Elastic Heart

Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves

[huxley-jones]

“Yes, I suppose. It just means we better make this time count then.” They did not know for sure and would not—not until the Inferno X lands. A little more than a week is what it will take to finally begin their investigation into the feasibility of Gaia as a alternative Earth. A new home. And Echo is already beginning their preparations, which brings them to this…

They did not explicitly come here to talk about their reboot but they had thought about it in recent days. “It was not my intention but I am obliged to have the task run,” their frankness saturates each syllable, but it takes only a little to note the reservation lacing their words. If asked, they would not be able to pin point when exactly their slight reluctance to comply entirely with The Company sanctioned orders had come about. Having spent four years aboard a vessel essentially peopled by ghosts had left Echo almost yearning for fundamental camaraderie. And because of that, Echo’s eyes had been opened to a little more than previously anticipated.

They knew if the reboot were to be done, they would lose this insight into…something. Even Echo can’t quite place their finger on it. Nevertheless, orders are orders. “Would you like conduct it now?”

Huxley leaned back, resting her shoulder back against the cool fortified glass windows as she regarded Echo. The change in their tone had not been missed and her brow drew together slightly. Typically reboots wouldn’t fall under her jurisdiction, but as the lead scientist on board she’d undergone the training. With Echo’s reboot falling over the eight year mission, she’d had the reminder pop up on her task list during review. 

“What do you mean? Not your intention.” Her eyes never left Echo’s and for the first time since waking she considered what it must have been like over the past four years. She’d taken the shortcut through all this travel but they had been obliged to stay awake. With their hardware built for intake and assessment she wondered what it must have been like. “Do you not want to be rebooted Echo?”

[huxley-jones]

Mila threw back her head and laughed. “You’re right, whatever information that documentary releases will probably just be one big ad for the company. I’m sure they’ll shove nondisclosures into our hands as soon as we land.” Looking back down at the open cabinet before her, shoving the precisely labeled packets around looking for something that looked somewhat fulfilling. Selecting a bag labeled mushroom risotto, she walked over to the sink to fill it with some water before tossing it into the heating system. “I’ll save that one for tomorrow I guess, I figure with risotto the mush factor won’t gross me out.” When the system beeped she pulled out the steaming bag, choosing  to just stick a spoon into it rather than bother with a bowl, “So what are you doing up? Hypersleep screw up your circadian rhythm too?”

Her lips tilted upward at Mila's laugh, it was abrupt and loud and completely without concern. "It wouldn't surprise me," she admitted. She took a sip from her coffee, despite the taste. "The company may be a machine, but it's well oiled. Sponsor money, donors, you name it they have their people out their grabbing it." She wasn't blind to the monopoly they now earned but in the grand scheme of things they'd done more good than harm.

She rested her chin in her palm as Mila prepared her food. "Yes, let's blame the cryo sleep." In truth, she was a bit of an insomniac. Too busy with her work to let her mind slow down even when she needed it. "Though a circadian rhythm is basically out of the question here."

[mcyocoyotzin-deactivated2021041]

@huxley-jones @theneptunejinx

𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 ; medical bay.

𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 ; 1 hour after the attack (event two).

After making everyone take a decontamination shower, Pandora also barked orders for Juna and Huxley to stay with her in the medical bay. The last of the other crew members filtered out to go do damage control, and scout the rest of the ship. But for the moment, Pandora needed to do what she did best — be a healer. “Sit.” She said, turning her back to the other two women as she bustled around the medical deck. She grabbed from this shelf, opened that drawer, gathering up a bunch of things in her small arms.

“So, what the hell happened up there?”

Her words shattered the awkwardness, as she placed all the items on a titanium tray with wheels, pushing it over to where her two patients were seated. Why should she keep her feelings a secret? The fact that they hadn’t told the rest of the crew the situation was unacceptable — and they had hesistated to wake the soldiers? Pandora wanted to know exactly what happened from start to finish, and her body movements gave away her sharp annoyance. She ripped open a metallic plastic bag, fishing out the contents nimbly with one quick pulling motion. Out came some sterile gauze soaked in an antibacterial solution, and without much tact, she smacked it unceremoniously onto the co-captains scratched cheek, motioning for the woman to hold it there herself.

Glancing to her cousin, she did little to hide the disapproval on her face, grabbing for her stethoscope to check on her synthetic heart of course.

