Via

an absolutely insane way to end this year 

My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."

He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."

He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"

I did.

"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."

It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.

So my dad and I agreed, what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn't made you stronger than you were before, you're probably not done healing. You've got to give these things time to set.

Nothing but love behind those eyes

A few of the more creative spellings of Christmas I’ve come across while looking for Dear Santa letters in old newspapers this year.

Amber Heard is finally free from her abuser. She will not have to pay him a penny (insurance will cover the $1 million), she has not admitted any guilt, and going forward she will be able to speak about the truth as much as she wants. Depp’s team must have been scared of her appeal to settle this much. Now she can (hopefully) live peacefully.

Honestly, if you still believe that Amber Heard was the abuser at this point, you’re genuinely a fucking idiot and I have no respect for you as a person.

Linus has big dreams