In the Weeds (Lovelight, #2)

by B.K. Borison

But that’s the thing about happiness, I guess. You can show whatever you want to the world and not feel a lick of it inside yourself.

“It’s okay if it takes you some time to find it again. And it’s okay if you find it, just to lose a bit of it here and there. That’s the beauty of it, yeah? It comes and goes. Not every day is a happy one, and it shouldn’t be. It’s in the trying, I think.”

“You can’t make yourself be happy. But you can be open to it. You can trust yourself enough to feel it when you stumble on it.”

Some of it comes, some of it goes. It’s about the trying. Settling into the happy when you find it, being okay when you don’t. Feeling all the misshapen bits and pieces and where they fit together. The delightful ordinary blank space in between.

“It’s okay to want different things,” she says. “People change. You’re allowed to change. Doing less doesn’t make you less.”

Maybe this is what happy is supposed to be. A person, a place. A single moment in time.

“If you think love means having to sacrifice bits of yourself to make someone else happy,” he explains. “If you’re afraid to ask after what you want. Maybe I did something wrong.”

“Sometimes love is greedy, kiddo.” My dad sets his mouth in a firm line. “Sometimes it’s a little bit selfish too. You think it’s never crossed my mind that your mom deserves something better than the life we carved out for ourselves here? It has. A million times. A million and one. But I’m holding on to her with both hands. I’m trusting her to make her own choices. To choose me.”