I think sometimes it's hard for us to think about the possibility of a better future because we haven't lived in it. - Trevor Noah

"When he said that, my body just let go. I remember the exact traffic light I was at. For a moment there was a complete vacuum of sound and then I cried tears like I had never cried before. I collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. I cried as if every other thing I'd cried for in my life had been a waste of crying. I cried so hard that if my present crying seld could go back in time and see my other crying selves, it would slap them and say, "That's shit's not worth crying for." My cry was not a cry of sadness. It was not catharsis. It wasn't me feeling sad for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to express that pain in any other way, shape or form. She was my mom. She was my teammate. It has always been me and her torgether, me and her against the world. When Andrew said, "shot her in the head," I broke in two."

My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do. When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid - not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself, that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered.

I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.