That's what's so touching about weddings: Two people fall in love, and decide to see if their love might stand up over time, if there might be enough… - Anne Lamott

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

Now. Maybe you think it is arrogant or self centered, or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my new used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I’ll never know for sure. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter.

I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love — until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach — but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? You bet I would. That is why it’s such a blessing that I’m not left to my own devices.