Dating Diary: Norton the Non-Communicator

It started on OkCupid. I matched with a guy who I’ll refer to as Norton, because he vaguely reminded me of Edward Norton. He seemed strange, mysterious, sexy, and intelligent, plus he was Irish. I have Irish heritage, so I’m always drawn to the Irishmen. After some back and forth on the site over a few weeks, I finally gave him my number and we planned to go out on two dates.

At the time I was dealing with some private family stress, and as I was struggling with that, I got sick. The stress brought it on. I had a serious infection and ended up spending some time in the hospital. I was completely out of commission for a week. Once I recovered from the infection, I got sick for another two weeks, and then I discovered I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed. After a month straight of being laid up in bed, this guy Norton was the last thing on my mind, but we kept chatting through the app as I recovered. I felt like through the sickness I was releasing all of the toxins – all of my negativity that had built up over time. It was awful, but it was also cleansing.

I wound up cancelling both of our original dates. Norton said he wasn’t going to ask me out again because a) I kept cancelling and b) I looked like a snob in my profile pic. (I don’t think I’m a snob!) I felt bad so I invited him out the following Saturday. We met at a French place I knew that had a broad menu and was kind of a bar – it was a good spot because we couldn’t decide if we were meeting for drinks, apps, or dinner. I wasn’t hungry so I ordered a fruit salad and a drink, and he ordered a huge piece of meat. (I was worried that he would think I’m one of those girls who doesn’t eat because of how thin I am. But really I just wasn’t hungry.)

The conversation went well – he gradually progressed from being a bit standoffish to opening up and telling me some things about himself. (Must have been the alcohol.) He told me his roommate was moving out. The night went great and we ended up back at his place. I told him casually during the course of our conversation that I was interested in going on a trip to the state of Goa. Later in the evening he flat-out stated that I was going to move in with him and then he was going to come with me to Goa. I told him he was nuts to say that on a first date, but at the same time I was tickled that he’d suggested it. It made me think that he really liked me. We didn’t end up sleeping together – he was too drunk – but I left his place at five in the morning feeling like things had gone really well.

I was busy with work the next day but we ended up on meeting on Monday. I went over to his place and we watched a few episodes of Sherlock. He lived near my work in the downtown core, and it was easier to go to his house than to go home or invite him over. Then on Tuesday we went out again. We had a drink on a beautiful rooftop patio and then went to a movie where I discovered he had a weird thing for Rachel McAdams. He told me that they worked out at the same gym, had had a couple of conversations, and that she even hired him to clean her basement once. The whole thing seemed kind of weird – people get really weird about celebrities. His obsession with Rachel McAdams should have been a bit of a red flag.

We had lunch again on Wednesday before I went to work, but then I started to notice something weird about the way that he was texting me. It was like he didn’t want to keep seeing me, but was texting me just for fun. We would talk back and forth throughout the day, but he didn’t answer my texts when I got off work. When I told him that, he denied it. He said he was already asleep by the time I finished up at work.

I invited him to a keg party on Friday. One of my girlfriends was throwing it for her brother who was going to be leaving to go touring across Canada and I wanted to bring Norton as my date. Before the party we went for Italian food and I made it clear that I was still talking to other guys because we weren’t official or anything yet. He didn’t like that and said he was jealous. At some point he admitted that he’d only had one serious relationship in the past. He seemed to be a little bit off in the way he thought about things, like he wasn't totally there. I think looking back that maybe he had Aspergers’ or something.

I think he enjoyed himself at the party, but it was a bit weird for me to be going to a kegger. I hadn’t been to one in years, I walked Norton home and took a cab back to my place. I was a bit annoyed that he had never attempted to venture into the west end where I lived. The next day we were planning our first official sleepover, and he made a big deal about popcorn. He said he had to get some and then asked me if I had any. When I got to his place he had to run out and buy some because neither of us had any popcorn. It was totally ridiculous. Then he promised me breakfast in the morning.

We didn’t do it that night – it was my time of the month and I didn’t want to do anything. The next morning I woke up before he did and asked him if he had any tea. He said he didn’t. I told him I had to go, and he walked me to the bus stop. I still hadn’t eaten anything and now I had no time to eat any breakfast, so I just grabbed some shitty Starbucks on the way to work. It wasn’t great.

