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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“See you Sunday!” “Sunday?” I ask. “Family dinner,” Viggo’s mother explains as she takes Linnie’s hand before the little girl can run out into the parking lot.
“I think love is . . . wrapping your arms around every emotion, even the hard ones, even when being numb seems so much safer. Love is hoping, even after disappointment has taught you not to. Love is that bone-deep hum of peace through your body when you’re hugged hard, when you’re listened to well, when you’re not left alone in your sadness. Love is stubborn and persistent, an indomitable weed that springs up in those slivers of soft soil in our concrete-jungle existence.
it’s that reach to feel and
know and connect to every part of each other, in spite of the distance between us . . . I think that’s love, in so many beautiful, mysterious iterations.”
“Food that someone else made you always tastes better.”
my heart’s happiness can’t be guaranteed, even with all the time and preparation in the world. Maybe all I can do is trust myself and throw its doors wide open.
doesn’t feel that fundamental desire for her, as steady as his pulse.” Tallulah blows out a slow breath. “And then what?”
Romantic.
It really is hard to learn, though, and I get mad when I keep trying and I still can’t do it. But Mommy says I can do hard things. She says what’s hard about hard things isn’t often the things themselves but believing in ourselves when we try.”
I’ve started to learn hard things always have to start somewhere, even if they’re small. Just seeing them tomorrow,
I want to dream dreams and work hard and hold hands and face whatever comes with you.
that loving deeply, pouring yourself into who and what you love, is paradoxically both the easiest and hardest thing we do. It requires vulnerability and bravery and trust and hope, the risk of cracking ourselves open, our pasts, our fears, our hurts, which the world has taught us to guard and to hide. That vulnerability is hard and frightening . . . but it also grants us the most beautiful gift that would otherwise be impossible, when we find those who wrap their arms around all of us and love all of us; when we find safe spaces with those who see us in our full humanity and affirm that
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I believe stories affirming everyone’s worthiness of love and belonging have life-changing power—to touch us, heal us, and deepen our empathy for ourselves and others. Stories have the power to reshape our hearts and minds, our relationships, and ultimately the world we live in.