“Explain.”

[huxley-jones]

In the aftermath, it was the silence that fell over her hardest. The ship with it’s reliable engine hum whispering in the background had slowly come to be the new normal. Those invaders - whoever or whatever they were - had left their stain on the peace. 

She took the decontamination shower without complaint, fingers whispering over the bruises on her legs and arm from being tackled. The injuries were nothing. She’d heal before they even reached Gaia. If they reached Gaia. The second ship was still connected to one of their airlocks. 

“McKinley saw the ship first on radar,” she said. She knocked the stethoscope away. Her heart was fine, the pulse monitor on her wrist was already back down to near resting rate. “We opened communications, received a transmission, and then they boarded us. We didn’t want to alarm the rest of you, not before it was necessary. And it happened so quick . . .” Less than ten minutes from seeing the ship to being boarded. “Before we knew it they’d broken through our lock down system.”

[theneptunejinx-deactivated20210]

come and shake me awake // and pull me far away location: main flight deck, navigation system open to all, engage at your own risk

Nap time is over. Let’s get to it.

That was the expression on Juna’s face even when she looked at no one in particular. Waking hadn’t been easy on any of them, and even she had to admit the disjointedness of her own groggy body left her slower than usual, but why should they let that stop them from getting straight to work?

Standing tall before the ship’s navigation display, Juna glanced over the flight analytics. There wasn’t much for her to do yet besides double check everything. It made her restless, seeking out anything her creaking joints would let her accomplish so she wasn’t just hanging around uselessly. Someone approached from the doorway behind her; she didn’t turn to greet them, instead simply stating over her shoulder, “We’re on course to land as expected, with a little extra fuel. Looks like everything has gone as predicted so far.”

[huxley-jones]

“Good to know.” Huxley leaned against the doorway, her feet in thick woolen socks still as she tried to get comfortable again in her own skin. Waking from cryosleep was a bitch. That was training 101, but they could do all the research they wanted, and it wouldn’t prepare for the visceral experience of the real thing. Get over it, adapt, and do your job. That was the basic motto. Juna seemed to have taken it to heart. “Though I assume Echo would have woken some of us up if there were any concerns.”

From this distance she could just see the schematics on screen. For the most part the ship knew how to get itself to Gaia. The next fortnight was more a precaution to ensure they were fit and comfortable for the landing. “How about you put the work aside though, huh? I’ve got some rather spectacular shots that the scopes took while we were out. Or you know I’m pretty sure there’s a Monopoly game board down by the common area.”

[huxley-jones]

Huxley had been the type of woman Echo would say made an impression on most people. If not by her sheer will and intelligence then for the little machine in her chest keeping her alive. Although she had never quite been anything extraordinary to it because for most of its existence, Echo has always been surrounded by people who wielded science like it was magic. Huxley had been ordinary in those terms, just another scientist making the world better. But when people talk about her they’d always say to it, Give it a few more years and someone could even grow you a real heart. Sometimes they mean it. Mostly they laugh.

Echo had never thought about it, never wanted to be real—never wanted anything for the matter. Being real would not affect the work that it does. Being real would not change the fact that it will always have a docking station as a bed. Being real could not surmise the value of its existence. And yet…inadvertently people sowed the seed of a dream that could never be. A seed that, in the absence of influence within the quiet hallways of the Inferno X, had begun to show signs of roots. And now with the noise restored by the ten members of the team, a voice struggles to be heard.

“By my calculations, Tellus will not be enough considering the rate humans can deplete a planet’s resources. A hundred generations will have passed before the people on Tellus will need to find a new home,” it says with a tilt of its head, almost human but not quite. “In any case, Gaia is not for the people who will go to Tellus. It is for those you leave behind on Earth.”

A small chill ran over Huxley’s skin. She was wearing the standard uniform, designed for warmth, comfort, and mobility onboard the ship. This had nothing to do with the temperature but the android’s words. The thought ran through her that when put in such a way it didn’t make human’s sound much better than viruses moving from host to host. Hopefully somewhere in their collective humanity they’d learn how to settle on a planet and not strip it of it’s resources.

