Happy After All

by Maisey Yates

People are too complicated to be sympathetic, generally speaking. I’m not naive enough to believe my life would have been perfect if he’d stayed with my mother. It would have been weird and bitter in a different way, that’s all. Like I said, he tries. Sometimes I just can’t bear to be something he has to try quite so hard for.

Two young trees who bent around each other as they grew. Well, I’m a mighty oak now, Amelia. And I can’t bend. Not again. Not for anyone else.”

“I think it’s a thing that takes time, gray hair, wrinkles, heartbreaks, and all kinds of moments when you cared too much. Then one day you realize . . . it never got you anywhere you wanted to go. The people who only want you when you bend and twist to suit them don’t stay anyway, and the ones who want you as you are settle in, and so do you.”

“Falling in love when everything is terrible is as brave an act as blowing shit up. Except it’s something regular, everyday people can choose to do. A radical act of real-life bravery.”

Don’t postpone joy. I was in pain, and I had every reason to wait until I healed to start enjoying sunsets and pie and new friends. I took it as a sign from the universe. To try to let the joy exist alongside grief.

“We can always lose something. Hell, we can always lose everything. I think the truly miraculous thing about life is that we keep loving anyway.”

The sad truth is, you protect the wound, and it begins to protect you. So you guard it at all costs.

I’m different, and my life is different than I planned for. Different doesn’t make it wrong, or bad, or failed. When I accepted that, I found a lot more peace.”

“What if I can’t have everything?” “You’ll survive. You’ll keep on living. You’ll smile again. You’ll dream again. You get to be my age, and you realize that you had everything that was meant for you. So you might as well want it all, then see what comes.”