It's a Love Story

by Annabel Monaghan

You’re funny, I’d like to procreate with you, said exactly no man ever.

Disagree but society is fucked so sometimes true probably

There’s nothing that makes a person act more insane than trying to prove how sane they actually are.

And people, mostly, are afraid of the quiet.”

An old longing to be a person who could say Mom and Dad like it was nothing,

There’s a difference between someone loving you and agreeing with every single thing you do.”

This feels like wealth, I think. This is the thing you save up for. You live your whole life so that you can be surrounded by too many people in too small of a room and tell the story of how it all happened.

Love isn’t a helicopter ride to Catalina; it’s everyday care and treating the other person like they’re your house keys.

It feels good to want something for someone else, something that has nothing to do with you, just because you care about them. And I wonder if this is what love is. I rest my hand on my heart to feel if it’s changed. I think it has. I have.

‘Love happens over breakfast.’ ” “It’s just something Cormack said when we were first married. Romance happens over dinner. The candlelight, the wine.” “Everyone looks a lot better than they usually do,” Cormack says and laughs. Reenie rolls her eyes. “Well, yes,” she says. “That’s the romance of it. But at breakfast everything’s just as it is, in the light of day. No one wears lipstick to breakfast. And this is where you talk about your day and the part of the roof that might leak this fall. You bring your real self to breakfast.”

It’s a universal thing, fathers treasuring their daughters. I watch TV, Mom. I know things.”

“Because I can’t actually believe someone would stick around for me.

I think an important part of our life’s work is untangling some of those stories to see what’s actually true.

those stories that we’ve let define our worth are about someone else’s issues, not ours.

long-lasting love is about just showing up for the other person, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and treating them like they’re as important as your house keys.