All Our Broken Pieces
Page 31
Thank you to Ursula Gutteridge for taking the time to speak with me and answer my questions about OCD from a medical perspective, and to the sensitivity readers who helped to guide me in the right direction.
To the staff and readers at Wattpad. This journey started with you. You’ve been here since the beginning. Thank you for giving me the courage to believe in a dream that once felt impossible. I couldn’t have done it without you.
To anyone dealing with any kind of mental illness in yourself or in your families. You are bold. You are brave. You are badass. Talk about it. Please use your voices to shake up the world! Be informed and show support and understanding. No one should have to walk through life alone. Find strength in community and be good to every person you meet, because you don’t know what their story is, you don’t know about the scars they carry. Be kind.
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Dear reader, if you’re still here at this point in the acknowledgments, well done, you’re in it for the long haul. Much respect. Thank you for giving my book some of your time. Thank you for making me want to keep chasing this incredible dream. Without you, there is nothing.
Here’s where I get personal. I struggle, like many, with mental health, and sometimes I become a nervous, anxious, depressed wreck of a person. I have inexplicable panic attacks and worry to the point where I can physically make myself sick. A few short months after I typed the opening sentence to this book, my dad passed away. Having lost my mother years before, I was officially an orphan, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
It seems straightforward to thank the incredible people who helped me bring this book into the world in obvious ways: industry people, my family, writer supports. But All Our Broken Pieces would not have been without the following people as well. You helped me through a sadness I thought was never going to end and for that, I owe you more than an acknowledgment in some book.
Sam, my bff, my bestie, my ride or die. You should hold the number one spot on this list because you’ve literally been listening to me babble since the dawn of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Thanks for being there consistently for my entire adult life, and even well before then. You’re the best friend a girl could hope to have. I love you.
Matt, I struggle to find the right words for you. Maybe I don’t need them or maybe I used all the words up because I talked…a lot…a lot. Thank you for always being there to listen and not trying to “fix” things. Sometimes we all just need someone to hear us. When I quite dramatically informed you my fictional boy with a burnt face had no band name because positively nothing I could think of was right, you offered up Fire to Dust and it’s still so perfect. I’m grateful for everything.
Simone, you’re up there with Fallon, Monica, and Sam. Thank you for listening to me drone on about this book and my endless problems after buying me Starbucks. What an undeniable privilege for you! Just kidding. But how much I appreciate you (and the Starbucks) is no joke. Thank you. Also, so it’s here and publicly stated: irregardless is not a word.
Lastly, Mom and Dad. Mom, I understand now why you didn’t encourage me to be a writer—because you watched my father struggle and didn’t want the same for me. That makes you a pretty kick-ass mother. Even better is that I proved you wrong (you would have loved that), and I think you’re up there beaming with pride while Dad is beside you saying he told you so.
Dad, you’re the one who gave this to me. A gift. A curse. A blessing. It depends on the day. Your faith in me never wavered. You made me believe I could do anything until I proved to myself that I can. I miss you both every single day, but I hope I’ve done you proud.
L. D. CRICHTON is the author of The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher, which received a starred review from School Library Journal. She’s a coffee devotee and lip gloss enthusiast whose infatuation with music is truly astonishing. If she’s not reading, writing, or checking her horoscope for signs from the universe, you can find her by the water in search of mermaids, because they’re real. All Our Broken Pieces is her first young adult novel.