Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

“Where else am I supposed to meet a guy?” she asked, watching the dancers. “Like, in a garden?”

Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

I think he just gets like this sometimes. Like he needs to pull away. I think of it like winter. During winter, it isn’t that the sun is gone (or cheating on you with some other planet). You can still see it in the sky. It’s just farther away.

“I’d know you in the dark,” he said. “From a thousand miles away. There’s nothing you could become that I haven’t already fallen in love with.”

I like to pray for things that seem possible. There are so many things that I pray for that seem almost too big even for God. It’s rewarding to pray for something that might actually happen. It kind of keeps me going. Sometimes, I just pray for a bumper crop of zucchini or for a good night’s sleep.”

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.” “Well, stop,” she said. “I told you, figure out what’s right with you.”