Chapter One: A blissfully happy childhood, in which my greatest concerns are how many library books I am allowed to bring home and how many baby rabbits we can smuggle over from the neighbor’s back yard.
Chapter Two: The dark days of middle school, in which I fill up many dramatic journals and feel murky and confused inside.
Chapter Three: High school, in which my weirdly conservative debater identity takes hold; in which I feel that I am very popular, even though I am homeschooled and my entire social circle is about 40 people.
Chapter Four: Freshman year of college, in which I feel elated and totally excited about everything; in which I date a boy for the first time; in which I am still very judgmental.
Chapter Five: My sophomore year in college, in which everything falls apart and I am rebuilt again.
Chapter Six: My summer in Tokyo, in which my entire worldview is broadened; in which my Japanese language abilities make exponential strides; in which I have never worked harder in my entire life.
Chapter Six: Junior year in college, in which I am in love with Guion and find that he changes everything; in which I am happy, genuinely happy again.
Chapter Seven: Summer working for the Denver Post, in which I become an adult; in which I find a new, bold, extroverted self emerge, a self who makes new friends and invites them hiking every week; in which I am more fit and joyful than I have ever been before.
Chapter Eight: Senior year of college, in which Guion decides to marry me; in which I live in an almost constant state of stress; in which I learn that living in a house with six other women is difficult but has its benefits; in which I finish my thesis and feel very accomplished; in which I plan my wedding and graduate.
Chapter Nine: Our first year of marriage, in which we are excited to be together every single day; in which we move to Charlottesville; in which I get my first full-time job and he starts graduate school; in which we fall in love with a town and its people.
Chapter Ten: Our second year of marriage, which has just begun; in which we think we might just stay here forever, for who could feel this content?
Little Stories 
I’m a fan of chapter seven, but personally, I can’t wait to be at chapter eight!
Sometimes I think about the advice I would give to my adolescent/early college self if I could. I would reassure her and tell her to be patient, because happiness, success, and good relationships are in the future. Then I realize that many people told me these things back then anyway, and I just didn’t listen. Youth.
I wonder what I’ll think of myself now in another five or ten years.
love