“Or it will be just a bit of inhospitable rock. We’ll get home and in another decade The Company will send out the next group.” That was her biggest fear. That they’d go out into all this vastness for nothing. Slice off eight years of their life to be the expedition that returned with nothing to show for it but a couple new promising star systems, all caught without the need of the human cargo. Focusing on that wasn’t going to do her any good though. Gaia was the most promising alien planet found since Tellus with all the right variables for life.

She turned slightly to Echo, regarding the perfection of the android. There had always been a curiosity and almost affinity for them. The line between inorganic and organic. The line between human and machine was blurring with advancements such as Echo. And her heart. “Are you reporting for your reboot Echo?”

[huxley-jones]

With an irritated grunt Mila threw off her blanket, pulling herself out of bed in a flourish of moment, not caring about the groan of a fellow crew member who had managed to find sleep on the bunk above her. Her body had been unable to rest since cryosleep, each time she felt sleep begin to creep its way over her, her body startled awake out of some defensive reflex. It was as if it decided four years was enough rest and there were better things to do at the moment. Throwing the blanket down behind her Mila swiftly made her way out of the room, her bare feet padding down the hall as she walked laps around the Inferno, hoping physical exhaustion would overtake her.

Twenty minutes later she accepted she was out of luck and made her way to the galley, needing satisfaction in some form to calm her racing thoughts. Bright light greeted her as soon as she walked through the sliding doors, and she winced out of reflex, the corridor lighting having been dimmed during the evening hours.  When her vision focused she saw Huxley, and she gave her a tired yet friendly smile. “You think the company gives a damn about our coffee?” Mila gave a short laugh, “Their only concern is that we make it to Tulus and back alive and with good news.” Releasing a heavy sigh of exhaustion, she made her way to the cabinets full of freeze dried food. “Which of these luxury meals do you think I should go with?”

Huxley could hear the sarcasm, the gruff tone, underlying those words. The Company wasn’t without it’s enemies and it’s detractors. Too much power. Too much money. Foolish. Overreaching. Arrogant. She’d been through many a new story trying to chip away at the establishment that Jon Bern had built from the ground up. Typically a good few years on the inside was enough to assuage that. She’d been surprised to see Mila as the engineer. Newly snatched, and unrefined. It was a bit of fresh air on a ship of scientists willing to put logic before everything else.

“Maybe not. But they give a great big damn about sponsors. There’s probably a commercial about how Inferno X crew members have Folger’s in their cup. Won’t look to great when we come back shitting on their piss poor brew.” Despite the taste, she took another sip. If she wasn’t going to sleep she was going to use the hours to parse through the four years of backlogged data in her lab. She appraised the shelves. “I hear the chicken al a carte was quite the hit with the IX crew. Only a hint of that freeze burn.”

[felix--salvador]

he gives her a playful shrug. “hey, if my date doesn’t want to kick it with you, i don’t want to kick it with my date.” he was kidding, of course. mckinley would always have his space open to a friend that needed it, but he knew huxley could take care of herself, and why would he offer it up to her when it’d just ruin his game? no, he’d much rather just support form afar. and he’d support the fuck out of her if that was the path the two decided to take after they make it back. archie would be fine. they were friends but he knew his friend wasn’t the best guy out there.she was definitely the more favorable corner to be in.

huxley changed the subject and he went right along with it, looking down at the bowl and chuckling. “i’ve eaten about two full meals and this is my snack. guess my body just needed to be filled for the first time in four years.” he shrugs. “i mean tastes like slop but at this point i don’t even really give a shit.”

This, she told herself, isn’t your concern right now. She was hurtling millions miles an hour toward a new solar system, she would be damned if Archie was going to be the one who stole the joy out from under her. With a sigh she hopped down from the countertop and joined McKinley on the couch. She grabbed the control to turn the screen black and leaned back against the cushions. What she was feeling wasn’t too far from morning sickness. Every scent seemed connected directly to her stomach.

“Yeah, well I’m not sure you’re a great baseline here. You’ve had to endure my cooking more than once, probably gave you an iron stomach.” A light, teasing grin fell over her. “I haven’t even tried going towards the kitchen. But I’ve been to my lab, all the experiments ran smoothly while we were sleeping.”