I texted him a few times over the next couple of days, but our schedules didn’t line up so we didn’t see each other. On the following Monday I had my surgery for my wisdom teeth, and Norton asked if I wanted him to come over on Monday night for emotional support. I knew I was going to need some help, but my Mom was coming over to take care of me so I told him I’d be fine. I didn’t want him to see me all drugged up and swollen. The surgery was very unpleasant and my mouth bled for about three days afterwards. It’s not an experience I would recommend to anyone. As I lay in bed recovering, with my Mom taking care of me, I got all sorts of messages from friends and other guys who were flirting with me, all wishing me well. But nothing from Norton. Finally I messaged him to ask how his day was going. I was upset – I had thought he really liked me.

This is the reason you're single and why you've only had one serious relationship, I told him.

I said that I wanted to be with someone who showed me he could fit me into his life, not one that just says he wants me in his life. It takes effort to make a relationship work – a guy has to cater to a girls’ needs sometimes. He told me he had been golfing all day and went to dinner afterwards with work friends and was too busy to text me. It didn’t seem good enough. I was done with him.

It was a good-bye fight, an I’m-going-to-move-on-with-my-life fight, but that wasn’t quite the end of Norton. In the end he won me back and we started dating for real. I even moved in with him for a few months. But after a while, the Aspergers and the inability to communicate just got to be too much. I broke it off with him and found my own condo downtown.

Dating Diary: The Perfect Pickup Goes Sideways

This was probably one of my weirdest pickups ever.

The story starts by me taking a Thursday mid-shift. Normally I worked nights, but on this day I swapped it for a shift that ended at 9 PM, which worked out perfectly because I wanted to go to a Second City party that night (I was taking improv classes there). Once I finished up at work I headed straight to Second City, sat down at the last remaining seat at the packed bar and ordered a drink called a Moscow Mule (a vodka and ginger beer cocktail). The Moscow Mule is my favourite drink – if I had a choice, I’d never drink anything else. I hadn’t seen anyone from the party yet, but I thought maybe I was a bit early. I texted my friend and found out that I’d gotten the date wrong – the party was the following Thursday. 

I thought: well I have NOT EVER drank in a bar by myself, but since I already ordered my drink I might as well finish it. As I sipped it, two separate guys came over and tried to hit on me. I basically shooed them off. After the second guy left, the guy sitting next to me eating and watching the baseball game turned to me and said, “I’ve counted two so far.”

“What?”

"Two guys trying to pick you up in the first ten minutes since you sat down - that's pretty good."

He was tall, maybe 200 pounds, with curly dark hair, a nice smile and steel blue eyes, and dressed in a suit. He ordered a Moscow Mule - my drink - and started chatting with me. Apparently he had just gotten off work and lived across the street. He was a designer, and just so cute and smart and funny. He seemed a little insecure, which just made him seem available. It seemed like we liked a lot of the same things. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, this guy is so perfect it’s cray. He told me he had squash in the morning and then he said he should make sure to grab my number before he forgot. Once we traded digits, it was like bang. The Jays game ended and he quickly downed his drink, paid for both bills and ran off. I was left sitting by myself at the bar, thinking what the fuck just happened?

I wasn’t planning to text him the next day. Like, who knows what that was? But at some point in the afternoon he texted asking if I wanted to grab a drink on Friday night. I had to work but I agreed to meet him afterwards. So at midnight on Friday he picked me up in an Uber and took me to a bar that had live music. He told me it was his favourite spot. I had to pay for the drinks because he wasn’t carrying cash on him. (Totally fine.) Then we went to a super-nice bar where we sat and gabbed till close and he covered the bill.

We went back to his place. It was sort of empty - not a lot of furniture in the living area. Definitely a guy's place. He offered me a joint. I turned it down but hung with him on the balcony while he toked. He was playing all sorts of music and it was all the same things I loved. It all felt so comfortable. We watched videos, listened to music that moved our souls, and just sat together. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with him in bed and I said yes. After we turned it on we starting making out. Everything was going great, but at some point I had to pump the brakes. I realized I wasn’t ready to sleep over or sleep with him yet. I told him I had to go. He didn't seem super thrilled about it, but he walked me to the door. As he showed me out, I got a bit of a rude, sarcastic vibe from him. He sort of half-jokingly shoved me out of his apartment at the last minute. It seemed weird at the time but I didn't think too much of it.

