More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Is that your professional diagnosis then, Jim?” asks Kiera, arms crossed. “Stress or a potato? You’ve never been more Irish. You may as well prescribe her a Guinness.”
I feel frenzied. It’s like when I decide I want a haircut. Once I’ve made the decision, I become desperate to do it. If I don’t get to a salon within hours, I’m going positively feral with a pair of kitchen scissors.
As I often do, I tried to do things the easy way and found myself doing them the nearly impossible way.
Because it was too hard to see my world for its good when its bad was so much louder and more distracting.
The answer to how is unsatisfying. The truth is … we live. We can’t spend every moment treasuring the things we love. We still get mad at the dog for tracking mud through the house even though one day, we would give anything to have her muddy paws back on our white carpet. We still roll our eyes at our parents’ needy voicemails even though one day, those recorded moments will be all we have left.
I listen to Father John Misty on the Bluetooth speaker I found in the bedroom
Reading this line a couple hours after seeing FJM!
I feel like people get famous only so that they can go into hiding and get what they really want, which is simply to have a nice life. I don’t even know if the money matters that much, except that it means you can relax. And what’s the point in having all that money if you can’t have a good pudding whenever you feel like it?”
an acoustic, subdued version of “Blues Run the Game” comes on.
Had to highlight this to remember how much I love this song and that I need to get it on a playlist right away.
And then, eventually, like the ocean eventually does after even the worst tsunami, my waves begin to calm. From tidal swells to soft ripples against the shore. I have this sense of certainty that I had finally touched the bottom of the emotion. I now know the depth of my pain and, finally, I can begin swimming toward the surface. I never need to go that far again.
“How did you know this was the right place for you?” I ask. My mom laughs. “My best friend is here.”
Sometimes I feel like my memories are less like a library filled with detailed volumes of moments lived, and instead, every moment is an atom in the air around me. The past is what I breathe, it’s what keeps me alive.