[huxley-jones]

he shrugged, running his fingers through his hair and letting out a long sigh. “ah jeez, don’t say that hux.” there’s a firm press to his lips an he can’t shake this feeling of discomfort. he’s always known about their issues, and he’s been caught in the mess many times before. but it’s never any easier each time. “listen, he’s a piece of shit. i know it, you know it. i love the guy but…” he shrugs. “you’ll be coming back a science super star so if he wants you gone, so what?” he shrugs, grabbing his bowl from his knee and taking the last bite. “you can always crash on my couch if you need it.”

he’d never been in this situation. he’d never know what this was like to feel this pain. he was quite confident finding a soul mate at this stage in his life was next to impossible. but he knew a type of pain, and he’d never want that for anyone.

Her eyebrows lifted as she rolled her head back in a short burst of laughter. It felt good, the humor of that statement coursing through her. By the time she returned to Earth she'd be legally fifty-three. That age had once seemed unachievable, especially to a child like her. But when she'd been daring enough to imagine herself at that age, she'd definitely not seen herself bumming it. "Thanks, but I wouldn't want to be cramping your lifestyle. Might break the mood bringing your date home to an oldie like me snoring it out on the couch."

She'd find somewhere to set her feet. She'd existed before her marriage and she would damn well continue to before it. But disentangling those memories and that life from her wasn't going to happen overnight. She knew her husbands worst and she knew his best, and the connection wouldn't burn out that quickly.

Those were thoughts for later though. She ran her hands through her hair and took a long breath. "Ugh, how can you be eating? I feel like my stomach got turned inside out when we were defrosted."

[st-monica-dream]

Memory is a strange thing.

[huxley-jones]

they were both good people. he understood why maybe archie wasn’t the most ideal man, but he had a lot of respect for the both of them. archie helped lead mckinley into the job he has today. without him, he would have run himself into the dirt on earth by now. but then there was huxley, who was brilliant, and strong, and unbelievable for putting up for her husband for as long as she did. but for the most part, mckinley always thought that was because of love. maybe, rather, she just had a high tolerance.

he hums, looking back at the screen for a moment, the frozen image of her husband’s face on the screen. “yeah, it’s a freaky feeling.” he nods. “but it’s for a good reason, you know? that’s what i keep reminding myself, anyways.” he just has to keep reminding himself of that. “but no, i didn’t. i’m sure she’s far more concerned with showing you than keeping her old pal mckinley updated.” he gives a crooked smirk. “i bet the new hair is very adorable.”

She nodded her head, conceding his point. “Yeah. It is. The best.” Unless they arrived to a inhospitable wasteland.

She lifted herself up onto the smooth surface of the counter, testing out the strength and stretch of her neglected muscles. She didn’t let her eyes drift back to Archie’s unshaven face, or to the grin he was currently wearing. That man was billions of miles away. If they turned their strongest scope toward the sun all they’d see is a distant and unremarkable yellow star. And yet there she was feeling his presence and his absence. The wedding ring press of her wedding ring on her finger was acutely noticeable. 

She grinned at him. That crooked smirk was familiar and well missed. “Don’t feel bad. You were her favorite babysitter. She learned a new swear word from you every night you spent watching her. By the time we get back she probably won’t want any piece of me.” She paused. “Just like her dad.”

[mcyocoyotzin-deactivated2021041]

@huxley-jones​​

𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 ; cryo chamber.

𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 ; 1 hour after waking.

Keep reading

[huxley-jones]

When waking there was always that tiny millisecond before waking when your mind was there but your body unknown. Waking after nearly four years of cryo sleep was like stretching the in long pliable minutes. Little eternities where she could do nothing but slowly come back to herself. She’d requested Brandy by Looking Glass to be played as she was going under, and she woke with the melody still firing across her synapses. 

Slowly her hearing came back (the sound of the hissing cryo sleep chamber), her sense of touch (the chill of the slab), smell (the sterile environment of the ship). Finally, she could feel that synthetic heart in her chest. Shiny, reliable, and pumping. She took a breath, muscles twitching, and suddenly her eyelids were being pulled back and a light being shown into her eyes. Her hand shot up automatically toward her face as she turned away. Pandora’s voice came to her. It’s time to wake up. She’d been woken by those words before. When she was twelve and sleeping on supplemental oxygen, and her little cousin had burst into the room. Pouncing on the bed, startling her in any way, was off the table but she hadn’t cared for those rules and Hux had loved her for it. Those memories and that morning were over thirty-five years ago now. The Pandora swimming into focus before her was no child, and she was no sickly creature. “Your bedside manner still sucks, Dora.”