The next day I texted him and he asked me when I was done work because we had to finish watching the movie. I told him, and again he came to pick me up in an Uber. We went back to his place and chilled again. He got stoned again and I just hung out as he showed me some of his artwork and some various videos online. I don’t think we actually watched the movie we’d started the night before. I went up to his bed again, but it was late and we were both tired so nothing happened between us. As I lay there, he wrapped himself around me like he had to hold me tight. He was like a bear protecting me. I couldn’t leave the bed. He rained light kisses on my neck and the whole experience was just so sweet and charming.

The next morning shortly after I woke up I had to leave for class. He was still wrapped up around me and asked me to stay a little longer. We started chatting, and then he said if we didn’t have sex now it would never happen. I thought he was joking. I had to get to class. I got up, kissed him on the forehead and teasingly said, “then it’s never, my friend.”

As I was leaving, I called up “bye” from the main floor and got back a gruff response like, “yeah, we’ll talk later.” It seemed weird but I shrugged it off at the time. Later in the day I texted him with a joke I thought was funny. He didn’t respond. I waited for a while and just…nothing. He was gonzo - a ghost.

I was left wondering what I'd done wrong. I felt like I was terrible at dating. Was he really just after one thing all along? Our two nights together had seemed so sweet and lovely, and then it was like - no sex, I'm out. I know now that it was selfishness on his part but at the time I spent a lot of time wondering if it was something I had done that had ruined it. 

Time passed, I saw some other people, moved on, and almost completely forgot about him. Then one day I was bartending at work when a familiar face sat down and ordered a drink. 

“I feel like I know you,” I said.

“Yeah, I met you at the Second City bar,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, suddenly recognizing him. All the feelings I had pent up from that week suddenly came rushing back. I felt myself losing control and I'm sure my face turned a fire-engine red. “And you never messaged me again.”

After I said that, I had to get someone else to cover the bar for me until he left. It was upsetting. I felt a bit used. Like all that niceness we had built up had been for nothing – in the end he was only after one thing. Thinking back, I remember how unfurnished his house was. I've seen other guys who were just as single-minded, and it seems looking back like they always had totally vacant houses. It makes me wonder if that’s a red flag when it comes to guys. Like maybe empty houses mean empty hearts? Maybe sometimes the guys who don't have enough love for themselves to turn a house into a home are the ones who aren't capable of having a relationship in the first place.

But who knows?

Life Changes

2016 was probably one of the worst years I ever had. I moved in with a boyfriend and it turned out to be one of the worst decisions I ever made. Before moving in with him, I was in a nice condo downtown with a job where I made decent money and lived with my dog that I loved. I loved living downtown as a single female because it allowed me to be social and I felt extremely healthy. My ex lived very far out of the city and I had to quit my job to move in with him. Once I got there, he stopped talking to me for two days and told me I couldn’t drive his car like he had promised I could. He had asked me to move in, but once I did he transformed into a completely different person. He became very controlling and a complete douchebag. The stress of the relationship brought back my smoking habit, which I had kicked 6 years before, and I almost completely stopped sleeping. I was only there for about two months before I moved out one day while he was out at work - I just couldn’t handle him at all. 

I moved back in with my mother. I knew I had to make some changes. My whole life was upside down. I ended up joining a martial arts class. I had recently started therapy and I knew that I needed some physical exercise - a nice place to release things and learn something new.

It was at that class that I met my current boyfriend. At the time he was secretly going through a separation with his wife. When I met him I figured he was married and therefore did not make any effort in pursuing him (not that I make that much effort at pursuing anyone). But I was so attracted to him. If I’d known, I probably would have chased after him from the jump. He was pretty closed off in class, but any time that I got to spar with him I was happy to do so and slowly I began to learn a tiny bit about him. As time went on, I began to have feelings, but his separation was still a secret and no one in the class knew that he wasn’t happy in his old relationship. So for a while I kept my mouth shut.

Fast-forward to now. Things have changed! I have a (semi-)new relationship with a wonderful person whom I love very much. He truly is what I’ve been looking for all these years - with some added, let’s say, quirks (that are for the most part tolerable). I know he thinks the same about me. Our relationship has been pretty much a whirlwind since it started. As soon as we both realized that we liked each other we basically started dating immediately. We quickly found out that we have a lot in common and we have a lot of fun together. I feel like he teaches me something every day.

