Even when it's not pretty or perfect. Even when it's more real that you want it to be. Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.
Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.
We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.
The most useless questions an adult can ask a child- What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that's the end
You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.
We were decades, still, from a time when a simple Google search would bring up a head-spinning array of charts, statistics, and medical explainers that either gave or took away hope.