There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one that people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see. ~ Light Years - James Salter

The thing is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again
~Ellen Bass

"Who you will be is when you are finished being who you think you should be." ~ Neemkeroli Baba