We had only been dating for a few months when - surprise! - I got pregnant. I have never been pregnant nor have I ever even had a scare with pregnancy. And I have not always used birth control. In all honesty, I thought I might not be able to have children. But I guess when things are meant to be, they’re meant to be.

When we first found out we were pregnant, we both freaked out. We were both in severe shock. He was still going through a divorce and I was still trying to get my life back together. But I didn’t for one second think I didn’t want the baby. I did, however, have the thought: how the fuck are we going to do this? I told my boyfriend if he wasn’t ready to have a child or spend his life with me then that was okay and I would do this alone because I understood it was my choice to keep the child. Although he was unsure at the beginning the more we both thought about it the more exciting it became. Within the first year of our relationship we had to discuss massive future plans, like how many children we wanted. The least fun of all the talks was finances. We had to talk about if we were going to live together, where we would raise a child, did we want to get married, and all the fun things that come along with a long-term relationship. The only difference was we had only been together for a few months. I had only met his parents once! It almost seemed similar to a arranged marriage (but who am kidding? I have no idea what that would be like). In the end, we decided to be together for what we hope is life, and raise this little bundle of joy as a family.

Am I scared? Yes! These are all huge life changes and they’re kind of coming on a whim. As for being a Mom, I have to say I’m excited and a little nervous but I feel like I’ll be good at it. Don’t get me wrong - my mother did the best she could and so did my father. But I learned a lot about what not to do from them. I am generally a pretty down-to-earth, fun, responsible person - at least right now (keyword: now. We’ll see if that changes once the baby arrives.) I’m also, like my boyfriend, a jack-of-all-trades. We both know a lot about many different things and are talented in many different ways. So I hope that we can raise a child well.

I do have to say I’m afraid of giving birth, though. That scares me the most - the pregnancy not so much, the being a mother not so much. But the splitting open and everything coming out including the baby is scary. I just hope it goes by fast and it’s quick. I also hope my boyfriend is there for it because he travels for work and I would like him to witness it.

As for my career or going back to school, I’m not too sure. I know I want this book to be published and that’s all I’ll be working on for myself for this next year pretty intensely. School I would still love to do but I have to see if that’s an option in a couple years, or if I even want to go that route again.

I’m holding on with faith and love, and I can only hope it all works out. I know this will be the thing I work hardest on and not ever give up on.

What Editors Want

As we continue to push towards getting Sleeping With The Material World published, it’s worth exploring what publishers are looking for. I recently stumbled across this interesting piece from Room editor Rachel Thompson about what an editor is looking for when she’s sifting through a slush pile of submissions. While the article specifically pertains to Room and short story submissions as opposed to long-form, I think it’s worth exploring some of her points, because, ultimately, writing is writing, and catching an editor’s eye is the name of the game.

“Writing that doesn’t begin at a critical moment upon which everything else hinges, or with an opening line that raises more questions than answers, is unlikely to hold my attention for long. You never quite appreciate in media res until you’ve read hundreds of submissions that languish in the beginning. If you’re writing narrative work, and you don’t open with an action or decision point, you’re going to lose me.”

This is an interesting point that I think I inherently understood – I love nothing more than a story that smacks me in the face. Old, dusty books that open with three paragraphs describing a tree in the front yard and the general weather patterns of the region tend to lose my interest pretty quick. Part of this is due to the shift in our culture toward instant gratification as we become an internet-driven culture and shift away from books altogether, but part of it is just that that stuff is…boring. I think that no matter what era I’d been raised in, I wouldn’t have had all that much time for that type of navel-gazing. We read stories to find out what happens. If nothing’s happening, it’s boring.

But while I inherently tend to gravitate towards action, that doesn’t mean that I always succeed in grabbing the reader. Specifically, Thompson highlights the five Ws (who/what/when/where/why). Reading that was like a light bulb going off in my head – because, duh. If the reader starts out by asking those questions, they’re going to keep reading until you’ve got them good and hooked. Once I read that point, I found myself going back over my short fiction pieces that are struggling through that gruelling submission process right now. Did my opening lines do enough to grab the reader and get them asking fundamental questions? Just for fun, here are the openers for four of those short stories:

1. The young boy pulls in fifty bucks during the first week of harvest but there’s more to life than money.
2. I always judge by how they hold their coffees.
3. A couple of days after the party, I spotted Jinay buying smokes at the gas station beside Long and McQuade.
4. The drugstore had a sign out front that bragged it had been open for 57 years but the windows were dusted over and no one had been in the store portion since forever.