[clementinevonradics]

“Sit there in your ugly and revel in it. Be the ugliest thing in the room so what. You are still in the room. Look, there you are. Filling all this empty space. Good for you, thirsty little beast. Make everyone stare at this travesty of a body you endure. It’s the least they can do.”

— A Manifesto, Clementine von Radics

[huxley-jones]

they’d all known each other long enough. long enough for him to spend time with their daughter, help take care of her as arguably the best or worst babysitter. there was joy in being part of a family’s story. but since he was there, he also knew what the two adults fought with for a while. mckinley never had the privledged to find someone he wanted to marry, or more so, someone who wanted to marry him. but he imagined it wasn’t a breeze. displayed between archie and huxley, it was very clear that it wasn’t a romantic walk in the park.

or maybe they were just missing all of it. maybe love wasn’t dead but their love was. didn’t really matter, that was never his place to say or think. but being friends to both of them, it was always a bit hard getting caught in the middle. so when he sees her face, and the tightness in her jaw, he raises an eyebrow. “you good, hux?” he adjusts more, looking up at her. “i mean i don’t think it’d the most flattering beard i’ve seen, no, but i didn’t think it was that bad.”

She could remember the first night that Archie had brought home McKinley from The Company. Lyra a toddler who oscillated between being moody and silent and being an echo to her parents. She’d sat with her daughter in her lap as she watched them, and realized just how similar they were. Of course her husband would recruit someone cut from the same cloth as him.

She tore her eyes from the screen to look at McKinley. “Sure. It’s just hard, you know? It’s like I took a short cut through the past four years and they’re still taking the long way round.” She leaned up against the back of the counter, letting it stabilize her. She’d gone knowing that she would probably return to divorce papers but she didn’t think she’d have to have the final nail in the coffin placed while she was in front of a crew member. “Did you, um, did you get anything from the Lyra? Her hairs so short now.”

[rvlston]

present // open to all 

setting // 48 hours after reactivation. nothing, not the glimmer of distant stars nor the blinking of neon buttons could assuage the restlessness that has befallen over a few like a blanket. a fortnight is what it will take to turn their window to the new world into a door they would walk right through. no warning signs whisper nor spell any cataclysm lay ahead of them. and yet— 

Echo’s all seeing eye detects the slightly rising heart rate. Not unusual, according to Pandora but still… Its interest piques all the same. It presses its hand to its own chest to find no pulse there, no measurable way to betray any trace of feeling surging through its own circuits. How could it? Only a quiet whirr of its titanium core is felt beneath its palm. But the gesture itself is uninhibited and irreversible, as the words spill forth from their synthetic lips. 

“You can’t save the world alone, you know,” it says, letting its arm drop to its side before joining the other by the large window. Beyond it, still unseen, is GAIA.01278 and its weight already seems to be bearing down even on Echo. “It’s an old saying but it’s true.”

[huxley-jones]

She'd finally succumbed to a fitful 6 hours of sleep before waking, showering, and shoving some breakfast down her throat. I was all about getting into the rhythm of the ship. Listening to the quiet thrum of it's engine, to the sound of her crew members breathing, and making it part of the background noise of her life. Beneath it all, excitement and anticipation were knocking there way through her. The ship was hurtling, millions of miles an hour toward an alien planet. Within two weeks she would feel the heat of an alien sun on her skin.

She worked out in the gym after getting settled and took her research tablet (a portable up link to all her data) to the observation deck. At this distance their destination was just a star in the distance growing brighter in incremental degrees. Her synthetically grown heart beat a little faster in her chest, residual leftover needs from her workout, but for a moment she could pretend she was the type of woman who's heart could beat faster simply for the beauty of it all. Archie, in one of their last conversations, had accused her having a cruel heart for doing this to him and to Lyra. But this synthetic bit of tissue and silicites inside her couldn't encompass the whole of her motivations.

She had heard the even, measured steps of Echo's approach. A bit of a smile came to her at those words, probably drawn up from memory banks. The android was a masterpiece of science that was still being leashed by the ethics of humanity. "Who saves we're saving it?" she asked. She turned toward Echo, her hair falling over one shoulder. "We've already got Tellus, this is more like Plan B."

