NFL tournaments. It seemed to me that yelling in itself required a killer instinct.

Our inner selves go on without us sometimes, trusting we’ll catch on eventually. Sometimes it’s too late when we do—too late to let the other person know what we’ve learned.

I was feeling sorry for myself and immediately assumed her life was going better than mine. Ridiculous, of course—no one can know what a stranger’s life is like. Often we don’t even know what a loved one’s life is like. We all keep so many things to ourselves.