Then he bent down in front of me and met my eyes for the first time all day. He looked straight into my pupils until he had my full attention. Then he said, “Whether you walk again or not, I’m going to tell you the one thing I know for certain.” I blinked. “What’s that?” He took a deep breath. “It’s the trying that heals you. That’s all you have to do. Just try.
Yes! You’re going to be okay. Aren’t you glad to know that?” “Undecided.” Then, as she came in for a final hug, she said, “I just need you to remember that, okay?” She squeezed a little tighter. “There are all kinds of happy endings.
I wasn’t a stranger to grieving, to the way it drowned you but didn’t kill you – only kept you submerged for so long you forgot what air and sunshine even felt like. I knew that grief set its own timeline, and that the only way out was through.
And it’s a girl. And you will love her more than you love yourself. And you’ll disappoint her, too – and never live up to the standards you set for yourself. But don’t worry. She’ll be okay.
I still found human beings – and conversation – to be the best possible distraction.
Wasn’t that what love was, after all? Saying yes – not just when it was easy, but also when it was hard?
The world keeps hanging on to this idea that love is for the gullible. But nothing could be more wrong. Love is only for the brave.
I would never tell you that the life you wanted couldn’t have been exactly as great as you planned. But you have to live the life you have. You have to find inspiration in the struggle, and pull joy out of the hardship.
So much of life is just grinding through. So many moments just exist to deliver you to the ones that follow. But this moment was a destination in itself.
The lived on the mistaken assumption that their lives mattered, that life was essentially fair, that it was all going to wind up happy in the end. I knew what they didn’t – that everything you care about will disappear, that deserving a happy life doesn’t mean you can get one, and that there really is no one in the entire world you can count on but yourself.
As if you don’t always lose by definition when you push the people who love you away.
It did feel good to get out. The wind. The ocean. The stars. The universe. I was surprised how soothing it was to be in the presence of things greater than myself.
Ian kept checking with me to see if I was ready, and I kept shaking my head. I got cold, in my sundress, but I still didn’t want to leave the fire.
Maybe nobody got a happy ending in the end. Maybe all happiness could ever hope to be was a tiny interruption from sorrow.
Even people with terrible people skills didn’t have people skills this terrible.
Even just trying, I decided, could be an act of bravery in itself.
The things you think about determine the things you think about” – meaning the more you focus on something, the more likely your brain is to focus on it.
It’s sadness that gives happiness its meaning.
That’s the thing you don’t know – that you can’t know until life has genuinely beaten the crap out of you: I am better for it all. I am better for being broken.
Exhaustion is a friend to the grieving. I was the kind of tired where sleep just reaches out and tugs you into its gentle sea without you ever making a choice.