This was the experience of the marathon for me. It was a rare, rare moment when the city seemed truly whole; when people came together—for free—to watch an event, and they cheered the back-of-the-pack plodders as enthusiastically as they did the whippets who led the way. I was so moved by it that I was choked up for most of the twenty-six miles, seeing this crazy display of community and generosity. I’m sure rural marathons and small-city marathons are great, but the special thing about big-city marathons, like New York and Boston, is that they are occasions when the clashing and whirring of urban life quiets, and everyone stands together to see a bunch of people trying to do something very simple that is also very hard. It’s marvelous.

If the explosions were purposeful, whoever did it knew that it would catch people at an exceptional, joyous moment, when they come together in the sweetest way, helping each other fly.

One of the hardest things in life, as weird as it sounds,

is when your naivety is gone. When you no longer hold onto the hope that someone you care about is going to change, or that deep down they really are a good person. One of the hardest things in life is accepting that they are who they are and that this person you gave so much to and fought so hard for never deserved any of it. Yet somehow, despite the pain and the loss and the confusion, it is so freeing to know there is nothing in the past to grasp onto anymore, and that the future can only get better from here.