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People are in such agony most of the time: that's what my year as an advice columnist has taught me. You see human beings outside in the park, or in line at the grocery store, or having their hair done, and unless they are right then weeping or climbing out the window and onto the ledge of a skyscraper, you don't immediately know this about them, how much they are suffering. People know how to put a good face on things most of the time. We're good at that, as a species.
You know what people really need? Somebody who will listen hard and then find a way to tell them, "It's not all your fault. It's going to work out fine. Don't give up."
Oh, yes, and hot baths, cinnamon toast, and kisses. I strongly believe in the restorative power of kisses.
The modern-day quest is just to find people whose insanities fit together nicely with our own.
Nobody ever told me all the interesting ways grief has of knocking you upside the head, as my mother would have said, and then flinging you against the wall, stomping on you, and then—in case you're not convinced you're beaten—dividing you from everybody and everything you ever trusted or loved. That's grief. The emotional state I was imagining—well, that was just sadness, hardly even a pale ghost of the real thing.
"I think," I say slowly, "that what I felt was that I just wanted to get it right with him. And to make sure that he never felt left out and that he always knew he was the most important thing in my life."
We think we can make all the plans and that will put us in control of our lives—that we can plot and make payments and save up money, and get
what we want. But all that is just an illusion, and that is what I hear in your letter.
"Accept the change that's right in front of you; that's probably the lesson you're meant to learn."
I'm not one bit afraid of what's about to happen. I'm just anxious to get on with my life, like I'm in overdrive or something. I feel braver, in fact, than I have ever felt before. When it comes to love, you have to make your own luck.
