Penelope in Retrograde

by Brooke Abrams

“It’s not the beginning that’s painful in my opinion. It’s the ending that came before it. New moons represent that too. The end of one phase and the beginning of a new.” She takes my hand, the one that used to have my engagement ring—her old engagement ring—on it, and places the slip of blank paper inside. “We don’t always get to choose when one phase ends and another begins, but we can choose how we face it.”

“Happiness isn’t a place you go back to. Happiness is a place you build and rebuild and then tear down and remodel a thousand times over inside you.”