As I started putting together my poems for “A Little More Time” I wanted to make sure that I was being as authentic as I could without ending the book on a sad or hopeless note. I decided that the best way to do this was to start with only a few pieces from the years that I felt suicidal and gradually take pieces from my timeline leading up to 2013 when I first started to feel like myself again. One of the most important things that I figured out from writing the last 22 years is that I feel better when I leave off my journals with a positive message. Now, even on my worst days, even if I write 10 pages about how helpless, humiliated, and disgusted I may feel, I will make it a point to turn it around for the last few lines. When I end with pain, I felt pain. When I ended with hope, it left room for me to keep going. I felt a little more free. I felt a little more able to cope with my life and the world around me. There is a lot of truth to the saying “ We write our own story.” I think that “A Little More Time” is where I first started to realize this.