The best thing anybody ever informed me of.

I was sitting on a couch at a family reunion with my nana and my sister. Whatever the original conversation was, I will never remember. But, alas, it is terribly unimportant. It is what someone said later that changed my life.

"Sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission."

I was filled with a sudden lightness. It was the most liberating thing anyone had ever thought of in the entire history of the world. I was thrilled. Never have I been so overjoyed about my future. It was as if my entire future - all the things I would do, the boys I would kiss, the tattoos I would have tattooed, the fences I would hop, the places I would go - flashed before my very eyes. My course was set. And I took it to heart. The next morning, I got into my nana's make-up case and did my make-up. When she informed me I was much too young for such frivolousness, I simply asked for forgiveness, rather than having asked for permission and hour or so earlier. Needless to say, I looked positively smashing in family pictures later that day. In relation to my bucket list: life is much too short. I feel the need to live before I die. And sometimes, I just know that asking for permission will only stagger the ever-so-important process. For example, if, per say, one wanted to swing on the swings at the private school, it would be simply too much work to ask permission (not to mention one already knows the answer). It is postively better for one to simply trudge across the fields, enter the back way, hopping the fence, and swing until one's heart is content. (Not that I have ever done that.) Now, don't go robbing a bank and blame it on me, saying you were planning on asking for forgiveness. That is wrong. But, using the common sense you were blessed with, GO LIVE YOUR LIFE. It is time we stopped letting others disern our fates! Huzzah! (This would be the point where someone should probably yell "FOR NARNIA!")

Follow your dreams.

All my love, Addy.