Goodbye, Dr Goldstein.′ I start to walk away, then stop and turn. ‘Oh, and for the record my name’s Charlotte.’ And turning back, I keep on walking. Somehow I don’t think that’s a name he’s going to forget in a hurry.
But, you know, everytime your heart is broken, it gets stronger.
With endings come new beginnings.
To you I shall say, as I have often said before, ‘Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last ‘. – Jane Austen.
I always thought falling in love was hard, but now I realize that was the easy bit. It’s staying in love that‘s the hard part.
Is that how you’re supposed to find your soulmate and fall in love these days? By flirting in 140 character tweets and stalking each other’s social media pages?
I once read that life should not be about the number of breaths you take, but the number of moments that take your breath away.
It’s true what they say: life does go on and joy does return, and often it’s in the most unexpected of places,’ she continues, ’but you never get over losing someone; you just get better at coping with it.
Word by word, page by page,’ Cricket tells her cheerfully, ’that’s how a writer writes and how a reader should read. You’ll get there in the end. Doesn’t matter if it takes six months or a year or longer to finish it. That’s what I always used to tell my husband.
Because now there’s two of us. And two of us makes a tribe.
If getting older has taught me one thing, it’s that I feel so many conflicting things about so many different things, and to negate or stifle any of them doesn’t make them go away. Emotions don’t necessarily have a moral compass. Feelings can’t be shamed into disappearing. Suppressing and ignoring them will only make them come back to bite you in the therapist’s chair.
I’ve learned if there’s one gift you can give yourself in life, it’s the freedom and courage to say “I don’t know”. Because I’ll let you into a secret – you don’t have to know. You don’t have to know how you feel, or what you want, or if you’re happy or if you’re sad.
No one ever died of cellulite or wrinkles.
You’re not too old, it’s not too late, and yes you can.
But that’s one of the good things about getting older: often the most terrible of things turn into the most amusing through the lens of time.
Don’t worry about getting older, worry about becoming dull.
Embrace your sense of humour, don’t ever take yourself too seriously, every day is another chance to laugh instead of cry, and when nothing is certain, everything is a hell of a lot less scary when you make fun of it. Amen.
I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left looking backwards. I want to look forwards. To new things. New places. New adventures. Otherwise I’m just living a life where a part of me is missing.
Because sometimes happiness isn’t a choice. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t find joy. Which is why I’ve decided to stop beating myself up by desperately seeking happiness and give myself the permission to feel exactly how I feel, when I feel it. In fact, maybe, it’s not happiness we should be looking for after all – but acceptance.
They don’t do it to be cruel. Quite the opposite. I’ve found friends and acquaintances keep their distance because they don’t want to upset you or say the wrong thing. What they don’t realize is you’re already upset beyond anything they could ever say or do. It’s their silence that upsets you. You feel isolated. Abandoned.