Ink

Here's my Perks tattoo.  My tattoo artist was SO nice.  I'm so glad I picked her.  Can't wait to get my Harry Potter one :)

I've had this book since I was like 16 and I can never quite remember why it made so much sense to me because superficially Charlie and I had very different high school experiences.  But then every time I read it I go "Oh that's why I love it so much."

A couple things I've dog-eared over the years:

"It would be very nice to have a friend again.  I would like that even more than a date."

"Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve." (of course, who doesn't  have that quote underlined?) 

The "I feel infinite" scene.  (again, of course)

"But she just acted so different before I got to know her, and if she really isn't like what she was at the beginning, I wish she could have just said so." 

 "...every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people."

"And I guess I realized in that moment that I really did love her.  Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter."

"...even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there."

"I think that if I have ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them hat people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they are upset.  And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."   

Sam says a lot of really great things at the end of the book and they just always-- just always-- YES, Sam, YES.  I think about Sam's advice a lot.

"You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love." 

"I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am.  And I don't want them to carry it around inside.  I wan them to show me, so I can feel it, too.  I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.  And if they do something I don't like, I'll tell them."

"... after awhile, I didn't do things because I didn't want him to think different about me.  But the thing is, I wasn't being honest.  So why would I care whether or not he loved me when he didn't really even know me."

There are very clear themes in the advice I've taken from this book over the years.  There's the idea about not trivializing your feelings and not letting other people's lives take precedence over your own.  And also about letting people love you for who you are.  I express that a lot to other people and myself.  Live yo life.  Don't hold back because of some idea you have of what other people want or expect of you.  Just... you do you.