We All Live Here

by Jojo Moyes

a guy I used to work with sent me a quote from Rilke: ‘Keep going. No feeling is final.’ Something along those lines. And I always think of that, when things are a bit rough. No feeling is final. The shitty times don’t last forever. Even if they feel like it.”

“Because it’s only hurt people who hurt people.”

That her mother of all people understood the importance of living as well and happily as one could.

“Life is going to batter you, honey. She’s a cruel mistress. So you have to find the place in your head where you can get lost in a good way.

They don’t talk about other girls. At all. It makes her realize that 90 percent of what Meena and the others talked about was who was doing what, who was stupid, or dressed badly, or had made an idiot of themselves. It was like other people were their currency.

Celie realizes she quite likes talking about things, rather than people.

One of Francesca’s golden rules was that if you were sunk in despondency you should move your body. Do something, darling. Go for a walk or empty a wardrobe or dig something in the garden. Whatever gets you out of your head and into your body.

Because she simply places a hand on the space where Lila’s neck meets her shoulders and lets it rest there, soft enough to be kind, firm enough to reassure her of its intention, perhaps just a silent message from another woman: I see you, I understand.

The hand rests for some unknown length of time while Lila cries, a human connection in a world of complication and grief.

So many people were disconnected from the many wise ways in which a body could speak to the mind.

that is the beauty of seeing someone you knew in your youth. There will be a part of yourselves that only ever remembers each other in that way.

But when you texted me, it was like this little light came on—like a lighthouse in an ocean—and I felt like Oh. Here it is. It’s all going to be okay.”

In those final hours in Dublin she told herself that sometimes it was necessary to make a mistake to

This is life at this age, she muses, a million goodbyes, and you never know which are the final ones. You just absorb them, like little shocks, trusting with each one that you’ll be able to keep moving forward.

Life is long and complicated, Lila, and we all make mistakes. What matters is what we do beyond them.

You can hang on to anger and bitterness your whole life. But all you really do is prolong your own pain.

Lila feels herself gradually immersed in an unfamiliar sensation: peace. For months, perhaps years, she has been in permanent brace position, dipped low, her hands over her head, waiting for the next thing. The ups have been jagged, inconsistent, prone to turn abruptly into downs. Right now, for the first time she can remember, she just feels…level. As if calm is seeping into her bones.