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What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect?

Justina Chen

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Justina Chen
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Novelist
Writer
Justina Chen
Justina Chen Headley
Miraculous
Mutual
Gratitude
Based
Relationship
Respect
Self

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The pressure of his touch through my jacket and my sweater was more assurance than any promise ever made to me. It was a touch that said, I have your back and I am here for you. If a girl wasn't careful, she could fall in love with a touch like that.
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I preferred my brand of beauty where Norah was more beautiful than any bimbette, and Mom was beautiful whether sized extra-small or extra-large. Where Peony could look at herself in the mirror and murmur, wow, look at me. Just look at me.
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My confidence was of the hothouse variety, carefully cultivated under highly regulated conditions. One wrong look, one mean comment, and my facade would wither.
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I hated roses. I hated them for being so trite, so clichéd, a default, all-purpose flower that said I love you, I'm sorry, and get well soon. Give me peonies and tulips, orchids or gardenia. Those were flowers with character.
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Let the glossy spreads have their heart-stopping, head-turning kind of beauty. Give me the heart-filling beauty instead. Jolie laide, that's what I would choose. Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.
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If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.
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There is a time to study a map passionately, obsessively. To see where you've gone, where others have gone before you. To commit to memory every obstacle, every danger. Shakespeare had a term for this obsession: mappery. But there is a time, too, when you say, come dragons. I challenge you to find me.
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Jolie laide = pretty ugly Draws you to it...bored into heart and mind.
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Safe, I decided, didn't leave much room for fun.
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I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?
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No power was total, no power permanent, no power absolute.
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A pathfinder's job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you're hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.
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But even quashed rebellions leave us different. Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.
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Wait! What? I lowered my cup hastily, wondering if maybe there was a stray hair, or worse, a newly boiled bug inside my cup. You got to smell it first. It's the proper way to cup coffee. Cup coffee? Taste it. What? Are you the coffee police or something?
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Maybe we don't have the same definition of about what's beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.
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From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.
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Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.
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You would be surprised what two hours of daily exercise and five hundred stomach crunches can do for you.
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