When you can, go back to the place where they said you were the smallest and the ugliest. Stand in front of it, turn your back to it. And have someone who loves you as perfectly as he can pace across the street and take a picture of you, in the fog, on the side of the road, the barred windows and yellow brick walls behind you. You are still small. You are still ugly. This is not a transformation story told with paint and hot irons. It is not what you are that has changed. It is what matters that has changed – what is said and seen. The voice, the eye – all of it — is yours, now, and his and Yours.
Jennifer Quist, PhD
Writer, scholar, crier, author of "Sistering," "Love Letters of the Angels of Death," and "The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner"
Jennifer Quist, PhD 
Junior High hell survivor here too. I live across the street from my old school. I can see it from my living room window. I walk past it with my kids all the time. But I’m careful not to walk the same path to the door that I used to. Maybe I should.
My school is way out in Nova Scotia. It makes the visit seem epic, I guess. Still looks the same, right down to the trees that won’t grow next to the sidewalk.
You made that place beautiful for me.
Love you!