Lost For Words

by Stephanie Butland

Smiles give too much away. More than your teeth.

people buy books for all sorts of reasons. There’s the simple love of books, of course: the knowledge that here is an escape, a chance to learn, a place for your heart and mind to romp and play. Recommendations, TV shows, desire for self-improvement, the need to impress or the hope of a better self. All valid reasons, none of them guaranteeing that the book will be opened at all.

‘I don’t do Facebook.’ There are enough people to contend with in real life without adding virtual ones. Or ones who might remember you from way back.

Our pasts are as unfixed as our futures, if you think about it. And I like the freedom I have to tell a different story.

I suppose it’s the fact that these small memories come from the kind of tiny reminders that you simply can’t predict, and so can’t protect yourself from, and they catch you, paper cuts across the heart.

Next time you leave something behind, you might have just begun a whole new adventure.

I reminded myself that a beginning and an ending are two different places and, in real life, you might be able to make your own ending, whatever had gone before.

first lines did not define last pages in real life the way they did in books.

What looks good on holiday sits on the borderline between untenable and stupid when you get back to your life.

not meaning to hurt the same as not hurting?