We're part of a mixed marriage: he's male, I'm female. - Anna Quindlen

A book — the book that was, for some reason, THE book — can be reread, unchanged. Only we have changed. And that makes all the difference.

Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.

Perhaps only when we've made our peace with our own selves can we really be the kind of friends who listen, advise, but don't judge, or not too harshly.