And yet she could not forgive herself. Even as an adult, she wished only that she could go back and change things: the ungainly things she’d worn, th… - Jhumpa Lahiri

They don't understand why I want to take such a risk. These reactions don't surprise me. A transformation, especially one that is deliberately sought, is often perceived as something disloyal, threatening.

In the pool I lose myself. My thoughts merge and flow. Everything — my body, my heart, the universe — seems tolerable when I’m protected by water and nothing touches me. All I think about is the effort. Below my body there’s a restless play of dark and light projected onto the bottom of the pool, that drifts away like smoke.

The only way to even begin to understand language is to love it so much that we allow it to confound us and to torment us to the extent that it threatens to swallow us whole.