Looking back, whether intentionally or not, I think I’ve done a reasonably good job of raising questions off the bat here. My favourite is probably the first one, because it raises a couple of big ones: just how young is this boy, where is he harvesting and exactly what more is there to life than money? The middle two hint at something and make you ask “who” or “what,” but they don’t necessarily raise multiple world-building questions the way that first one does. And the last one is probably the weakest of the lot because it essentially just does the boring description thing that I bashed a couple of paragraphs ago. (Note: I’m trying to analyze my own writing here, so it’s entirely possible that I’m way off base. This is more a moment of self-reflection than real analysis.)

Sleeping With The Material World isn’t a short story, so the parameters are a little bit different – we might have a few pages or a chapter to pull in an editor who has prepared him/herself to read a full-length book. But a grabby opening line certainly wouldn’t hurt. Our current opening line (which is not at all finalized) is as follows:

5. “6000 yen,” the lady behind the counter said. I thought the shirt cost six bucks.

I’d say that line is okay, but not great. We’re definitely wondering why she’s buying a shirt. We have a sense of the what, the where and who (shirt, Tokyo and Sarah). The when is unclear but doesn’t seem vitally important. So on the whole, I think this opening could be improved - if we could really get the reader invested in what’s happening and who Sarah is from the jump, that would be ideal.

While discussing why stories get rejected, Rachel later touches on something that got hammered into us in writing school, but that I still have trouble entirely wrapping my head around:

New writers just don’t have the experience to know how many drafts professional writers go through before publishing. (It’s more than most think, likely by a factor of ten.)

Ten drafts? That’s crazy! I still feel that way – but maybe that offers some insight into why I’ve struggled to get much fiction published. As I’ve grown as a writer, I’ve certainly begun to learn the value of extensive editing and revision, but I can definitively say that I’ve never rewritten the same story ten times from scratch. But when I scratch the surface, I realize there is truth to the notion that a story improves the more you rewrite it. If we take Sarah’s original manuscript as draft 1 and my long-form outline and rewrite as draft 2 and 3, then the revisions quickly begin to pile up. I don’t think there’s any doubt that there will be another full rewrite before the final polished copy reaches the public at large. But whatever the expected final revision number, the most important point to take from this is that there will be a revision number.

Thompson also makes one last point I think is worth considering:

I’m totally over the idea that if my writing doesn’t make it into an issue of a magazine, it means they think my work is no good.

This is both good and bad – good because it means that all oft-rejected writers like me shouldn’t hang their heads too much, but bad because it drives home how hard it can be to really get some great work published. Even if we think Sleeping With the Material World is eminently publishable, finding a publisher that has the exact need for this type of book and the time to work on it is certain to present a major challenge. Fighting through the submission process is half the battle, it seems.

-Simon

New Year's Resolutions - Simon

Happy New Year, readers! (And Merry Christmas as well since we didn’t put a post up last week. We were too busy eating turkey and opening presents!) For today, Sarah and I thought we wouldn’t focus so much on the book, but rather would devote a double-post to discussing our hopes, goals and dreams for 2018. This post discusses Simon's New Year's Resolutions. Here's Sarah's.

***

I took a little bit of a different tack with this exercise than Sarah did. Instead of focusing on improving my internal, personal well-bring, I focused a little more on concrete goals. These are things that I think I can get done this year.