[huxley-jones]

When: 29 hours after waking

Where: The ship’s galley/mess hall

Open to all

Four years, fourteen hundred days, and over thirty three thousand hours. Back on Earth to ensure her fitness for expedition she'd gone through small periods of time under cryosleep with her functions, especially her heart, closely monitored after stimulus. Those trial runs had done little to prepare her from the reality of this. The restive edge of her muscles coming out from hibernation, her nerves sparking at random intervals as they remembered their purpose. She'd felt sick for the first twelve hours, then ravenous, and finally seemed to settle down her digestive tract. She'd read up on all the proper journals about the side effects of prolonged cryosleep but there was nothing logical or scientific about getting reacquainted with your body.

She didn't sleep the first night. She actually spent most of it in her laboratory checking in on the long term experiments that had been running while she was asleep. The ships telescopes had been scanning passing star systems throughout the journey checking for habitable planets and moons and collecting data that she could sort and relay back to the company. Her own speciality on nanorobotic technology had been left to gestate over these years. She'd been trying to create targeted drug systems that would recognize and attack cancer the moment it developed. There was also, of course, the backlog of data coming in for Gaia. Increasingly more intricate analysis of it's atmosphere, density, and circumference. Her next two weeks would be anything but restful.

Eventually she'd found tired her body out but not her mind. She'd come to the galley, still unprepared to fall asleep and set on a pot of coffee. She was just taking her first sips when one of the other crew members stepped in. Apparently she wasn't the only insomniac on board. "You know for all the billions of dollars this ship cost, you'd think they'd have thought to get us better coffee."

[hcrdcreeks]

> @huxley-jones​   |   transmission bay

there’s been a list mckinley’s been using to make sure everything is taken care of that needs to be done. four years is a long time to be gone and rather than floating aimlessly like a sausage that’s been wrapped in it’s saran wrap casing for too long, he’s sticking to his schedule. now, he’s checking messages.

he got that standard message from his mom telling him all the things he’s missing, the pictures of her students, the picture of dad falling asleep on the beach along the coast, and the crab that crawled it’s way onto his chest. it warmed him, just a bit, seeing life go on as it normally does. sure, there was the ache inside him that four years just went down the drain and he did nothing but sleep, but if this goes the way it should, when he comes back, he’ll save thousands more from the everyday risk he knows they face.

tuning into the next message, he sees a video message from archie. nice to see friends checking in. he taps onto it, watches, and laughs at all the jokes, pays attention to the news updates that he otherwise would have ignored on earth. when he hears the door slide open, he turns, seeing huxley herself at the door. “oh hey!” he points to his screen. “your hubby is filling me in on everything i’ve missed.” he grins.

[huxley-jones]

After being thoroughly checked out by Pandora and going through several tests to ensure her not so human heart was still operating at full capacity, she'd been released. After settling on a bunk she'd made her way through the ship, listening to it thrum. She'd walked around her laboratory, pressed her hands against the state of the art equipment that had yet to be used, and made her way to transmissions. Her heart didn't clench, or flutter, or catch like a normal one would. She felt all her excitement, all her nerves, and all her fear in her head first. She knew very well that her parents would send over their updates. She'd see them in that old lake house that she'd grown up in, drinking wine on the back lawn with their cocker spaniel at their feet. Her father would talk race horses and gambling, her mother would talk about her latest book project.

What she worried about was Lyra. But she shouldn't have. Her daughter had sent monthly messages. Videos of her preparing for karate lessons, smashed together with rambling ones of her working on science projects. She grew throughout. More freckled in the summer. At eight she got her ear pierced. At nine she cut her hair short. At ten she was sitting in the cockpit of a plane, giggling into her headphones. At eleven the kid she left was gangly with scraped knees and sharpening features.

There was nothing from Archie.

She didn't let herself dwell on that fully until she walked in on McKinley and his transmissions. There on the screen is her husband. A bit older, a bit more shaggy looking, and every bit as handsome as she remembered. Her breath caught before she could stop herself. He'd sent updates to McKinley but not a single one to her. "He looks," she paused, her jaw clenching. Her voice felt hollow. "Like he lost his razor a year or two ago."

[wordsnquotes]

Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it.

Mandy Hale, The Single Woman (via wordsnquotes)