Had she wondered where the pain portion of that pleasure-and-pain cycle was? Oh. It was right here.
Every time you hurt someone, you break off a little piece of them.
The shell was there, waiting for her, and part of her wanted to crawl into it. She didn’t fault herself for that part of her, though, because she finally understood the shell wasn’t necessarily a horrible thing. It was a protective mechanism, that was all. It had kept her alive and functioning when the world wanted to poke and hurt her. It was a part of her, and maybe not a part of herself that she needed to find disgusting or bad.
I couldn’t let you be angry, or at the very least, I couldn’t let you show that anger. Because then you would be that angry Black girl, and everyone would dismiss your intelligence or worse, suppress everything that makes you you.
You don’t just decide to love and suddenly everything is fine. Love takes practice. Love isn’t passive, it’s active. A verb.
Sometimes we think a person doesn’t need to hear something because it’s obvious, because they know what’s in our hearts. But that’s not how the world works. We have to say the things.
I think it takes a certain kind of strength, when the world is hateful or mean, to come out on the other side with your heart and your kindness and your humanity intact.
I don’t say it enough, because I assumed you knew I love you. But that’s the problem. Sometimes we think a person doesn’t need to hear something because it’s obvious, because they know what’s in our hearts. But that’s not how the world works. We have to say the things.
Sometimes, good people make mistakes. It costs you nothing to hear someone out.” “No. It does cost you something.” Because if you believed that person when you heard them out, and then they betrayed you, you ended up doubly hurt. Easier to give people one shot.
It was so much easier to write people off. Much harder to navigate the gray areas of interpersonal relationships.
That’s fine. We do only the things we’re capable of doing.
You can’t control someone else’s actions, you can only control yourself.
Infants were like a ball of cheeks and rolls held together with drool, but they were surprisingly sturdy.
Humans aren’t meant to be indefinitely bent into pretzels. We bend until we snap, and then we put ourselves back together and hold steady until someone or something bends us again. Every part of that process requires strength, and hope, I think.” Even the breaking. Even if you need help putting yourself back together.
Small talk was the fifth horseman of the apocalypse.
Be careful how many times in your life you say not yet, beti. You’d be surprised how quickly time flies.
It actually made it really hard for me to learn to interact with other people, having sisters. Because you can’t really go from ‘I’m going to kill you’ to ‘want some ice cream?’ with anyone else in your life.
I can tell you that occasionally you have to directly ask them why they’re doing what they do. You might be surprised by the answer. No one tells you that this is a big part of relationships. Sometimes it’s not all about big misunderstandings. Sometimes it’s about learning how to talk to each other. We all have insecurities, and we have to help each other navigate around them.
The people I loved, I chose wisely. When I did reach out, they were right there.
An older sister was supposed to protect, not abandon.
Ain’t no man in the world who is impossible to recover from. You only need the right support to do it.