1. I want find a steady writing gig. I currently have this blog which I edit and two other websites I contribute to. One is unpaid and the other pays okay, but not reliably. By the end of this year I would like to find a second reliable paid contract (or, y’know, an actual full-time job would be great!). My goal is to be self-sufficient and have time to work at honing my craft every day, as well as building a profile that allows me to further my writing career, and... 
2. I hope to quit my restaurant job. I have been thinking about quitting my job in the restaurant industry for a while, but I never knew how to support myself enough to actually consider doing it. Just from the writing work I’ve picked up in the last few months, I’ve started to see a light at the end of that tunnel. I certainly haven’t made enough to support myself full-time yet, but I feel like I’m finally in a position to start saving a few pennies for when I’m ready to take that leap.
3. I want to get this book in the hands of a publisher. Sarah’s been working on this book for several years, but this New Year marks the the third calendar year where I’m involved with this project. Even if we’re unable to get this book on shelves by the end of 2018, by the end of the year I’d like to find a publisher who is willing to work with us as we build this book up. My goal is to build a profile and contact list to the point where I can engage with publishers and get this book serious consideration.
4. I want to eat better. I’ve been working in the dregs of the restaurant industry for the last seven years – flipping burgers at low-end fast-casual chains. Scraping things together to make ends meet means I’ve taken full advantage of my employee meals, which is good on my wallet but not so great on my body, since it means eating way too many hamburgers and fries. Since my girlfriend moved in this past year, we’ve been making an effort to cook at home and eat healthy, and I would like to continue moving towards a semi-healthy lifestyle in 2018. (This seems exactly like one of those New Year’s resolutions that everyone has and breaks within a month, but I think with the changes in my lifestyle it’s attainable, especially if/as I move away from the restaurant industry.) 
5. I want to spend more time with friends. One of the consequences of living in another province (British Columbia) for eight years in my 20s and then working nights for the three years since I’ve been back in Toronto is that I’ve lost touch with a lot of old friends. Some of this is just growing up and drifting away from people, some of it is my lack of a social life to begin with, but a lot of it is just being to busy to fit people in. I hope that potentially freeing up my nights from work will allow me to make time for friends on a regular basis - whether it’s hitting the bars once in a while, playing some poker home games, or just being free on weekends to see my friends’ kids.

It really feels like for both Sarah and I, 2018 is a year of growth and new beginnings. Here’s to a healthy, happy, successful New Year!

-Simon

New Year's Resolutions - Sarah

Happy New Year, readers! (And Merry Christmas as well since we didn’t put a post up last week. We were too busy eating turkey and opening presents!) For today, Sarah and I thought we wouldn’t focus so much on the book, but rather would devote a double-post to discussing our hopes, goals and dreams for 2018. This post discusses Sarah's New Year's Resolutions. Here's Simon's.

***

I believe to be whole you need to be spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically strong. I really slacked in many of these areas in 2017 - in other words, I know what not to do for this coming year. These are my goals for each quadrant of my life in 2018:

1. Spiritually – I want to be able to meditate for at least half an hour everyday. I have been slacking big time. I used to meditate at least a half an hour a day, but I’ve almost completely stopped. I think I was going through some stuff and just forgot about meditating and somewhat turned my back on it during some tough times. But I have to remember that it’s during these tough times that meditation is important. Following through on this resolution will centre me as a person and generally make me a happier person - I know this from experience.
2. Emotionally – I need to embrace my emotions and remember that it’s okay if I want to cry sometimes. It’s needed. And I should be okay with that. This one I know I will naturally do right now since I’m super hormonal - but accepting it rather than fighting it is the key. I should also express if I don’t like how someone is treating me and voice my opinions more often. Sometimes I can be passive to avoid a fight, but sometimes you need to stand up for yourself. (And it feels good to be expressive, of course!)
3. Mentally – I have to make sure to write a half an hour to an hour a day as well as try and read a bit everyday. It will keep my mind sharp and active. In all honesty, my mental state is probably the only thing I have been working on in 2017. I have been going to therapy for about year now and it’s helping so much. It’s nice to talk to someone about how I’m truly feeling and gain perspective on my past as well as why I do things and why things happen. But I think taking care of my mental state also means staying mentally stimulated, which is why I want to do more reading and writing.
4. Physically – I want to step up my workout game. I haven't been working out since I got pregnant. Before it happened, I was working out every week and going to my Jeet Kune Do class 1-2 times a week. Now I’m not with a gym and I have been barely going to class. I have been doing some Aqua Fit classes with other pregnant women but that’s not really too much. I find it hard to work out now since I always feel tired. I plan to go hard for the first few months after giving birth to get back to what I was.

I hope this coming year is better than the last one. I feel like it will be. So much is changing for the better. I’m having a baby, after all! I just try to have faith and trust that things will work out if I try. And that’s what 2018 will be about for me - trying my very best every single day.

-Sarah